Mr. Freeze (Arkhamverse)

"Have you ever seen a flower die? Watched something that was once so beautiful, so full of life, collapse and rot from within?"

―Mr. Freeze to Hugo Strange^[src]

Once a respected and brilliant cryogenicist, Dr. Victor Fries turned to a life of crime after his wife, Nora Fries, who Victor cryogenically froze to develop enough time to create a cure for her rare illness, was stolen away from him by his corrupt CEO, Ferris Boyle. In the confusion, Fries was drenched in the cryogenic chemicals that he had created to freeze Nora, which changed his metabolism. The result was Mr. Freeze, a cold-blooded villain motivated by the desire to save and cure his wife and kill anyone who would stand in his way.

On New Years Eve, he eventually got his opportunity at revenge against his former employer, allying himself with the criminal kingpin, The Penguin, and his gang with the promise of supplying them with cryogenic weapons. Though Boyle was eventually arrested and Nora was saved by Batman, Freeze regards the hero as an adversary for stopping his revenge against Boyle and sending him to Arkham Asylum.

Continuing in his plans and attempts to cure his wife through crime over the years, Freeze rarely works with other villains unless it furthers his research to save Nora. Within the confines of Arkham City, Freeze is blackmailed to perform the will of both The Joker and Hugo Strange under the threat of his wife's death. While using his medical expertise to reluctantly aid these villains, Freeze's cold and dark rage would only be amplified as he made his own plans for revenge and ensure Nora's safety.

Biography

Early Life

As a child, Victor Fries had an interest in cryogenics and a kind heart as well; he could not understand why people let their pets die when they could be preserved until a cure could be found for their diseases. As a result he began freezing the neighborhood pets, which lead to his parents believing him to be mentally disturbed; they sent him away to a reform school for help.

He eventually married Nora, a beautiful woman who was also a skilled dancer; Fries' love for her would be unfaltering, and everlasting.

Cold Cold Heart

"You've endangered lives all over this city. Nora would never have wanted this!"
"No. What she wants is to live a long life in the warmth of the sun, her hand in mine. Because of him, she'll only feel the icy touch of a man whose emotions run as cold as the blood in his veins!"

―Batman and Mr. Freeze^[src]

Batman-arkham-origins-cold-cold-heart-mr-freeze

Dr. Victor Fries discovered that his wife, Nora, was suffering from the terminal illness known as Huntington's Chorea. Desperate to save his wife, he placed her into cryogenic stasis. Ferris Boyle, his boss, learned of this and became interested in how he managed to successfully place her into cryogenic stasis. He then offered Fries a deal: Fries can work on Gothcorp's secret cryogenic weapons program, and in exchange, Boyle will fund a cure for Huntington's Chorea to save Fries' wife.

Fries accepted the deal but then discovered that Boyle had absolutely no intention of actually fulfilling his end of the bargain, so Fries decided to take matters into his own hands, proceeding to secretly conduct his research on the cure. Boyle eventually discovered this and confronted Fries in his lab, where he beat Fries and took Nora's capsule away. In the ensuing struggle, Fries and one of the security guards knocked over a prototype cryogenic cannon, killing the other guard in the process. The resulting cryo vapors from the blast caused a chain reaction that caused the storage tank for the cryogenic chemicals to explode, dousing Fries and the surviving guard in the chemicals, and forcing Boyle to leave the lab.

The chemicals that Fries and the guard were exposed to changed their metabolism. As a result, their bodies would need to be kept at sub-zero temperatures in order to survive. The guard attacked Fries and fled the lab, but his new physiology caused him to overheat and die of heat stroke in the normal room temperature. Fries witnessed the guard's death and realized that leaving his lab would be fatal, so he built a suit out of various prototypes in his lab in order to keep his core temperature subzero.

Some time later, he ended up allying himself with a gang belonging to Oswald Cobblepot, better known as the Penguin, promising them cryogenic weapons in exchange for their aid in capturing Boyle and helping him gain access to the GothCorp cryogenics lab. He then, alongside several of Penguin's thugs, stormed Wayne Manor during a presentation ceremony for Boyle on New Year's Eve and had him captured. During this time, he also froze Batman with enough cryogenic fluid to stun him, as he had no quarrel against him.

