Lukewarm II: Glaciation (JLA #110-111, ’TIS THE SEASON TO BE FREEZIN’)

[tcampbell1000]

Part 94b of 105. Warning for NSFW content that looks wilder than it is.

Last time out, we saw the mid-Nineties WLW affair that wasn’t, in the final, waning days of the title once known as Justice League International. Short version:

🔥 🧊 = ⚢?
🔥 🧊 = 💜⚢💜??!!
🔥 🧊 = ⚢ 👅🌮💦?!?!?!
… ❌!!!
🤪 🤪 🤪 🤪 🤪



We were getting bait-and-switched about two liaisons for the price of one: not only was there a will-they-or-won’t-they between Bea and Sigrid, but also, Bea flat-out stated that she and Tora had banged once. Unless you define the phrase “hooked up” to mean, like, “became friends.”



Was there ANY support for this idea in the text, before or after? Well, you do get occasional covers that show, uh, “close close friendship” like this…



Or depictions of Fire “protecting” Ice from Guy so intense that they might suggest romantic or sexual jealousy…



And it might be a little eyebrow-raising that the two of them stayed roommates even after they joined the Justice League and could, in theory, afford separate accommodations…



…So there’s some stuff for shippers to work with, sure. And there are other WLW couples in superhero comics that have had veiled origins, presenting as “close girl pals” until the subtext could become text.



I feel like depictions of close, platonic friendship are their own kind of representation. So I’m not pushing for Fire and Ice to cross that line in today’s comics. But if they did, the groundwork is there for good creators to make it plausible.

What can’t be made plausible is the way this story tries to drop it in retroactively. There’s no point on their timeline when Bea sleeping with Tora and playing it off like a “joke” wouldn’t damage the easy, warm trust between them. And in what universe would Bea not realize she’s grown close to Tora?



Nothing about it works or feels true to the characters: it’s just added sex for added sex’s sake. So I think “Tora and Bea hooking up once” has to go down the same canonical bad-writing memory hole as “Careerist Lois ignoring Clark’s needs” or “crazed Peter punching MJ in the face,” or that time that Guy…

…we’ll get there.

Fire and Ice’s recent appearances are undoubtedly queer-friendly, but in any continuity so far, their only partners have been male.




So the narrative that this was more confusion than a real potential match does seem like the most supported interpretation. Which means the “queerbait” label is arguably supported, too. But…

Sigrid’s later appearances somewhat atoned for this misdirect. As it happens, Sigrid is into girls, she just realized that dating Bea at that point would be a train wreck, which, yeah, fair (#110-111).




The above passage does sound like Sigrid hasn’t closed the door on a relationship with Bea. But Justice League America would be cancelled in a couple more issues, and Bea’s grief over Tora had led her into another, even more unlikely liaison (Guy Gardner: Warrior #39, #41).





Here’s where Bea and Sigrid leave things in Justice League America #113, the series finale:



Then Bea goes back and mortifies her future self by locking lips with Guy again, though at least this time the entire superhero community isn't whooping and ogling them in the background. Meanwhile, Sigrid meets up with Olivia Reynolds, a one-time Hal Jordan girlfriend interested in marketing some Justice League action figures…



(I don’t think Bea ever disclosed her fling with Guy to Tora after Tora came back from the dead, and I can’t imagine Guy would mention it unprompted once Bea was back to hating him. Future Fire and Ice writers, take note!)

After a fridgey interlude we don’t need to get into, Sigrid was reinvented as nonbinary (they/them) in 2022’s ’Tis the Season to Be Freezin’ #1.



Once again Sigrid was letting somebody shape them, but this time they took much less time to shake it off, with the help of Sylvan Ortega and other members of the Justice League Queer.





So despite all its ridiculous elements--including the whole idea that the Global Guardians’ “Icemaiden” was two separate characters in the first place--Sigrid’s story did offer readers some rewards. More rewards than I expected to find when I sat down to write this one. Huh. Maybe I should give the post-Jurgens era of Justice League another cha--



Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope NOPE

Tuesday: For most of Giffen and DeMatteis’ run, Max Lord was a hero; for the last 20 years, he’s been 100% villain. Was there any middle path? We investigate.

Comments

[metadronos]

"Then you're really bisexual...?" --"Do you have to put me in a box, Albert?"

Yay, yet another example of bisexual erasure. If I had a dollar for every time I saw, in fiction for mainstream (i.e. not specifically LGBTQ+) audiences, some variation of "Sure I like women and men, but I'm not bisexual; don't you label me"... Ugh.

As for the Bea/Guy fling... eh. Someone had to toy with the idea at some point, I guess. Good they got it out of their system.

[beyondthefringe]

FWIW I read “hooked up” in the sense of them becoming friends/a thematic team, and not in the sexual sense. Tora and Bea just felt too aggressively heterosexual in their preferences, however close they were as friend. Pretty sure that in the 90s the phrase didn’t always have that physical connotation.

I still wonder why the writers created Tora when Sigrid existed… I’m sure it’s been explained but I can’t recall it.

[super_fly]

Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope NOPE

That's an intentional parody right? like Doom Force?


right?