REVIEW: Ice Cream Man #17 somehow finds a new, very poignant way to satirize Superman

Ice Cream Man #17 is out January 29, 2020.

By Zack Quaintance — Superman satires have been done often, largely by publisher DC Comics but also by so many other creators in the comics medium. They’ve been done so often that new or different takes on Superman are almost to be expected, like a rite of passage for anyone seriously creating comic book stories. This week it’s Ice Cream Man’s turn, with the horror anthology series from Image Comics taking its shot — and what we get is one of the greatest recent takes on Superman, one that has more and better things to say about our times than the vast majority of other commentary taking place throughout comics right now.

The most important thing to realize about Ice Cream Man #17 is that it’s not about superheroes, not really. This is a comic about our inclination and deep desire to put our trust in messianic figures. It’s about the sweet embrace of being to able to trust a leader or icon on an obvious surface level, on wholesome face value that enables us to put our critical thinking and concern away, to relax into the simple idea that someone out there is good and right, better than us flawed mortals will ever be. It’s about embracing the first thought, embracing the obvious, and not exercising critical thinking. To that end, there is a tension as work here played out by the Lois Lane analog, Parker Paige, who functions as a metaphor for the hardworking and analytical. Parker is one of the few people in world that doesn’t automatically embrace the concept of an altruistic champion, instead doing her job as a journalist and being skeptical (an idea that has become increasingly odd to a world with little understanding of the third estate).

This story transcends superhero parody (although the way it does that is a lot of fun, especially for readers like me who eat up superhero stories as a guilty pleasure) to get at a number of pressing questions about modern culture. I need a few thousand more words to unpack this, but I’ve long sensed that our world hungers far too aggressively for heroes. Someone posts a funny Tweet, makes a music video with a tiny bit of poignant imagery, gives one speech, or puts out a good performance in a film and during the junket says the right things — and we rush in mass to our keyboards to build them up...only to find ourselves eventually tearing them right back down (let’s be honest, we as a society love a rise and fall) when they make a mistake or no longer align perfectly with our visions of them as savior.

This story supposes that every last thing — from Superman to other powerful leaders of any stripe — must be constantly vetted not by kneejerk takes but by careful and thoughtful reporting. It is in some ways an argument for journalism done well, and, on a larger level, for thought done well, lest we all end up alone in a sociopath’s alien zoo, the only ones anywhere who saw the value in speaking to truth power. 

As always, Ice Cream Man puts out more questions than it does answers, not condescending to tell us what we should think but planting narrative seeds (through W. Maxwell Prince’s writing and Martin Morazzo’s criminally underrated artwork) that will linger and eventually bloom into different ways of seeing the world.

Overall: Yet another masterful issue for the best series in comics, just a notch below Ice Cream Man #6, the neapolitan issue. Don’t skip this comic, lest you miss out on one of the best-ever commentaries on superheroes and messianic hero worship. 10/10

Ice Cream Man #17
Writer:
W. Maxwell Prince
Artist: Martin Morazzo
Colorist: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Good Old Neon
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.