Who IS the Munson?

This week’s entry from the Milestone universe is Icon #7, an issue of some importance as it represents a true turning point in the lives of Icon and Rocket. In the story entitled “The Moment of Truth” Dwayne McDuffie (aided by co-writer for this issue Erica Helene) and artist M.D. Bright bring us a very good jumping on issue for new readers. At the end of the last issue, Icon promised to tell Rocket his true origin. He tells her that he is truly a “brother from another planet”, as he crashed on Earth after his starliner exploded and he landed in a cotton field in the southern United States. His life-pod altered his DNA to match the first life-form that came in contact with his ship, a plantation slave. Upon hearing this Rocket is skeptical, particularly since slavery had been outlawed a “bazillion years ago” and Icon looks like he is 40. What Icon tells her next causes her skepticism to turn to outrage, as he tells her that his pod crashed in 1839… 150 years earlier.

Rocket has heard enough, and tells the hero that she basically helped to invent that she doesn’t believe his story. She wanted the truth, and what she believes to be a web of lies. She stalks off telling Icon that she always thought she could trust him, but she sees that she can only trust herself.

In reality, it appears that Rocket lashes out at his story for one very important reason, her difficulty in dealing with the fact that she recently found out she was pregnant. Rocket has shown that despite her propensity to jump into any situation head first, she is a very intelligent girl that under normal circumstances would have listened to more of Icon’s explanation. However, with her personal life becoming so topsy-turvy her judgment has become a little murky at best. She tells herself it must be due to the hormones, but the reader knows that she simply cannot deal with the truth of Icon’s words yet. She realizes she has enough “crazy” in her life dealing with the child growing inside of her, and she must deal with that situation first before dealing with the fantastic details of her super-powered partner’s origins.

She sets out to do just that, she realizes she has to make a choice and heads to a Dakota health clinic for advice. What comes next is 15 pages of introspection that takes us into the thoughts of a pregnant teenager as she comes to grips with what her future may be like. McDuffie and Helene bring us into Raquel’s head as she deals with the positives and negatives of her situation. She thinks of her own child hood and of her mother who works two jobs and goes to school at night due to the fact that she had Raquel at such a young age. She thinks of her future with a child, and how she wouldn’t be able to raise it properly because she wouldn’t be able to finish school. Her short-lived super-hero career would also be at an end. I truly cannot sum up the power that is held on these pages, as between both words and art the reader is drawn into Raquel’s dilemma of having the child or terminating the pregnancy. Her doctor proves to be an able sounding board for most of these fears, and she comes to grips with her decision that she thinks she has finally made.

Raquel goes to see Icon, intending to ask him for money that she wants to use for an abortion. She does not intend to tell Icon what the money is for. Instead of immediately agreeing with her demand, he wants to discuss her pregnancy with her. Not to tell her what she should do, but rather to talk to her about the way that she feels about her situation.

He tells her a story of his wife, an earth woman named Estelle that was long since dead, and how she once surprised him with the knowledge that she was pregnant. Due to his alien nature, they thought this to be impossible. Icon used his life-pod’s scanners to determine if there would be any danger in carrying the baby to term for mother or child. The odds of his genetic matrix and an earth woman’s reproductive system producing a healthy baby were nil, and the odds were even higher that Estelle would die from the ordeal. Icon finishes his story by telling Raquel they knew they had to terminate the pregnancy and despite being for the best, they would always carry the pain of that decision in their hearts. What comes next is one of the most powerful final pages of any comic I have read:

This issue moved me in so many ways. You truly feel the agony of the decision that Raquel has to make come through the pages. This is not just a simple super-hero comic, and I have said this before about Icon in previous Columns, but it really is shown in this story. This book begins to come into it’s own starting with this issue, as McDuffie and Bright really show that Icon is not the book about the “Black Superman” of the Dakotaverse. Icon is something totally different, mainly due to his partner. In seven issues McDuffie has shaped Raquel/Rocket into one of the most fully developed comic characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The last page of the issue shows some great symbolism as she gets off her childhood swing, and steps into adulthood. McDuffie also shows that she is wise beyond her years, and shows it in her explanation to Icon about her decision. She knows what she must do, and much like her convincing Augustus Freeman to become Icon, sets out to accomplish it. I look forward to re-reading her journey, and look forward to bringing you those stories in future Milestone Monday columns. Next week (I promise) we will look at the next issue of Blood Syndicate, join me then!

*originally published over at Always Bet on Bahlactus

Posted on July 16th, 2007 by Munson
Filed under: Friday Night Fights