Play with Ice and Get Burned in Human Target #6

Christopher Chance is a #^@$ing idiot, he’ll be the first to admit. But not so big a one as Guy Gardner himself. Guy’s brittle ego has always been his greatest weakness, and when push comes to shove, it doesn’t take much for Ice to show just how easily it can be shattered. Readers beware, spoilers ahead for Human Target #6, written by Tom King, drawn by Greg Smallwood and lettered by Clayton Cowles.

Armaan Babu: So Ice has finally given Guy the cold shoulder. She’s left him in pieces. Broken his heart, and quite a few other things besides. I hope you’ve read the issue by now, dear reader (and not had it spoiled for you; the internet’s been all over this), ’cause these puns are gold. Dan, are there any I’ve missed?

Dan Grote: Normally, opening a review this way would leave me quite (puts on sunglasses) cold, but this issue was so good that even a ceaseless barrage of cold puns can’t get me down. Let’s crack this bad boy open.

Cold Conspiracies

Armaan: So Tom King’s described this issue as a “season finale,” and as such, I appreciate that we get a decent laying out of all the clues we’ve gotten so far, ’cause even with rereads, I keep losing track. It comes right in the middle of a fight with Ice, as Christopher Chance reminds us all how we got here, why Fire is the next suspect on his list and how Ice is very, very mad about this.

I think it’s safe to say that Ice’s rage isn’t coming from the most logical of places. We know that Chance has a limited amount of time to catch his killer, we know the evidence leads straight to Fire, and while we don’t know if he’s shared all of his findings with Ice, Ice has to know he’s enough of a detective to at least have to interview her. 

Me, I don’t see Ice’s rage as one of a woman who can’t believe Chance would accuse her best friend of murder. It’s one of a woman who has been working very hard to draw suspicion away from Fire and is mad that he’s being too stubborn for her plan to work. How do you see this?

Dan: More than ever, I’m convinced Ice — whether she loves Chance or not — is using the good-girl act to pull his strings. She kills an entire day of Chance’s few left (with makeup sex, true, but still) to keep him away from Fire. I honestly wonder whether she might have had Guy over to extend that, knowing she could control the situation, but things went too far.

Maybe Fire had Martian Manhunter supply Booster Gold with the money to start up the bagel place to provide the cover for securing the element needed to slip the poison to Lex Luthor that was accidentally ingested by Chance, but maybe Ice was in on the whole thing. Maybe she and Fire discussed the plan. Maybe Ice knew that’s what Fire was planning and wanted to protect her friend. Maybe that wasn’t even Guy. Maybe it was a hard-light construct turned Popsicle. That’s probably a little too far-fetched, but his dialogue is a little … much. I don’t know, have I gone too far down the rabbit hole?

Armaan: Only if you’re seeing actual rabbits down there. One thing’s for sure: Chance has got it bad for Ice. The constant way she invades his thoughts, his memories of her, that’s been a part of the book for a while, and I think it’s clear his focus is shot.

Dan: And his cough is only getting worse, so it’ll be interesting to see him try to piece this stuff together as he gets closer to knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door. Hey, speaking of religion …

Armaan: We move on to a checkup with Doctor Mid-Nite, who is able to match an ingredient in Booster’s bagels with an ingredient used in the poison that’s killing Chance, confirming that while Chance may be distracted, he’s at least still on the right track. 

While Mid-Nite still can’t offer up a cure, he does offer to take Chance to church in the hopes of finding some solace in religion. It’s an earnest offer, and I felt the response was … well, rude as hell. There’s dismissive, and then there’s belittlement, and the way Mid-Nite is framed, the way Chance’s laughter flits across the page like it runs deeper than simple speech, it felt a lot like the latter. 

Dan: There’s a bit of the energy there of that Simpsons episode early on where Homer skips church. While it sends Chance off laughing, which absolutely was rude, I don’t think it quite gets to being played for laughs with the reader. It’s clear Doc Mid-Nite finds comfort in belief, and while a dying Chance may fault him for it, I don’t think King does. The box at the bottom — “It was a good game. Went to overtime, but we lost in the end” — carries more wisdom than your run-of-the-mill Jason Aaron “Haha, God is dumb and so are you for believing in him, now here’s some swole dudes fighting” comic.

