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Mr. Freeze
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mr. Freeze (Dr. Victor Fries) (Pronounced as Victor "Frees" or "Freeze") is a DC Comics supervillain, an enemy of Batman. Created by Bob Kane, he first appeared in Batman #121 (February 1959).
Mr. Freeze was one of many gimmick-focused comic book villains. He was a mad scientist who plotted crimes around ice and cold. In most incarnations, this desire stems from a medical condition in which his body temperature was permanently lowered and he required a refrigerated “ice suit” to survive.
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Originally called Mr. Zero, he was renamed and popularized by the 1960s Batman television series, in which he was played by several actors. Over two decades later, a television adaptation of Batman revitalized him once again. Batman: The Animated Series, retold Mr. Freeze’s origin, introducing his terminally ill, cryogenically frozen wife, which greater explained his obsession with ice and need to build a criminal empire to raise research funds. The animated series version of Freeze was also more calm and composed than previous, campier versions and the comic book version has been altered to resemble it.
Elements of this personal tragedy, but not Freeze's calm demeanor, were incorporated into the 1997 film Batman & Robin, in which he was portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
From the time of his first appearance in 1959 onward, Mr. Freeze was portrayed as one of many "joke" villains (see also Killer Moth, The Mad Hatter) cast as stock enemies of Batman. Originally called Mr. Zero, the producers of the 1960s Batman television series renamed him Mr. Freeze (and portrayed Batman addressing him as "Dr. Schimmell"), and the name quickly carried over to the comic books.
Nearly thirty years later, Mr. Freeze would owe even more to television. In Batman: The Animated Series, the "Heart of Ice" episode, he was made into a more complex, tragic character. This version of Mr. Freeze was enthusiastically accepted by fans, and has become the standard portrayal for the character in most forms of media, including the comic book series itself, which previously had the character casually killed by the Joker. Freeze was hastily resurrected in the comic after the episode aired.
In the Pre-Crisis continuity, Mr. Freeze is a rogue scientist whose design for an "ice gun" backfires when he inadvertently spills cryogenic chemicals on himself, resulting in his needing sub-zero temperatures to survive.
In the Batman: Mr. Freeze special (based closely on the animated series episode "Heart of Ice") he is given a backstory. As a child, he is fascinated by freezing animals. His parents, horrified by his "hobby", send him to a strict boarding school, where he is miserable, feeling detached from humanity. In college, he meets a woman named Nora, whom he befriends and ultimately marries.
Nora later falls terminally ill. Fries takes on a job working for a large company run by the ruthless Ferris Boyle. Fries discovers a way to put Nora into cryo-stasis (using company equipment), hoping to sustain her until a cure could be found. Boyle finds out about the experiment and attempts to have her brought out of stasis, overruling Fries' frantic objections. A struggle ensues, in which Boyle kicks Fries into a table full of chemicals and leaves him for dead. Fries survives, but his body temperature is lowered dramatically; he can now only live at sub-zero temperatures, forced to wear a special refrigerating suit to stay alive. As Mr. Freeze, he uses cryonic technology to create a gun, which fires a beam that freezes any target within its range.
His first act as a costumed criminal is to take revenge upon Ferris Boyle, a plan with which Batman interferes. Mr. Freeze fires his freeze-gun at Batman, but he dodges, causing the beam to shatter Nora's capsule. Freeze blames Batman, and swears to destroy whatever the Dark Knight holds dear (mainly Gotham City, and eventually Robin).
Mr. Freeze's crimes tend to involve freezing everyone and everything he runs into. In addition, he hardly ever forges alliances with the other criminals in Gotham, preferring to work alone, although he has worked as a hired enforcer/hitman for the Black Mask. Once, in the hopes of reviving his wife, he allies himself with the Secret Society of Super Villains, fashioning for Nyssa al Ghul a sub-zero machine in exchange for the use of her own Lazarus Pit. He attempts to restore Nora to life without waiting for the adjusting needed in the pool chemicals, however; she returns to life as the twisted Lazara, and escapes. She blames her husband for her plight, and estranges herself from him.
