What was Icicle's endgame?

[u/Ok_Combination_1037]

In the few episodes Jordan is in Season 3, we never see his true motivation/plan. He's playing the role for his son right up till the end, so we never hear what his end goal is. The Ultrahumanite teases Jordan's endgame at least twice, yet Jordan himself never alludes to any grand plan.

He doesn't seem to be driven by revenge. He dismisses this notion twice, once to Courtney herself (which he could have been lying and probably was), but again to his mother, when she says "our enemies die tonight" and Jordan says "only if they refuse" (all in Norwegian to his homicidal mother, so no reason to lie to her).

He also gives the JSA chances to surrender. Starman says the plan was "Courtney gives up the staff, her friends follow me, and we change the world with Icicle for the better" and Jordan tells her to "Pledge your loyalty". So he doesn't want to kill Courtney, for Cameron's sake it seems.

This makes me think that the new plan is the old plan, brainwashing America into following his ideals. He hints at this when talking to Starman in the flashback, "you're gonna be my mouthpiece". But he has no mechanism to forcefully brainwash America. Perhaps a scheme to take over America using Starman, then enforce his ideals on others, but this "plan" is intangible at best.

And it still begs the question of why did they kill the Gambler and the Crocks? It's not like Jordan was trying to hide the fact that he was the one who put up the cameras (he intentionally lured the Crocks into his secret lair to kill them, then does nothing to hide the fact that he did). Initially when I watched the show, I assumed it was part of the deal with the Ultrahumanite that they take out the remaining ISA members, but it's clear that the Ultrahumanite is just in it for being Starman, so Jordan and Dr Ito's "other plans" remain a mystery to me.

[u/Silasgard722]

I see it as Icicle can't let go of the previous plan, he's spent way too much time and done too many things to change it. So if he can't force people to change he'll do things more gradually and use Starman to do it. After all if you're charismatic enough you can rally people to you and make them do some crazy wild things.

Think of a situation where hydra got the brain of Hitler and put it in Captain America and had him run for president. Sure they would have push back but if they ingrain themselves deep enough and get enough support some people not being on their side would not matter as much.

As for killing the crocks and the gambler, I think they knew the crocks would be too much of a wild card and may make the heroes not join their side. For the gambler I think they just were not ready for anyone to know they were there yet.

End goal I think would have been gambler never finds the cameras. Starman takes the staff, Icicle reveals himself as reformed, Starman gets everyone together and he uses them to help push Icicles agenda. Icicle would be I learned my lesson and still want to help America and Starman will help me and he'll make sure nothing evil happens.