Iceman



Bobby is a member of the New Mutants, debuting in the series at the beginning of Season 2 with the rest of the New Mutants Team. In some scenarios, he acted as a leader for the team. His powers are usually manifested for assistance for the other characters. He participated in the final battle where he and the other X-Men have to fight Storm in China. He continues being an X-Man as it was foreseen by Professor X.

In the episode "Under Lock and Key" the X-Men team that goes up against the spider released by Magneto is the original team from the comics (Cyclops, Beast, Jean Grey, Iceman, and Angel). This would be the only reference to Bobby's place as one of the first X-Men in the series.

Bobby was supposed to be the 8th X-man but he was replaced by Spyke. When Spyke left the Institute, he is more often shown in the team's missions.

Origin
Robert Louis "Bobby" Drake was born in Long Island, New York. When he reached puberty his mutant powers first started to manifest, he was in a constant state of cold and trembling, until he managed to keep it under control. Once when he was on a date, the town bully pushed him away and tried to make a move on Bobby's date, he became enraged and encased him in a block of ice. His date, instead of being grateful, was more scared of the fact that he was a mutant and ran away in fear.

The people of the town soon heard of the incident and went to Bobby's house, where they started to beat him, the sheriff stopped the mob and imprisoned Bobby. Later Cyclops broke into Bobby's cell and offered him a spot in the newly formed team of young mutants, he refused and began a fight with Scott, the mob returned, and began attacking both of the young mutants. Professor X stopped the mob using his mental abilities, and offered the spot once more to Bobby, who this time said yes. Bobby became Iceman, the second member of the newly formed X-Men.

Powers and Abilities
Originally Iceman could lower the temperature of his body and encase himself in an icy armor of varying shape and consistency. He has since gained the ability to turn his entire body into a flexible form of organic ice. He can also freeze the moisture in the air and can create objects such as slides, ladders, and projectiles. He can reform any part of his body in his ice form, and can augment his shape and size. He has demonstrated the ability to animate ice forms by creating figures and through rapid freezing and unfreezing of their structure, and thus creating movement. These figures do not gain intelligence, and he is still in the developmental stage of this ability as it requires much concentration.

When in ice form he is generally translucent, and his appearance ranges from human-like to jagged and geometric. He is also known to add additional ice mass to his shoulders and knuckles (often jagged and sharp) for a fight. In addition to altering his appearance and shape, Bobby can also augment his size(an ability he has used to grow to heights of over 100 feet) A side effect of this alteration is superhuman strength to match his larger form.

With unexpected aid from Mystique (after she laced his blood with a potent concentration of chemicals) Bobby learned that by using his power to "ice up" and draw the moisture out of the air around him, he could turn himself into his own form of air filter, allowing him to let the poison molecules dissipate into vapor, effectively swapping his cells each time he released the ice and return to his flesh form or as he put it "A body swap, done one piece, one cell at a time".

If damaged, he can reform damaged or missing body parts. While physically and mentally taxing, this ability can be used to reform his entire body if necessary, as he has been able to reform himself to ice from sentient water vapor. This ability was taken even farther when he was under Emma Frost's control and he was able to turn himself into sentient liquid, travel in this form through a body of water, and return back to his organic ice form. He has not been able to replicate this ability, however it does suggest that with practice he could shift through any phase of water. For a time he was stuck permanently in ice form, however since M-Day has regained his ability to return to human form. Bobby also was at one time a Certified Public Accountant.

During the Curse of the Mutants story arc Iceman had himself blessed to make his ice into 'Holy water' to give him an advantage against the vampire attackers.

Iceman has demonstrated the ability to control chemical reactions involving heat exchange and can prevent people with fire based abilities from using their powers.

As with all the X-Men, Bobby has been trained in unarmed combat, tactics, and resisting mental attacks. During (and after) the " Age of Apocalypse" storyline, it was revealed that Iceman's potential powers included the ability to, in essence, teleport via reverse-freezing molecules, meaning he theoretically can travel instantaneously across oceans when in full control of his abilities. However this method of teleportation has been described as extremely painful for anyone potentially traveling with Bobby.

During the run of Wolverine and the X-Men, Bobby demonstrated the abillity of creating multiple Ice clones. He is also able to control them but they are not self aware. This act tired him greatly afterwards. He managed to use the ice clones without tiring in a bout against the Red Hulk. However, they were in a snowy setting which may have contributed to Bobby not wearing down.