Upon reaching the Propellant Research Wing, Freeze got into an argument with the Penguin, as the Penguin now wanted access to the lab in the belief that there were more powerful weapons in there. When Batman proceeded to encounter Freeze there, Freeze held Boyle hostage, and then proceeded to freeze the area into a thick sheet of ice, encasing the Penguin, also citing that Batman's threats mean nothing to him, as he had "lost everything." Freeze then told Boyle to supply him with the security codes for Nora. When Boyle refused, he threatened to freeze him so he could experience his wife's fate.

Wearing a new prototype XE suit designed for extreme cold, Batman eventually caught up with the two men, informing Freeze that he knows the truth about what Boyle did to him (having investigated the quarantined lab earlier while searching for components for a cryodrill to access the lab) and tried to talk him out of committing more crimes as innocent people are getting hurt by his actions, trying to tell him Nora would not have wanted him to commit such actions. Fries considered his words but then decided to fight Batman instead, stating his own emotions have been frozen from the same accident, and because Batman is fighting against him.

Batman then proceeded to overload the generators for Nora's tank, while Freeze proceeded to freeze the air and confronted Batman in the room. Throughout the battle, Nora's tank began reaching critical power due to the damage sustained earlier, forcing Freeze to break off from his attack on Batman in an attempt to save his wife. Batman snuck up from underneath him and disabled him, only for Boyle to take advantage of Freeze's battered condition to blast Batman with the cryogenic cannon, intending to frame Freeze for everything.

Although Freeze attempted desperately to bargain with Boyle to save Nora, Boyle taunted him with letting him live long enough to see Nora go before beating him with a pipe. Breaking free of the ice, Batman managed to knock Boyle out, as well as tell the former humanitarian to "take a seat" in disgust. After restoring power to Nora's capsule, Batman restored Freeze's suit, also apologizing to him for not giving him peace, citing he can, at least, give him justice. Freeze then ended up arrested alongside Boyle and the Penguin, although he was imprisoned at Gotham General on watch, due to his severe condition. His condition acted as another reason for the reopening of Arkham Asylum.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Mrfreezecell--article image — Mr. Freeze's cell

Although not appearing in the game himself, Mr. Freeze's cell, which is in the same wing as Arkham's most deranged cases, can be seen in the Penitentiary area of Batman: Arkham Asylum. The cell can be scanned to unlock his bio, which reveals that he escaped prior to the game.

Batman: Arkham City

In Batman: Arkham City, Dr. Victor Fries was negotiated into entering the prison by Hugo Strange under the promises of being incarcerated with his wife, Nora, and the tools he needed to cure her. But after discovering Strange double-crossed him and had given Nora to Joker as blackmail to create a cure for his TITAN blood poisoning, Freeze stormed Wonder Tower, only to be captured by TYGER guards. There, Strange handed Victor over to the Penguin as a part of their deal and became a trophy of Cobblepot's in his museum. After Batman's incarceration to Arkham City, he was tasked with finding Freeze to get the cure he needed for himself, as the Joker had poisoned him with his blood.

While searching for Mr. Freeze, Batman was attacked by the Penguin who was using Freeze's cryogenic weapons for his own amusement. Batman found Freeze locked in a display case under a heat lamp, weakened but alive. Batman and Freeze exchanged words, and after some "persuasion" Freeze divulged the weak points of his weaponry. Batman recovered an inhibitor chip from Freeze's suit and managed to disable the weapon. After battling Solomon Grundy and defeating the Penguin, Batman confronted a fully armored Mr. Freeze.

Freeze proceeded to exact revenge on the Penguin for his earlier treatment by stepping on his already broken hand with his foot, only easing up when Batman told him to stop, proceeding to lock Penguin inside the Wayne exhibit after making a subtle threat towards Penguin. Freeze informed Batman that the cure was incomplete and that the only way to complete it was to find some kind of "restorative element" to stabilize its composition. Batman told Freeze that he knew a man named Ra's al Ghul, who had been exposed to a regenerative chemical for centuries. Freeze told Batman to bring him a sample of Ra's Al Ghul's blood in order to synthesize the cure.

