I’ve developed a…’controversial opinion’ doesn’t feel as if it comes close to adequately covering it. ‘Heresy’ falls far short. ‘Blasphemy’ might be in the neighborhood.
I think - as an ongoing character template meant to sustain numerous stories - I prefer the potential of this Mr. Freeze…
…over this Mr. Freeze:
To be very super clear upfront, I’m not saying Batman & Robin is a better Freeze story than Heart of Ice. I actually ended up loving that movie, but “I’m afraid by condition has left me cold to your pleas of mercy” isn’t quite on the same tier as “Think of it, Batman. To never again walk on a summer’s day with the hot wind in your face and a warm hand to hold. Oh yes; I’d kill for that.” Though if we’re throwing stones, it’s worth noting that episode also includes the line “Rest well, my love. The monster who took you from me will soon learn that revenge is a dish… best served cold.”
The thing about classic Freeze is that he’s absolutely perfect…for maybe 3 stories. You know how people discuss “the Two-Face problem”, where the only stories of substance people can seem to think to tell with him are about how he became Two-Face, and him getting cured and it not taking (even All-Star Batman, with its very solid new twist on him, is still also banking on whether or not he can be rehabilitated)? Same problem with Victor: you can do 1. He tries to kill people to cure/avenge Nora (Heart of Ice, Deep Freeze), 2. He does something sentimental because of Nora (White Christmas), or 3. Nora is cured but his life still sucks because he’s Mr. Freeze (Sub-Zero, Cold Comfort, Meltdown). Unlike Harvey, there isn’t even the possibility of moving him outside that paradigm, because his entire deal as a character is that all he cares about is bringing her back, no frills or side gimmicks. While most of the time the changes are ill-advised, I don’t find it shocking in the least that the likes of Judd Winnick and Scott Snyder have tried to switch up his deal to put him in a place where you can do new stuff with him, because
while that makes for a spectacular one-shot or two it leads to some crushing diminishing returns for a recurring villain.
The guy in the movie on the other hand? I genuinely can’t believe I’m saying this, but there’s a little more on the bone to him. Yes, he makes silly ice puns and I’m not saying he should do that all the time in the comics,* but we also get this:
You can still do classic Sad Freeze stuff with him, and that he’s a character who can encompass both of those takes interests me. He seems less like a cartoon at points so much as prone to severe mood swings, moving on a dime from having his henchman sing along to The Snow Miser while puffing on a cigar and luxuriating in his criminality to sneaking off to watch his wedding video and mourn his wife in private. And it’s made equally clear this isn’t just a switch that was flipped: Nobel-prize-winning scientist and two-time Olympic decathlete Dr. Victor Fries is shown to be a goofy, awkward, giggling dope in his wedding video, and he mentions making his solid steel survival suit intentionally a size too small because he wants to look skinny. This is a guy who’s fundamentally insecure except when he’s belting out freeze puns, and that gives a deeper in than “he and Batman are both sad about their dead families”.
Obviously he’d have to be at least somewhat subdued, but picture it: Victor Fries is in the reverse position of Bruce Wayne, living a life without confidence or love and having finally gained it, seeing the death of his loved one coming and having every possible physical and mental advantage in order to save her, and he fails. So miserably in fact that he catastrophically injures himself in the process, and what’s worse she’s still hanging on by an impossible thread that won’t let him give up hope and move on. Batman has to tell himself that Thomas and Martha would have approved of what he’s done, but Fries actually has the fading chance of getting to receive that validation. And so like Batman before him he decides to embrace what’s happened to him and Show Them, Show Them All! that he’s a force to be reckoned with in control of his world.
Everything’s of course still in service of Nora at the end, but suddenly you can do other stuff with him. He can have weird themed crimes to decipher. He can pursue his own goals. He can have more than one emotional state. He can, yeah, have a room full of crooks sing The Snow Miser to him while he puffs on a cigar, because with the one source of meaningful positive reinforcement stripped away he craves validation until he can get it back, even if it means bending Gotham and the underworld to his whim, because that’s the life he’s been consigned to. And the odd attempt by Batman to rehabilitate him takes on a new light: clearly he’s of two minds about his situation, burying his feelings beneath his gimmicks and at least somewhat capable of being reached, but while Batman questions his own motivations on occasion, this Freeze literally surrounds himself with a chorus singing his praises and addresses even his most ridiculously petty concerns of self-image. This unselfaware, superhuman nerd belting puns and loving his new life of crime and throwing himself into everything about it that can distract him and fill the great gaping hole in his heart left by the tantalizing loss of the one person who ever cared, and his failure to save her, feels like a more interesting comparison to Batman than what we’ve traditionally had. Them both seeking validation through justice/crime to make up for the loss of a loved one, with Freeze trying to achieve the actual validation of Nora coming back and accepting and forgiving him for his non-sin of not saving her before, strikes me as richer than ‘they’re both sad because someone died but Victor took it worse’. And it’s a more open-ended story driver to boot.
* This is absolutely a lie, he does need to make ice puns all the time.
