A Schwarzenegger-less history of Mr. Freeze

[KeatonisBatman]

Just whipped this up a few days ago for a friend who specifically said Mr. Freeze was "kinda lame." I purposely left out Arnie... and I'm not hating, Batman & Robin makes me LOL, but I'm trying to prove a point that Mr. Freeze can be taken seriously. Any thoughts or corrections?

https://brandonkeaton.substack.com/p/heart-of-ice-a-brief-look-at-mr-freeze

[The Dark Knight]

I purposely left out Arnie... and I'm not hating, Batman & Robin makes me LOL, but I'm trying to prove a point that Mr. Freeze can be taken seriously.

I don't really mind his Freeze now.

Who is stronger than him? I say nobody, not even Hardy's Bane.
His suit is a visual feast and I like the diamond powered angle to justify more crime.
The ice gun is brilliantly realized.
The serious scenes (sculpting the ice Nora, Batman letting him continue his research) are nailed.
Arnold is also having a good time relishing being a main villain. The entertainment value is there.

Freeze isn't my favorite villain in the roster but he's a good one, and definitely not lame. There's still a lot of scope with him cinematically if they go the robotic, detached route. It also begs the question how Batman would behave if his parents were left in a cryogenic state, chilling in his cave. As it stands, he at least has peace in accepting their deaths even if he never gets over them. Freeze is instead fuelled by hope of resurrection that drives him insane.

[Slash Man]

For all his strengths, I think Denny O'Neil made a huge oversight in his treatment of old Batman rogues as editor.

It seems to be a pattern that when creative teams take Batman "back to his roots," one of the first things on the chopping block his his colorful rogues gallery. You can still have a grounded and serious Batman with fantastic supervillains. Audiences even expect as much.

It was pure stubbornness that O'Neil denied the use of many such villains during his tenure, but that turned to vindictiveness when it was revealed that Mr. Freeze's brief appearance in the Robin series was dictated to be him being killed off. It feels disrespectful that such a longtime character was going to be killed off as a joke just to spite those who might be fans of the 60s Batman. Thankfully, writer that was instructed to carry out the deed, Chuck Dixon, provided an out so that Freeze could be brought back when the time came.

Batman: The Animated series provided a much needed second opinion for Freeze and other forgotten foes. They literally saved the character, as without the show, they would not have [begrudgingly] brought him back to the main comics.

I think pre-Mr. Freeze isn't as obscure as many would lead you to believe. It was really the Adam West show that saved him from obscurity and turned him into a classic villain. By the 80s, he was actually appearing on a regular basis.

He had since shed his 60s campiness, though hadn't yet attained his character complexity. Without BTAS, I wonder where the character would have landed. Two-Face's reinvention had actually predated the Animated Series in Batman Annual #14. Would another writer have done the same for Freeze, independent of the show? We'll never know.

[thecolorsblend]

I never liked the Joker killing Mr. Freeze. I always thought the character deserved more respect than that. I guess I never realized that O'Neil was to blame for it. But now that you mention, he did seem to have a bit of a distaste for costumed supervillains.

But Batman can only contend with Man-Bat and the League Of Assassins so many times.