After recovering a sample of Ra's al Ghul's blood, Batman confronted Mr. Freeze in the GCPD Building. Freeze quickly produced two vials of the antidote and locked one of them away in a wall safe. Batman ordered Freeze to give him the cure, but he refused and crushed the vial. Freeze told Batman that the Joker kidnapped Nora and demanded that he bring her back to him. After Batman tried to recover the other vial, Freeze launched a full-scale attack.

Batman, using his vast array of techniques and gadgets, was able to progressively break through Freeze's defenses and overpower him; punching through his protective glass dome and beating him senseless. As Batman was punching Freeze, he began to have hallucinations of the Joker laughing at him. Realizing that he's wasted enough time Batman attempted to retrieve the second vial of antidote. When he opened the safe, however, Batman discovered that Harley was able to break into the safe and has stolen the only remaining sample. Batman lamented that getting into the Steel Mill will be extremely difficult due to the Joker's security. Mr. Freeze, accepting his role in Batman's predicament, offered him cryogenic projectiles to make his venture more manageable. Batman promised Victor that he will find Nora before leaving.

Eventually, Batman successfully tracked down Nora's whereabouts and informs Freeze of her location. Victor froze the body of water separating the lab and the steel mill and met with his frozen wife. A bound and gagged Harley Quinn later informed Batman that Joker also stole some of Freeze's cryo-tech (freeze cluster bombs) which Batman located and acquires for his own use.

It can be assumed that after the events of Arkham City Freeze was returned to the temporary holding cells for former Arkham Asylum patients while Blackgate Penitentiary was refurbished for an opening.

After Batman: Arkham City

Due to the highly illegal nature of Arkham City that was uncovered after Hugo Strange's death, Mr. Freeze was one of the many inmates that were released and compensated for the horrendous and unethical confines of the prison and its security measures, namely Protocol 10, they were manipulatively exposed to. However, unlike most of his fellow inmates, Freeze did not partake in Scarecrow's plans to destroy Batman, nor return to crime, but continued researching a cure for Nora, now fully and legally put back in his care.

Still grateful for Batman's assistance to save him and his wife, Freeze seemed to finally have a change of heart towards the Dark Knight and decided to leave Gotham in order to devote his full attention towards saving his wife once and for all. Using his Arkham City compensation funds, Fries purchased a research vessel to store Nora and all his equipment in order to discover a cure, christening the ship after his wife, and spent his time at sea, which enabled him to work in peace and keep Nora away from the dangers of Gotham City.

Additionally, Freeze seemed to have been making progress towards curing his wife as, unknown to the scientist, Nora gained a sense of her surroundings once again and could hear her husband speak to her as he worked on the cure. Though she herself was still unable to speak, Nora could hear the anger and frustration in Fries as he worked on advancing his work, believing that her husband has indeed been consumed by hatred and vengeance and any potential reunion may now simply be a pipe dream.

Season of Infamy: In From the Cold

While continuing to experience difficulties in completing the cure for Nora, Freeze refuses to give up and was confident that the next round of therapies would prove instrumental. However, despite his best efforts to keep Nora away from the madness of Gotham, his research vessel ends up attacked by a special ops team within the Arkham Knight's militia, an organization working for Scarecrow to destroy Batman and conquer Gotham, with Nora's capsule being stolen from him, although not without having to put up a fight against Freeze, with several militia members frozen solid.

The fight between Freeze and the militia however, results in the cryogenerator going critical and heavily damaging the ship's hull, encasing the vessel within thick layers of ice, resembling something of an iceberg, off the coast of Gotham. With an automated distress signal being sent out, Batman and Alfred are alerted towards the militia's recent activities on the ship, with the Dark Knight going to investigate. Taking out the militia sent to guard Freeze as he attempts to repair the generator, Batman locates Freeze in the hull, mourning over the abduction of his wife. Because the Arkham Knight's militia had been fighting against Batman, Freeze angrily blames Batman for her theft when he arrived at the ship. After making Freeze realize that the militia cannot be trusted, Batman resolves to rescue Nora after Fries gives him a tracking device to locate the capsule.

Fighting through the militia's forces after following the tracker's signal, Batman learns that the militia had discovered the capsule's tracking device and removed it, storing Nora at a separate location, in order to throw the hero off their trail. Despite this, Batman is able to interrogate a militia guard into revealing Nora's true location and is able to rescue her, just as her cryostasis ends and she revives. Revealing that she has been cognizant of the amount of time that has passed since she was frozen and all the horrible events that have occurred around and over her, Nora accepts her fate and simply wants to spend her remaining time with her husband.