Euphegenia Chance

Armaan: So as Chance is heading back to Ice, he continues to mull over the case, laying out his options. I enjoyed this glimpse into his mind. We’ve seen Chance the Detective almost exclusively for the past several issues, but it’s worth remembering that he has a bizarre job, bizarre skills that come along with that, and a lot of prepwork — all of which he’s behind on. Most amusing here is him mulling over getting in disguise as the Martian Manhunter, a challenging cosplay even without taking into account J’onn’s various powers.

Dan: By god, I would love to see Chance disguise himself as a Martian. What kind of Mrs. Doubtfire “run-by fruiting” nonsense would he have to pull to mimic J’onn’s shapeshifting? They matched wits pretty well last issue, so I think he’d stand a chance. Mostly I just want to see Smallwood draw this sequence.

Armaan: I’m going to call on my years of theatrical experience here and say that you never put in an effect that makes things more complicated than it needs to be; let the strength of the performance speak for itself. If you sell that first impression, hold it, never break out of character, never give ’em a reason to doubt the story you’re selling, you don’t need the special effects to make it work. All Chance would have to do is give Fire the J’onn she expects to see — the patsy, weakened by her in every way.

(That being said, you’re right, Smallwood drawing a sitcom-like sequence of Chance “shifting” shapes would be fantastic.)

All his plans for preparation are thrown out the window, though, because of Ice. Not even his impending death can get in the way of him wanting to be with her.

Dan: Love makes a person do crazy things. Like stay in and shag all day.

Death by Ice

Dan: So when we were talking about this comic before we started writing, you mentioned the fight between Guy and Ice and said you wanted to talk about a different King-penned bout of domestic violence.

Armaan: Ahh, yeah, thank you for reminding me. The fight this issue brought me right back to Strange Adventures #11. They were both fights that were uncomfortable to watch, both drawn by incredible artists with skills in bringing more grounded human emotion to life. Both feature males with fragile egos built entirely on the most toxic of masculinity. Both males seemingly goaded into a physical confrontation, with slap after slap after slap from the female partner. Both men belittled, mocked for how small they truly were.

King seems to gender his takes on morality in ways that keep coming up, and Dan, tell me if I’m off base here. A recurring theme I’m seeing is men who are continually broken by their inflexible moralities, paired with women finding their strength in more flexible morals. It’s part of the reason why, after souring on King’s approaches a little, I found Human Target so refreshing. Chance’s morals are pretty flexible, too. He bends, and avoids breaking, against his idea of what’s right and wrong, which makes him so much more of an interesting character. 

Dan: That’s a pretty astute observation. The books are different, in that we’re not sure for the longest time (and Jesus, the pandemic dragged out Strange Adventures, not that that’s the worst thing the pandemic did by a longshot) what exactly Adam Strange did wrong, whereas we are never meant to like Guy Gardner. Guy is a cartoon shitheel from jump, and his dialogue in this issue — “Bad baby, bad, bad, bad.” — just ups that ante as he makes the full swerve from stalker jerk to abusive.

The women in either scenario are different, too. We’re meant to view Alanna on Earth as a couple shades better than Lady MacBeth, until it turns out Adam’s been lying to her the whole time about their daughter. Ice, on the other hand, is the good girl who’s deadlier than people realize and pulling more strings than people realize but is just now starting to make the full swerve into can’t-trust-her.

Either way, this issue climaxes with a tried-and-true JLI bit. We’ve seen riffs on the ol’ “one punch” before. But this was badass, and a showcase for Smallwood’s art. The splash of Chance’s punch shattering Guy’s frozen face into pieces. The void-space quarter panel of headless Guy standing there in shock, Ice standing to meet what would have been his gaze, Chance behind her doubled over in a chair, in pain from getting light-flailed, perhaps also in shock at what they’ve done. Ice shattering the rest of her ex. And the next splash, of an ice cube, melting into blood, on a white background, as Chance processes what will happen next now that they’ve killed a Justice Leaguer. It’s fucking amazing.