He is usually imprisoned in Arkham Asylum when apprehended by Batman, as it is the only facility in Gotham that can accommodate his medical requirements for a refrigerated cell.
Most recently, he has been seen among the new Injustice League.
Like most Batman villains, Mr. Freeze plans his crimes about a specific theme; in his case, ice and cold. In darker incarnations of the Batman mythos, Mr. Freeze's obsession with ice stems from personal tragedy, and his crimes are inspired by his desire to make the rest of the world as cold and miserable as he is. He freezes areas around him using special weapons and equipment. His refrigeration suit grants him superhuman strength and durability, making him a powerful villain in Batman's rogues gallery. Some interpretations also suggest that because he has been soaked in the serum he intended to use for cryo-preservation, his age progression has slowed drastically. In the cartoon The Batman he has the power to generate ice and cold with his hands
In the No Man's Land storyline, Fries was even shown to be a formidable opponent for Superman.
In the Underworld Unleashed storyline, the demon Neron grants Mr. Freeze the ability to generate sub-zero temperatures, no longer needing his freeze-gun or refrigeration suit. Unlike most villains granted superpowers by the demon, Mr. Freeze's new abilities were only temporary.
According to Batman: The Animated Series, Freeze understands how to reproduce his powers. Upon being offered enough money to bankroll large scale research into Nora's condition, Freeze turns the wealthy, terminally ill Grant Walker into another "Mr. Freeze"-like being (on the theory that the "Mr. Freeze condition" would arrest the disease). However, Walker reveals that he wants to use his new abilities to turn the world into a frozen wasteland, leaving him and a few chosen followers to live eternally in Oceana, his underwater "World of Tomorrow". Freeze imprisons him in a block of ice Oceana collapses around him. For two years, Walker remains in the iceberg, driving him insane. Although he does not reappear in the animated series, the "second Mr. Freeze" reappeared in the comic book Batman: Gotham Adventures (based on the cartoon of the same name). In his last appearance, he breaks into the Wayne Foundation and kidnaps all of the scientists working to cure the original Mr Freeze. With Batman out of action due to a concussion, Batgirl, Nightwing, and Robin save the scientists, with the help of Mr. Freeze. Walker is eventually caught after a short fight with Freeze, and then sent to Arkham.
In the 1960s Batman television series, Mr. Freeze was played by George Sanders, Otto Preminger, and Eli Wallach. In his first appearance (Instant Freeze), it is revealed that it was Batman who spilled the cryogenic chemicals on him during an attempted arrest. Batman thus feels a certain amount of guilt for his condition. Mister Freeze was also given a different name: Dr. Schivel.
Mr. Freeze appears in one episode of Filmation's 1977 animated series The New Adventures of Batman, in which he is voiced by Lennie Weinrib.
Mr. Freeze was a significant villain in Batman: The Animated Series, as noted above, but is portrayed as a sympathetic villain. He is voiced by Michael Ansara in the series and its spin-offs. Mr. Freeze's appearance in the series was designed by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, at the request of series creator Bruce Timm.
In the direct-to-video film Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, Nora's condition begins to rapidly deteriorate due to an accident, so Freeze enlists the help of Dr. Gregory Belson to find a cure. Belson determines that Nora needs an organ transplant, and due to her rare blood type there are not many suitable donors. Freeze declares that they will use a live donor. Barbara Gordon (a.k.a. Batgirl) is a perfect match, so Freeze abducts her and takes her to an abandoned oil rig out in the ocean that Freeze is using as a hideout.
In the New Batman Adventures episode, Cold Comfort, Mr. Freeze has returned, but not to a happy reunion as he had hoped: Nora, having accepted that he had likely been killed in the oil rig's collapse, has remarried and left Gotham, leaving Mr. Freeze with nothing to live for. Furthermore, he learns that the serum that mutated his body is deteriorating it; although he has kidnapped many scientists to try and stop the process, they only succeed after the process has claimed all but his head. Afterwards, he begins committing crimes in order to inflict the loss he's suffered on others by taking away the things they value most.
