Ice to see you, Fangirls! A creation of Bob Kane himself, Mr. Freeze is one of the many “joke” villains created to oppose Batman. He’s also one of my favorites. He’s not threatening, which is probably why people don’t really respect him or take him seriously. But I like his back story, probably because I’m a sucker for any sort of motive regarding love. I don’t care what people think about Mr. Freeze, I think he’s pretty cool.
Though he was created for one of the original Batman series by Bob Kane, he wasn’t the one who made the lovely back story we all know and love. And then, he was also called Mr. Zero. It wasn’t until the modern age of comics, and the Batman Animated Series, that Mr. Freeze was given the sad past to motivate his evil and hilarious bad puns.
Dr. Victor Fries was a genius molecular biologist. For most of his life, he felt detached from society, but in college he met the love of his life, Nora. They were married and all happy. Then, much later on, Fries has been hired to work on a freeze ray for GothCorp. At this time, Nora falls sick with a terminal illness. Fries decides to use the gun on Nora to keep her in a state of cryo-stastis, so that Fries can find a cure to keep her alive while she’s frozen. But, Fries’s boss fucks with things in the lab, causing an explosion that kills Nora. This spills the chemicals in the freeze ray onto Fries, contaminating him and lowering his body temperature, causing him to wear the cryogenic suit to remain cold enough to survive. The event also causing him to, of course, seek vengeance on the world for killing his wife.
In the New 52, Dr. Fries’ incident hits a lot closer to the Bat, which makes it more understandable why Freeze goes after him. As a young boy, Fries’ became obsessed with the cold after his mother falls through a frozen lake, and the cold keeps her preserved long enough for help to arrive. But, the accident left her in constant pain, and to end her pain Victor pushes her into a lake. Later, writes his doctoral thesis on a woman named Nora Fields, who many years ago developed a heart disease and was placed in cryogenic stasis by her family to keep her alive. Her body was kept at Wayne Enterprises, where Fries was given a job as a cryogenic researcher. Victor falls in love with the frozen Nora, and dedicated his time to helping her and slowly thawing her. But, Bruce Wayne became uncomfortable with Victors obsession with Nora, and decides to shut down the project. Victor, angry with Wayne, throws a chair at him, but instead hits a bunch cryonic chemicals, spraying onto Victor, transforming him to Mr. Freeze.
As far as powers go, Mr. Freeze doesn’t usually have any. I’ve heard that in a few stories his had the power to create ice & subzero temperatures himself, but for the most part, that’s usually just all done with his freeze gun. He’s not very powerful, and usually just freezes people as his attacks, making things pretty predictable. But, regardless of how jokey or non threatening Mr. Freeze is, he appears often and in a lot of series & shows. He was on the original 60’s Batman series, in the Animated Series, Brave & the Bold, Batman Beyond. He most famously was one of the main villains in the 1997 Batman & Robin movie, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, spewing those lovely puns. So, though he’s not very powerful or respected, it seems that where there’s a Bat, there’s Freeze.
I’ve always enjoyed Mr. Freeze, if not just for a good laugh, for his conviction & dedication. I appreciate you, Mr. Freeze. I think you kick some serious ice.
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