Greetings to the comics readers of the world. It is I, Laynia Petrovna, Darkstar, the premiere heroine of the northern hemisphere. You may be wondering why I am not still dead, as Daniel Slott attempted to suggest during a tie-in comic which disappointed Tzarinas everywhere and has objectively lead to his downfall within the comics industry today.
When Slott sent the Red Ghost to fire myself and my team, The Winter Guard, into space, he did not think twice about the ramifications of throwing us down the drain like leftover borscht. When he did so, however, he had not taken into account the fact that I am currently a wandering soul covered in darkforce energy which is at present occupying the deceased body of a dire wraith who had previously killed and possessed the human body of a replacement Darkstar brought in by the Russian Government in an attempt to pretend that I, the one true Darkstar, had never been killed previously by Grant Morrison.
Such an oversight, Dan Slott. How I laugh at your inability to follow subjectively obscure canon to the letter.
As a soul within an omnipotent sentient dimension within an alien body within a human form, the vaccuum of space holds no worries for myself. Nor for my teammates within The Winter Guard, who are:
- A man who can breathe in space
A man in a spacesuit
A man who can turn into a bear and is thus able to survive any situation
Now that I list my comrades within the team I fear that perhaps nobody at Marvel Comics is aware of the presence of people of colour in Russia. Perhaps the next time a Crimson Dynamo is killed (I have learned long ago to never learn the names of Crimson Dynamos) we could bring in someone who isn’t a forty year old white man. I will have to speak to my supervisors on this matter, although I’m not presently sure who they might be. The Winter Guard are a superhero team supported by Russia, but this seems a somewhat antithetical situation. Then again, this has not stopped present-day America, and just the other day I saw Union Jack pushing his pro-Brexit views on The Wright Stuff.
I have been diverted from my true path, friends. What must be remembered is simply that I cannot ever be killed off and any writer who attempts to do so will be ultimately humbled much like my brother when people asked why he still carried a hammer and sickle in 2010.
Which brings me to Iceman #6, in which I make my glorious steel reappearance in a Marvel Comic. When I was younger I joined a team called The Champions, a premiere team of heroes who have been unjustly maligned by the media in subsequent years. We saved the world from Gods and bee-Nazis as required, and not once did we ever allow Wonder Man to join our roster. For that alone we should be considered a higher level of team than most. Iceman was the deadweight of our team at that time, and when he asked us all to reunite I initially turned him down. Later I found that he would be buying drinks, and so changed my mind.
After being delayed by what can only be described as a redacted space battle whilst on the way to the bar, I joined the team to reminisce about our fallen comrade Natasha Romanov, my predecessor within the Russian secret service and by all accounts a dry run for greater future triumphs. Talk soon turned to Iceman’s sex life, as typically happens when The Champions are gathered together for more than five minutes, and I zoned out whilst I spent the rest of the evening wondering why Professor Xavier spelt my name incorrectly at my first funeral in New X-Men.
When Bobby and his comrade… I forget his name, the bland one with the wings and no consistent character development over 60 years… called me and asked to help on a crucial mission, I was not expecting to be his wingwoman whilst he went on a date. However, I was later informed that Iceman would be buying the drinks, and so I decided to attend.
It is hard to know whether Putin’s Russia exists within Marvel Comics, but let’s assume I have never been to a gay bar before. What was most surprising and inauthentic was the lack of a swarm of attention for my comrade Hercules, who by all accounts should have attracted the attention of everybody in the bar at all times. Iceman seemed to be enjoying his time, however, and so I spent the evening ruminating on ways I could bully The Vanisher should he ever come back to life again.
This pleasant rumination was interrupted by the sound of large machines crushing the souls of the townspeople, which as a Russian citizen I am highly accustomed to. I therefore elected to change into my superhero outfit, reconvene my colleagues and head out to help Iceman fight some giant robots.
My simple hope is that the sixteen glitterbombs I drank before leaving the bar will not in any way impede my ability to blow things up using my vaguely defined godlike powers.
Iceman #6
Writer: Sina Grace
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Published by Marvel Comics
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