Freeze has made numerous appearances in the comics set in the same universe. In Batman: Gotham Adventures issue #5 he was found shortly after the battle and back in action. He has made further appearances in Batman Adventures.
- Batman Adventures #15 was written to be the final story for Mr. Freeze. Though the issue's ending is ambiguous, it does set up for his eventual fate, as revealed in Batman Beyond. Nora finally encounters Victor after her new husband is nearly killed (In truth, the man had created a robot in Freeze's image to attack him to prove to Nora that her first husband was a monster). The story ends with Mr. Freeze's head falling into a pond at the Arctic.
- Deleted material from the comic portrays Ferris Boyle and Grant Walker being killed by the Mr. Freeze robot. While the end of the story is left ambiguous, it is intended for Mr Freeze to be taken by Powers Technology and put in storage. The company's owner, Warren Powers (Father of Derek, one of Batman Beyond's chief villains) states that the secret to immortality is locked inside that head. [1]
In Batman Beyond, which is set 40 years in the future, Bruce Wayne still has one of Mr. Freeze's guns in the Batcave. His successor as Batman, Terry McGinnis, uses it to freeze Inque when she infiltrates the Batcave.
In the episode "Meltdown," we learn that the disembodied head of Victor Fries survives the events of "Cold Comfort"; thanks to the cryogenics technology, he is now essentially immortal. Stephanie Lake, a doctor working for Derek Powers, uses Mr. Freeze as a test subject for a process she hoped would be able to cure Powers' condition. She creates a clone body for him and transfers Fries' essence into it. Given a normal life back, Fries tries to right some of the wrongs he committed as a criminal. However, the new body soon begins to revert to the same sub-zero biology as Fries' original body. The doctor and Powers betray Fries, hoping to learn more from an autopsy. He escapes, recovers an old suit of sub-zero armor, and becomes Mr. Freeze again. He seeks revenge by blowing up a Wayne-Powers complex (with Freeze, the doctor and Powers in it), but he is foiled by Terry McGinnis, Bruce Wayne's successor as Batman. Freeze redeems himself by saving Batman from Powers, now mutated into the supervillain Blight, but apparently dies when he refuses to escape the exploding complex with Batman.
Originally in the aforementioned episode, Mr. Freeze's fate was to be explained in a brief, comedic scene in which Bruce Wayne sends McGinnis to the fridge to get him something to drink, and he opens it to find Freeze's head staring back at him. The producers decided that joke didn't do the character justice, however, and did not use it.
In the film Batman & Robin, Mr. Freeze (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) teams up with Poison Ivy in a scheme to freeze Gotham City solid. In this largely campy interpretation, the character spouts puns related to cold weather and temperatures (e.g., "You’re not sending me to the cooler!", "Allow me to break the ice", "Let's kick some ice!"). His tragic origin is the same; however, he often appears to be enjoying himself, despite his condition.
Here, he teams up with Poison Ivy and her henchman, Bane, to battle Batman and Robin, after the Duo thwart his attempts to steal large diamonds that he requires to properly operate his freezing technology. Unbeknownst to him, however, Poison Ivy unplugs his wife's life-support machine and blames Batman for it, encouraging him to freeze the world to get revenge on the society that created Batman and Robin and subsequently repopulating it with Ivy's plants. Batman, Robin, and the new Batgirl foil Freeze's plan, reveal Ivy's betrayal, and give him a chance at redemption, Batman reminding him that anyone can take a life, but only a select few people- like Freeze prior to his accident- can actually give life. Freeze gives Batman a means of curing the disease that his faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth, has recently been diagnosed with; the same disease was currently affecting his wife, but although her condition has advanced too far for Freeze to cure it at the moment, he has found a cure for Alfred's stage of the disease. Batman tells him that his wife is still alive and that she will be moved to Arkham Asylum's laboratory so that Freeze can continue working on a cure. After Ivy is incarcerated, Freeze visits her and tells her "Winter has come at last."