As Freeze panics over Nora being conscious without a cure not yet developed, he attempts to convince her to allow him to freeze her again to prevent her illness from overtaking her, as the generator on his ship goes critical and releases an explosion of snow and ice on Gotham. The militia, realizing that Freeze is too dangerous to keep alive without his assistance in their plans, send a massive unit of tanks to destroy him. Batman and Nora rush to Freeze's aid in the batmobile and attempt to convince him to use the remaining power in the generator to completely destroy the militia's drone army, which would also result in the destruction of all his research and work.

While extremely hesitant, Victor ultimately agrees to save Nora and Batman from the militia onslaught and successfully destroys them all. Fries and his wife are finally reunited as Nora refuses Victor to let himself give up his humanity anymore in her name, believing that far too much tragedy has occurred to continue researching a cure and that he must finally accept fate, as he should've over a decade ago. Realizing that he can't save Nora from her illness, Fries agrees to finally give up his life of crime in his wife's honor and spend his final days with her in peace. Batman allows the couple to depart from Gotham on the ship, serving as the final meeting between the hero and Fries, who finally redeemed himself out of love for his wife.

Psychological Profile (by Dr. Young)

Mr. Freeze

Real Name: Dr. Victor Fries

ESCAPED!!

Psychological Profile: Another surprisingly intelligent inmate. Fries' narcissism and antisocial disorders are surpassed only by his intense fixation on his late wife Nora. His obsession with Nora's memory has developed into a variety of psychopathic behaviors, worsened by his narcissistic egomania and lack of concern for others. Fries' peculiar medical condition - which keeps his body temperature below zero and necessitates a variety of complicated security precautions - only furthers his antisocial tendencies.

Additional Notes: Yet another inmate here at the asylum who was formerly a doctor; certainly an odd pattern.

Treatment is difficult due to the frigid temperatures I am forced to endure in his presence.

Patient Interviews

Tape One

(Intercom is heard buzzing.)

TYGER Guard: Prisoner's here, sir.
Strange: Very good. Send him in.
TYGER GUARD: But we haven't got the suit off him yet. He's dangerous. Are you sure?
Hugo Strange: Of course. Victor Fries and I have much in common. We will be fine.

(The door is heard opening. Mister Freeze enters, servos letting off hisses as he walks. The door closes.)

Hugo Strange: Welcome to my facility. Please, take a seat.
Mister Freeze: I prefer to stand. Why am I here?
Hugo Strange: Oh, Victor, there will be plenty of time for that later. Right now I wish to get to know you. Discover how you came to have such a... frosty outlook on life.
Mister Freeze: I have nothing to say to you. You may have taken my weapons, but my suit still has considerable offensive capabilities. I will freeze the marrow in your legs. Each bone will shatter and fracture while you remain aware of your impending paralysis, begging me to end you.
Hugo Strange: I don't think that you will do that, Victor.
Mister Freeze: Really? Why not?
Hugo Strange: Simple. If you hurt me, your wife will die.

Tape Two

Mister Freeze: Where is she? Where is my wife??
Hugo Strange: Nora is in safe hands. Now, let's discuss an incident from your childhood...
Mister Freeze: No.
Hugo Strange: Then this is over. (Intercom buzzing as he presses the button.) Guard!
Mister Freeze: Wait! (Strange is heard removing his finger from the intercom button.) What do you wish to learn?
Hugo Strange: Your early years were troubled.
Mister Freeze: I was not a sociable child, but that is all.
Hugo Strange: Even your parents disowned you. They sent you away to a reform school, correct?
Mister Freeze: They did not understand my work.
Hugo Strange: Your work? According to a police report, you froze over a dozen of your neighbors' pets.
Mister Freeze: I have always had an interest in cryonic preservation. I didn't understand why my parents allowed our sick pets to die instead of attempting to save them. So I set about finding my own way. I intended to revive all those creatures.
Hugo Strange: But you didn't. Which brings us to Nora.

