Spoilers for “Mr. Freeze” Gotham Season 2 Mid-Season premiere.
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When Gotham decided to bring in a true supervillain for the first time, they went with Mr. Freeze. The parka-hooded character wields a freeze-gun powered by liquid helium and his own cryogenic formula in Monday’s mid-season premiere, but they interestingly chose specifically to use his origin from another medium – not comics, but another TV show, Batman: The Animated Series.
“We loved his deep-seeded emotional issues,” executive producer John Stephens told ComicBook.com. Those issues were what really allowed them to go full super-villain for the first time.
Originally, Mr. Freeze was basically just like Captain Cold, one for Batman to fight instead of The Flash. That all changed when Batman: The Animated Series took a crack at the character in its first season (it was the third episode that aired originally, in fact), though. Adding in a backstory as a scientist trying to save his wife, they humanized Victor Fries, making him a victim of circumstance. The FOX series borrowed quite a bit from the newer take. Click through to see how.
Nora Fries
Nora Fries was completely original to Batman: The Animated Series, a wife of Victor Fries to give him emotional grounding. Created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, Nora was terminally ill directly from her introduction. In fact, in the original series, she was already in cryogenic stasis when first shown.
Nora on Gotham is alive and unfrozen when we meet her, played by Kristen Hager. She’s not well, though – terminally ill and getting worse, about ready to give up when Victor’s experiments, she thinks with mice, have been unsuccessful.
Cryogenics Experiments
The original Mr. Zero/Mr. Freeze had created an ice gun that backfired, requiring him to be in a cryogenic suit.
Dini/Timm’s backstory, though, had him actually conducting experiments as a scientist, working on cryogenics. His goal? To cryogenically freeze his wife, Nora, and allow her to survive in frozen stasis until a cure for her terminal disease could be found.
That’s how we meet Victor Fries in Gotham, as well, though he’s not doing those experiments in a controlled lab – instead, he’s doing them in his basement. On people. Yikes.
The Shut Down
In B:TAS, Fries was working for Ferris Boyle at GothCorp when researching cryogenics. He had already frozen Nora, and was working to figure out how to eventually revive her, when Boyle shut the experiments down. In the process, he caused the accident that made Fries need cold to live, and also seemingly killed Nora.
In Gotham, Fries’ employer is none other than Wayne Enterprises. It’s Thomas Wayne who shut his cryogenics work down, along with other bizarre and secretive projects, though Dr. Hugo Strange seems to know something about it. This could eventually lead to Fries having an issue with Wayne’s heir, Bruce.
A Cold Comfort?
The next step wasn’t seen on tonight’s Gotham, but images from next week seem to imply this is where it’s going (possible spoilers ahead).
In Batman: TAS, Fries has an accident in his lab that basically makes him permanently cold, and forces him to live out his life in a suit that provides freezing temperatures, hence the domed look.
In Gotham we haven’t seen that yet, instead they showed Fries in a costume not wholly unlike another ice villain, Captain Cold on The Flash. Later images (like the one above) show actor Nathan Darrow in a full suit more similar to the comic book and animated series version. That means that despite finding the right formula, a worse fate is probably on the way for him, soon.