Armaan: We always knew Ice was powerful. The tension, the question being teased but never quite revealed, was whether she was the kind of ruthless that would make her powers so deadly. If push comes to shove, would she truly kill a man? Well, Guy pushed. She shoved. I think it’s pretty clear to see that whether or not she tried to kill Lex Luthor, she’s definitely capable of, and for once I mean this with no pun intended, cold-blooded murder.

Dan: (Golf clap) The best part of this book taking a hiatus at this point is I have no idea where this investigation is going to go next. Fire will be there, obviously, but still, it feels too early to know who did it. But who remains from that initial JLI roster as viable suspects or people who could have been involved? Rocket Red? G’nort? Captain Atom? NANCY?! Actually, there is one big hole at the center of all this.

Batman. 

As much as the Bat pulls focus, he’s got to come up eventually. He was in the group shot. I don’t want to make a Chekhov’s Batman joke, but it stands to reason we can expect him in the second arc. My guess is Day 9, which we got a tease of in issue #1, when Chance says, “I die in prison, I die in a hotel room, who cares? I got the guy who killed me.” Seems like the kind of line you’d say to Batman were Batman staring you down.

Armaan: As we pause to take stock of things in this “season finale,” I think it’s worth considering one thing: In a story like this, the clues rarely matter so much as the themes. The clues help occupy that logical part of your brain that likes picking away at things, while the forefront of your mind is drawn in by the beauty of it all, the Smallwood art, the panel layouts, the cynical takes … the smell of her perfume.

Every character we’ve met so far is a statement on the evil in the hearts of men (or supermen) — and whoever the killer ends up being says everything about what kind of story this is. If the killer was Guy, then this is a story about the dangers of toxic masculinity. If the killer is Booster, it’s a story about the danger of idiots whom nobody suspects. If it’s J’onn, it’s about the weakness of a man in the face of his own loneliness. So what kind of story do you think this is? And who embodies that most of all? 

Dan: Ooh, if it’s G’nort, it’s a story about how even the goodest boys break bad!

Armaan: Yeah, now you’re getting it! I am curious about King’s take on Batman for this story, and how much he differs from King’s more canon take on the character. 

I still think we’ve overlooked one thing this issue — how did Guy get his ring back? The last we saw it, it was with Chance’s friend Luigi. Luigi who, twice now, has proven unable to say no to a woman. You know who else is a woman who’s embroiled at the heart of all this … and who has access to things like who lives where and probably has Kord Tech spying on people in their homes? That’s right. Nancy. I’m saying Nancy gave Guy his ring back, and set him loose on Chance and Ice, ’cause Chance is getting a little too close to the truth. Forcing the duo to cover up a murder on top of him being distracted by Ice? Chance’s … well, erm, chances of finding the murderer are dwindling, and Nancy’s behind it all.

Cheap Shots

• “I think we froze the pipes” is such a good line, especially delivered as it is, in a four-panel sequence of Chance and Ice lying still, in post-coital calm on a polar bear-skin rug (I assume?).
• D’yever notice how the lines on Smallwood’s characters are heavy but the lines on his panels, the word balloons, the SFX are nonexistent? I don’t have a haughty furtherance of discussion on that. It’s just neat.
• Parallelling Fire’s introduction with Ice’s — Luigi pointing out there’s a lady upstairs — is a nice touch.
• The awkward comfort of being nice to someone whose company you love while desperately trying not to say the thing that will start a fight is portrayed to an uncomfortably relatable degree here.
• An extra plug, but that final paragraph from that Strange Adventures review I linked to seems pretty appropriate for those who are hurt by King’s takes on the JLI. It even ends with an inadvertent “target” pun! I’m so proud of past me.
• I’m proud of you, too.

Armaan Babu

Dan Grote

Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.