Tape Three

Mister Freeze: Have you ever seen a flower die? Watched something that was once so beautiful, so full of life, collapse, and rot from within...
Hugo Strange: You refer to Nora's illness?
Mister Freeze: It seems like yesterday when I first found her. It all happened so quickly. Suddenly, I was losing her.
Hugo Strange: Did you seek help? What about your employer, GothCorp?
Mister Freeze: I hid it from them, diverting resources from GothCorp's research in an attempt to find the cure, but in the end, I failed. Time was running out. I knew that if I was discovered, Nora would die.
Hugo Strange: Why take that risk?
Mister Freeze: Do you know what it is to love someone? To really love them?
Hugo Strange: No.
Mister Freeze: Nora was all I could think of. I re-ran the diagnostics, re-examined every detail from every angle, certain that I had missed something. I cursed myself for being so blind, so stupid. Surely there was a cure, I just needed more time. Then I realized what I had to do.

Tape Four

Mister Freeze: I had worked without sleep for a week. My needs didn't seem important. Sleep didn't matter. Food didn't matter. There was only her. I looked at Nora and told her that I loved her. She said there was nothing I could do, that I... we should just accept fate. She smiled her beautiful smile as she said it. I promised to cure her. and then I pressed the button.
Hugo Strange: You cryogenically froze her. Keeping her on ice, so to speak, while you worked on a cure. It broke your heart but now you had all the time in the world. Did you feel relieved?
Mister Freeze: I went home and fell into a deep sleep. For the first time since we discovered Nora's illness, I dared to dream. But... for weeks I had ignored my superiors' attempts to contact me. The next morning, I overslept. And by the time I got to the lab, Ferris Boyle, the CEO, was there waiting.
Hugo Strange: What did he do?
Mister Freeze: He accused me of industrial espionage, which I denied, but then his guards found Nora. Boyle told me that, like all of my "research," she belonged to him. I was enraged. I attacked him, but his guards beat me back and in the struggle, I was drenched in by the cryogenic chemical I had created. I lay on the floor helpless watching the guards steal Nora away. Boyle told me it was such a tragedy for a promising mind to perish in a lab accident. Then he left me to die.
Hugo Strange: But you survived.
Mister Freeze: The chemicals absorbed into my body and... transformed my metabolism. My body went numb. I felt a strange tingling, then searing pain all over... Each breath ignited my lungs. I clawed my way back to a refrigeration unit and as I closed the door behind me, I felt the icy chill calm my aching body. Things suddenly seemed clear.
Hugo Strange: What seemed clear? Finding a cure for Nora?
Mister Freeze: No. Revenge. Boyle would pay.

Tape Five

Hugo Strange: You failed to kill Ferris Boyle, though, didn't you?
Mister Freeze: Yes.
Hugo Strange: Why?
Mister Freeze: You know why. Batman. Though he did return Nora to safety - until you got her.
Hugo Strange: See, there you go. Blame me. Blame your parents because you failed to revive your neighbors' pets. Blame Ferris Boyle for spoiling your plans to cure Nora. Blame Batman for stopping your revenge against Boyle. And now your Nora is in danger...
Mister Freeze: Because of you.
Hugo Strange: No, Victor. Because of you. You have always had a heart of ice. You stole peoples' pets, you stole GothCorp resources, and since then you've stolen so much for your own selfish, scientific inquiries. If you had shared your genius with others, devoted your energy to medicine instead of crime, perhaps your ice princess would be at home now, preparing you a hot meal - instead of being delivered to the Joker.
Mister Freeze: No...
Hugo Strange: You could have saved Nora a long time ago, Victor.
Mister Freeze: It's all for her. Everything. I will get her back. And when I do, I'm coming for you.
Hugo Strange: Thank you. We are done now.
Mister Freeze: Nora...

Powers and Abilities

Cryogenics: Freeze is a skilled inventor, specializing in cryogenics. He was able to successfully put his wife in suspended animation and use the same technology to create cryogenic weaponry.
Superhuman strength: Because of his mechanized life-support suit, his strength was also augmented to superhuman levels, which was best demonstrated with his effortlessly knocking a civilian a considerable distance away by ramming him with his forearm, also destroying the ice trapping his leg in the process, as well as his frequently grabbing Ferris Boyle by the neck.
Freeze's primary weakness is that his body must be kept at subzero temperatures in order for him to survive.

