Batman:The Animated Series Wiki
Register
Advertisement

"I am beyond emotions. They've been frozen dead in me."
―Mr. Freeze[src]

Victor Fries was a former scientist whose life took a wrong turn after a tragic accident and became the criminal known as Mister Freeze.

History[]

Victor Fries was a scientist working at GothCorp. He was married to Nora Fries, who was diagnosed with a terminal illness and in order to find a cure in time to save her, Fries started experimenting with cryogenics using GothCorp's funds. When the CEO of GothCorp, Ferris Boyle, learned of Fries's experiments, he decided to shut them down. Fries begged for his wife's life, but Boyle broke into his laboratory, destroyed most of his equipment and kicked Fries into a batch of chemicals, leaving him to die.

HoI 51 - The Accident

The Accident

Fries endured, but his physiology was permanently altered. His body no longer could survive on temperatures above zero degrees celsius and so he became the criminal mastermind Mister Freeze. He built a cryo-suit that kept his body at low temperatures and also tripled his normal strength. He also built a freeze gun to start a criminal campaign against GothCorp and Boyle.

Mr. Freeze led a gang of henchmen and made numerous break-ins on GothCorp, thieving the parts for a freezing mechanism he needed to build and use in his fight against them. This led to his first clash with Batman, whom he defeated with no trouble and trapped him within a block of ice. Later on, before one more attack on Gothcorp after the machine is complete, Freeze caught Batman in the security room, viewing an archive video revealing Freeze's tragic past.

Freeze trapped Batman and left him to confront Boyle at the Gothcorp Humanitarian Party, where he froze Boyle to the waist. Batman, escaped and challenged Freeze at the party, fighting him one-on-one until he broke Freeze's helmet with a flask of chicken soup. Freeze was defeated, and detained along with Boyle, as Batman presented evidence of Boyle's crimes to the press. Victor Fries was incarcerated in a special cell in Arkham Asylum.[1]

DF 55 - Reunited

Freeze is reunited with Nora

Freeze was later broken out out of jail (against his will) and taken to an off-shore city called Oceania, by an android owned by theme-park builder Grant Walker, who was captivated with Freeze and his extended lifespan as a result of the accident that turned him into Freeze. Walker requested Freeze to replicate the accident on him and grant him an extended lifespan so that he can achieve his maniacal plan of a Global Deep Freeze to form a new world for his nominated inhabitants of Oceania. At first, Freeze declined to help Walker, but when he learned that Walker had saved Nora and kept her cyrogenically preserved, Freeze agreed to help him.

Walker was granted Freeze's unique physiology, but thanks to Batman and Robin's interference with Walker's plans, Freeze understood the mistake he made and assisted the Dynamic Duo in stopping Walker's mad plan. After restraining Walker to a wall with his ice gun. Freeze then proceeded to overload Oceana's power-core, blowing the city to pieces and cautioning the occupants to escape for their lives. As everyone evacuated the city, Freeze chose to stay behind and die with his wife. Walker, Nora, and Freeze disappear in the explosion, but they survived entombed in icebergs.[2]

Fries later settled in the Arctic, accompanied only by his frozen wife, an Inuit boy, Koonak, and Notchka and Shaka two polar bears he adopted. An expedition submarine compromised the integrity of Fries' cave, initiating ice to smash open Nora's capsule. Furious by the oblivious expedition's unintended blunder, Victor freezes them all, and moves back to Gotham City. While there, he solicits the assistance of former co-worker and ethically-corrupt doctor Gregory Belson. Belson informed Freeze that Nora's condition required a major organ transplant, and her blood type was uncommon. He kidnapped Barbara Gordon after Belson found her to be a corresponding donor for Nora. The procedure was to take place on an abandoned oil rig.

SZ 161 - Tears

Tears of joy

Batman and Robin intervene, and the subsequent brawls set the rig on fire. Belson abandoned Freeze, only to meet his own death. Freeze suffered a broken leg, and insisted that Batman save Nora and Kunac. Batman saves them and Barbara, then went back for Freeze. However, the rig's structure was compromised by the surrounding fire and blasts, and Freeze fell into the sea beneath. His polar bears saved him and he later returned to the Arctic, walking with a crutch and a cast on his foot. Gazing into a scientific outpost, he caught the news bulletin on TV, hearing that Nora made a full recovery with the assistance of study from Wayne Enterprises. Contented tears in his eyes, Fries limped away into the snowstorm.[3]

Abilities and Equipment[]

  • Freeze is a remarkable medical scientist in his research on the pathology and neuroscience of Nora’s neurological illness. His specialization in cryonics has successfully proven his thesis on immortality through suspended animation; preserving his wife in a frozen state to delay her illness until a cure could be found is the best supporting example of his research.
  • A brilliant scientific genius with an incredible mind for invention, he is skilled in physics, engineering, genetics, computer science, chemistry, and medical science. He created a cryo-giant cannon to freeze a building full of people.
  • Freeze has his Freeze Gun, a weapon able to create gusts of cold that approach absolute zero. The gun is also capable of creating a "cold field" and imprison their opponents in a cocoon of ice. This is his main weapon of choice.
  • He is also formidible without his gun thanks to his cryo suit. Combined with it, his strength and durability are augmented to superhuman levels. It also acts as a life support as he needs subzero temperatures to survive, which the suit provides.
  • He also has command over his henchmen and later, two pet polar bears who serve as his muscle.
  • Freeze is one of the few villains Batman symapthizes with as he lost his loved one and his crimes are not for profit but for revenge. Later after his wife was revealed to be alive, his only purpose was to save her life. He even managed to redeem himself many times during this.

Background[]

While Batman: The Animated Series style of revising numerous minor Batman villains, none were as effective as Mr. Freeze, who had been introduced in the comics as one of the many ploy oriented adversaries of Batman with little depth or detail. Freeze was wholly transformed for the series with a sympathetic backstory, containing his wife Nora, and great ethical intricacy with the character's cold, stoic demeanour joined with a barely controlled spiteful ferocity, much like Batman himself. Freeze was very popular with fans and the comics soon changed to contain the new interpretation. Even the 1997 film Batman and Robin, though filmed in a campy style reminiscent of the 60's TV show, included the tragic backstory.

Appearances[]

Feature Films[]

Video Games[]

References[]

Advertisement