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| Front cover DC Comics TPB of Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over |
Score (out of 5 Capes)
A charming story of love, friendship and family, set amidst the trials and tribulations of Fire and Ice and their journey into Hell and back. It is fun but does not reach the overall level of cleverness of the original.
My Review
In their 2024 limited series Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville, Fire (Beatrice) and Ice (Tora) were banished to Smallville as a timeout to work on their dedication to serving others with their super-human powers.
Author Joanne Starer, who wrote that previous series, returns the pair to Smallville, this time to sort out what to do with their powers, which were swapped during the events of the Absolute Power mini-series. She trims the size of the supporting cast to just eight or so, and amps up the chaos.
The swapped powers introduces some mild initial chaos, as Fire and Ice wrestle with the different offensive and defensive strategies inherent in blasts of flame vs walls of ice.
But, like in their previous series, these ladies like to have fun. When Fire finds some of Zatanna's magical artifacts at a house party and accidentally adds body-swapping to the mix, the chaos hits another gear. Fire lands in Ice's body and vice versa. Wheel-chair-bound Charlie and super-intelligent ape Grodd's little sister Linka swap. Villain wanna-be Mo and persuasive-talker Honey swap. And all Hell breaks loose.
Unfortunately, to put things back, Fire needs a magical bracelet that is in the care of some of the denizens of Hell. So she and Ice set out to battle the hordes of demons and temptations, retrieve the magical cure and restore sanity to Smallville.
These characters have been through Hell before, in 2005's JLA Classified series, collected in the TPB I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League. Starer does a nice job of tying this tale together with those earlier ones, and with the ladies' internal battles with their personal demons and haunting history.
One minor annoyance is the almost complete lack of of the demon Etrigan's famous rhyming way of speaking. While the rhymes also disappeared in that JLA Classified story, it was a running gag and kept slipping in and out. Here, it gets one brief note then disappears. It is disappointing that Starer did not spend more time nailing the Etrigan character.
For all the drama and emotional impact of the Hell scenes, the Smallville scenes come across as lame comedic relief or eye-rolling distractions. The supporting characters can't carry these secondary scenes. It is also both a relief and a shock at how quickly all the loose ends are wrapped up, too abruptly in my opinion.
Artist Stephen Byrne handles all the visual duties, from pencils to inks to colours. In keeping with the tone of the earlier series, the look and feel of Byrne's images calls to mind classic Archie Comics.
The colours are especially notable in the variety of skin tones in these diverse characters. From Tora's Nordic pale whiteness to Bea's Latina complexion, to the different shades for supporting characters like Honey, Charlie and Tamarind, Byrne put lots of time and attention into their skins.
Byrne also carries the distinct dressing preferences of the heroes into whichever body they occupy. Ice's hair becomes extra-long when Bea is in the body, and she bares lots more skin. Fire wears a hefty green-flame sweater when Tora in in that body. Nice touch. If only such visual cues carried over to the other body-swapped pairs.
A real highlight of the collected TPB format is the inclusion of all the alternative covers, Different artists lend their time and skills and really run with the playful side of the swapping theme. I also love all the different fashions these ladies model on the different covers!
Overall, this is a solid tie-in with some of the key developments in the DC Comics All-In cross-over. Some nice artistic touches, if overly simplified in places; and some intriguing ideas in the writing, despite a few gaps. A recommended read for fans of these characters.
What I loved
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| Fire sees through the tricks thrown at her in Hell |
In a plot filled with body-switching and un-switching, the relationship between Bea and Tora, whichever one is Fire and Ice at any given moment, remains a central anchor throughout.
It affects their actions and decisions in Smallville.
And, more crucially, it helps them see through the demonic trickery they encounter while in Hell. Bea and Tora know and understand each other so well that they can identify an imposter. At least eventually.
I love that this collection is more than just the adventures of two friends; the different aspects of that friendship itself takes centre stage. Author Joanne Starer packs emotional wallop into several of these scenes. In the panel excerpted here, Bea's strength of conviction and dedication to her friend stand out. It all adds depth to the tale and to these two characters who are better together than apart.
What I didn't love
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| Linka, Charlie, Superman and Grodd discuss body-switching |
The Freaky Friday ("Furry Friday"?) body-switching gets more than a little tiring over the course of the series.
Fire and Ice had their powers switched in Absolute Power #4 and extending that to a full body swap was a natural, if somewhat predictable, plot twist. But why stop there? Why not also pair up several minor characters and swap them too?
Why not? How about because these are not well-established characters, making the reader's job to distinguish between them more difficult.
Why not? Maybe because some of the body-switched characters do have meta-human powers of their own, but the narrative is inconsistent about whether the power transfers in the swap, as in the panels above with Charlie and Linka, or stays in the original's body, as with Honey and Mo. And if you don't know who they are, that just proves my first point that the swapped characters are not well-known enough.
Related Reviews
Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville
I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League
Quick Reference Details
Writers: Joanne Starer
Artists: Stephen Byrne
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: Jan 27, 2026
Parental Rating: Teen
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| Back cover of Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over |
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