Weaknesses

Electricity/Electromagnetic Pulses: Electricity can short circuit the equipment in the armor, allowing Batman the opportunity to attack as Freeze attempts to compensate.
Heat: Freeze is at high risk when exposed to intense heat and must maintain a low body temperature at all times. He most commonly wears a suit of armor to keep his temperature low but also has developed small cooling units that can be directly attached to his body.
Stealth: The bulkiness of the Freeze suit limits the mobility of Mr. Freeze significantly, allowing Batman the opportunity to use stealth attacks against him. However after each attack, he adapts his suit so the same attack can't be used again.
Anti-Freeze tech: As part of a plot to defeat Penguin, Freeze gave Batman a chip designed to prevent his tech from being used against him, which may be used against Freeze during his fight against Batman. However, after its use, Freeze will reprogram his ice gun so the disruptor cannot be used again.

Quotes

"This is futile."
"I will not fail Nora."
"How can this Ra's al Ghul hold the secret to the clown's cure? Batman must have lost his mind."
"When this is over, the clown will suffer."
"I knew you were lying. My wife will die and you will be to blame."
"You said you would find my beautiful Nora. I should not have trusted you."
"Thank you for finding Nora."
"I am preparing a solution to remedy whatever damage the clown has caused my beautiful Nora."
"Is she not beautiful? Like a flower, frozen in time."
"I owe you a debt, Batman."
"Thank you for this."
"My beautiful wife. I am so sorry for all that has happened."
"Leave me with my wife, Catwoman."

Game Over Lines

Batman: Arkham Origins:

"And now your blood runs as cold as mine."
"The thought of killing a man should turn my stomach, but as I look at you now I feel... nothing."

Batman: Arkham City:

"Death is cold, Batman."
"I will turn your blood to ice."

Trivia

According to a gameplay demo commentary, the reason why Mr. Freeze was included in the DLC expansion "Cold Cold Heart" was because his overall nature (being motivated to commit crimes out of love for his wife and possessing a desire to save her) would not have fit in the main story, which dealt with eight assassins trying to kill Batman as well as the rise of the Joker, and yet they thought he should be included in Arkham Origins due to the winter conditions making him an obvious candidate.
In Fries' lab, his snowglobe with Nora's statue in it can be seen, which was often used for various incarnations of Mr. Freeze since Heart of Ice to symbolize Freeze's tormented nature. His wedding photo can also be seen.
Late into the game, the player can find Boyle's humanitarian award with the diamond heart removed, a possible allusion to Mr. Freeze's plot to steal diamonds in Batman and Robin.
- In addition, some enemy chatter has several criminals reacting irritably towards several of them making ice-related puns on the subject of either Freeze himself or the cryogenic weaponry supplied to them, alluding to the Batman and Robin film's incarnation of Mr. Freeze frequently making ice-related puns, as well as these puns being partly the reason why the film in question as well as the film's characterization of Freeze specifically became infamously ill-received.
The search for Nora Fries is a side mission in Batman: Arkham City and it is not required that you locate her to complete the main storyline. Additionally, the recovery of Freeze Tech being investigated by Joker is not required to complete the main story.
After telling Mr. Freeze of Nora's location, he will no longer be at the Gotham City Police Building. He can be found where Nora was located, triggering a cutscene in which Batman tells Mr. Freeze to cure her and quit his life of crime. Similarly, after giving the location of Nora to Freeze, a trail of ice will have appeared in the water from the back of the GCPD building to the location of Nora, implying it was left by Freeze.
It is possible to visit Freeze in the building in which Nora is found in with Catwoman. Catwoman makes a snarky remark, asking if he is willing to help her in a theft she is planning later on, and he replies by telling her to leave him and Nora alone.
Freeze's boss battle has been praised as one of best boss battles in the series and is considered a major improvement from the repetitive Titan bosses from the previous game.
Mr. Freeze is the only central character of the Villain DLC story pack "Season of Infamy" who is not actually a villain, and if anything was an ally character to Batman.
- In addition, if the player gets a game over during his mission, unlike the other characters in the pack, Mr. Freeze will comment he will avenge Batman, owing to his reformed nature.

Gallery

Mr. Freeze (Arkhamverse)/Gallery