Mr. Freeze made two appearances in Justice League Adventures comics. In the first, he claims that Captain Cold has stolen his freeze gun design, but in the second they are working together, alongside other cold-based villains. He never appeared in the Justice League animated series but his freeze gun is a primary weapon Batman uses against a Thanagarian attack in the Batcave, as seen in the episode Starcrossed.
In The Batman, Mr. Freeze is a simple criminal who is condemned to life in a cryogenic suit by an accident while being pursued by Batman after a jewelry heist. The criminal runs into a cryogenics lab and is knocked into one of the freeze chambers, electrocuting him as his body is frozen. The accident turns him into a quasi-undead being that generates extreme cold around him; he is forced to wear a special suit (developed by a cryogenicist he coerces into working for him) to prevent him from freezing everything he comes in contact with. Batman has a hard time beating him, reaching the point where the criminal nearly freezes him alive. Alfred saves the day by making a winter-themed bat-suit which the Caped Crusader uses to defeat Mr. Freeze. In a later episode, Mr. Freeze teams up with Firefly to put Gotham in a permanent winter. In "The Icy Depths", he competes against Penguin to claim an umbrella that is in fact a map to a sunken treasure.
In the episode "Artifacts", set years later in 2027, Freeze's powers increase to the point that he wears a special mech suit. However, he loses an unhealthy amount of weight and the use of his legs, and now uses mechanical spider legs. After a near-death escape, Freeze places himself in cryogenic supension, until someone wakes him up 1,000 years in the future in 3027. Once his suit is repaired, Mr. Freeze resumes terrorizing Gotham. Eventually, law enforcement officers use the same methods saved for the future by the Batman to defeat Freeze in case of his return, while confusing him with hologram projections.
Mr. Freeze is voiced by Clancy Brown in the English version of the series, and by Tesshō Genda in the Japanese dub. Tesshō Genda played Batman in the Japanese dub of Batman: The Animated Series
Mr. Freeze appeared in Batman vs. Predator 's third comic book, Blood Ties. His gang members were killed by the Predators. He was spared since he was not visible to the Predator because of his body temperature.
- Mr. Freeze also appeared in several Batman video games. He was a boss in Batman: The Animated Series, The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega Genesis (in which Freeze was the game's final boss), the video game adaptation of the movie Batman & Robin, Batman: Chaos in Gotham, Batman Vengeance and Batman: Dark Tomorrow (the only game to feature the comic book version of Mr. Freeze, as all other games use the animated or movie version). Micheal Ansara reprised his role as Mr. Freeze for Batman Vengeance.
- Mr. Freeze is also the name of two LIM roller coasters at two Six Flags parks (Six Flags St. Louis and Six Flags Over Texas)
- Danish Toymaker Lego's Batman line features one set, 7783-The Batcave: The Penguin and Mr. Freeze's Invasion, which includes a minifigure incarnation of the supervillain. This version most closely resembles Freeze's appearance in Batman: The Animated Series.
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| Creators | Bob Kane · Bill Finger · Other writers and artists |
| Supporting characters | Robin (Tim Drake) · Nightwing (Dick Grayson) · Batgirl · Batwoman · Alfred Pennyworth · Lucius Fox · Barbara Gordon · Commissioner Gordon · Harvey Bullock · Azrael · Huntress |
| Villains | Bane · Catwoman · Clayface · Harley Quinn · Joker · Killer Croc · Mad Hatter · Mr. Freeze · Penguin · Poison Ivy · Ra's al Ghul · Red Hood (Jason Todd) · Riddler · Scarecrow · Talia al Ghul · Two-Face · Ventriloquist |
| Locations | Arkham Asylum · Batcave · Gotham City · Wayne Enterprises · Wayne Manor |
| Equipment | Batarang · Batmobile · Batcycle · Batsuit · Utility Belt |
| Miscellanea | Publications · Storylines · Alternate versions of Batman · Batman in popular media |