When a superhero sidekick finds out she’s pregnant, will she keep it or……..
Courtesy of Dwayne Mcduffie comes this touching tale of a teenage
superhero faced with a life altering decision!!
Summary
Icon explains his origins to rocket but she doesn’t believe him. She goes to a clinic for a check up to confirm her pregnancy. She is pregnant and she considers an abortion and adoption, the doctor all but tries to convince her on the first.
Icon meanwhile goes around town doing good. Rocket meets up with him to ask for a loan though she does not specify for what. When she brings up abortion he recounts his dead wife’s abortion and she finally decides she wants to keep the baby despite common sense and logic telling her otherwise. She continues to write her book confident that somehow someway things will work out. 
The Good
Bold-What can be said about a comic book from the 90’s dealing with a teenage mother considering abortion or adoption with a superhero and a doctor except…BLOODY WELL DONE! The topic of abortions even in the new millennium is taboo. This tale reaches me on a very personal level since I got my girlfriend pregnant while we where both seniors in high school. I still don’t know how Mcduffie got DC to agree to publishing this comic because it deals with a reality that society and the entertainment industry as a whole would rather pretend didn’t exist. Teenagers do shag, they probably shag more than people in a stable relationship (laugh) pregnancy of course is a side effect of enjoying the fun aspect of a shag without thinking about it. I dig the melding of reality here.
A real Icon-The courage of Rocket makes her a role model for owning up to mistakes beyond the paper she’s drawn on. She’s definitely an Icon!
Action-Action fans should also be happy as Icon flew around town helping little old ladies whose purses were snatched adding another
Humor- Another huge aspect of Mcduffie’s personality that shone through in this issue was his sense of humor, similar if you can believe it to Joss Whedon in many ways. When Icon pours his heart out to Rocket and she thinks he’s lying was just golden, sure the situation was serious but c’mon it’s always funny when you tell the truth and the person your telling said truth thinks your a liar!
Art- The art continues to grow in stride with nice proportioned characters that actually look like real people as opposed to the clearly fictional proportions of other comics an added bonus was how well it conveyed the emotions of the characters in the various situations connected to the pregnancy and the possible abortion.
Emotional-The reality of abortion that this book brings to the forefront of the mind is daunting considering this came out November 1993. Rocket walks through the women’s clinic and has this moving talk with a female doctor who had an abortion many years ago. The doctor warns her of the complications that can occur with an abortion if she waits any longer she also alludes that her own pregnancy that she got rid off may have prevented her from becoming a doctor but you also get that she still feels the loss ever so often. Icon later tells Rocket about his own wife’s abortion to save her life that neither of them got over. This also brought up allot of my emotional baggage from my teen years as my then girlfriend had an abortion after her father found out she was pregnant and neither of us have ever gotten over that, despite her being married and me now being a jolly dad to a beautiful young lady. Thus is not a decision that one makes lightly!
The Bad
The art will turn some off as well as what some will perceive as the slow paced story.
The Ugly
Deeply moving and way ahead of it’s time! 4/5
I had this book series and loved every minute. I miss those days of Milestone. This, to me, was one of the best comic book series of the 90’s. RIP D. McDuffie.
Couldn’t agree with you more Brian!