Victor Fries is a cryogenics engineer who kidnapped citizens of Gotham and froze them to find a means of freezing his terminally ill wife Nora Fries so she could be brought back when a cure is found. When Nora dies, Fries attempts to commit suicide with his freeze gun, but this only mutates his body so it can only survive subzero temperatures. Declared dead, he is brought to a secret facility underneath Arkham Asylum and begins working for Hugo Strange. Following Strange's apprehension by the authorities, Mr. Freeze began operating as a criminal for hire, using the money to fund his research and in hope of curing his condition.
History[]
Victor Fries is a cryogenics engineer in Gotham City. When his beloved wife Nora fell to a life threatening disease, he looked into freezing her so a cure could be found. In order to work out a way to freeze subjects but revive them, he kidnaps several citizens across Gotham City and takes them to a lab underneath his home, in order to perfect the way to bring them back. Although Nora knows that he is looking into a way to freeze her, she believes he is experimenting on mice.
Fries crosses paths with The Penguin and attempts to capture him, but only ends up freezing his underlings. The Penguin manages to escape from Fries.
During an experiment, one of the subjects melts into a sickening goo, much to Fries' distress. When Nora falls seriously ill and coughs up blood, he goes to the pharmacy to pick up more medication. But when the pharmacist refuses as Fries doesn't have a prescription, he gets angry at the pharmacist's cocky and smug nature and freezes him and his guard and steals a bunch of the medication. Fries attempts to take the bodies with him but is forced to flee when the police arrive.
While heading out, Nora discovers his underground lab which causes her great stress. The police arrive to arrest her as he left behind her empty pill bottle with his address on it. Fries spots her arrest from the distance, and decides to hand himself into the police. At the police precinct he waits for an officer to come and speak to him, but when noticing that the pharmacist he froze earlier thawed in the morgue and survived, he realises he has perfected what he needed to do and departs the station, vowing to get Nora back.
After raiding the Ace Chemicals Plant he leaves a message in ice demanding the police to free his wife. When Nora is taken to an infirmary at Arkham Asylum (which was a ploy by the police to lure him there) Fries raids the asylum looking for her, attacking anyone standing in his way. Chief psychiatrist Hugo Strange stalls the cops and talks to Fries over the intercom, saying he will give him keys to a getaway car if he leaves a sample of his freezing compound, which Fries agrees to. Fries retrieves Nora and takes her doctor Leslie Thompkins along and returns to his lab. When Nora asks for water, Fries leaves the room and she swaps the cartridges in his freeze gun, so it wouldn't have the perfected formula. Fries returns and unknowingly freezes Nora with the wrong compound, but realises his mistake when she begins breaking up and dies. In grief, he allows Leslie to leave as the cops arrive, and turns his cryogenic chemicals on himself.
Fries is transported to Arkham Asylum, where he is declared dead by Strange. However he survived the suicide attempt, but his body has now mutated where it can only survive below zero temperature. Fries moves him into a specialized cell in the secret research facility Indian Hill underneath Arkham Asylum. When Fries awakens, Strange explains the situation to him and decides to use him to help find a way in bringing back the dead. When Fries states he should have died with Nora, Strange suggests he pretends that the old him is dead, and is now someone else.
When Strange discovers an old test subject of his named Karen Jennings has been found, he decides to have her killed to cover up his past experiments. He gives Fries a specialised suit which can help him survive outside his cell, and sends him to kill her. When James Gordon, Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth are transporting Karen out of the city for her safety, Fries freezes the road causing it to crash. Gordon attempts to gun down Fries but to no avail, and when Karen realises he wants her, she sacrifices herself and is frozen to death and shattered by Fries. Fries then throws an ice grenade at Gordon, Bruce and Alfred to cover his escape.
When Strange arms a device to destroy Arkham Asylum on the orders of The Court, he orders Fries to kill a captive Bruce, Gordon and Lucius Fox. Selina Kyle protests this, causing Strange to order Strange to kill her. But before he can, Selina's friend Bridgit Pike stands up for her and gets into a dual with Fries, with Fries firing his freeze ray and Pike firing her flamethrower. When Strange attempts to escape he is caught in the firing line, although Gordon manages to revive him.
Fries escapes the asylum and later flees the city itself when Penguin leads a campaign against Hugo Strange's monsters who had overrun the city following their escape from the asylum, causing fear to the civilians. Fries moves to an arctic location, where he sets up a lab and tries to work out a way to cure his condition.
Fries was later met by Penguin himself (accompanied by Ivy Pepper), as he had lost all his power due to being betrayed by his allies. Fries wasn't pleased to see Penguin, recognising him as the man who drove Fries and others like him from the city during his mayoral campaign. Penguin deduces that Fries is attempting to find a way to cure himself, and promises that once he gets back his power he will help him find a way. Fries agrees to the proposition, and is provided with his suit which Penguin and Ivy stole from Wayne Enterprises. Despite the agreement, he isn't pleased that Penguin and Ivy have also recruited Bridgit Pike, but grudgingly agrees to work with her.
After Penguin goes missing a few years following his capture by the Court of Owls, Fries and Bridigt abandon him. However following Penguin's alliance with the recently returned Fish Mooney (who had been resurrected in Arkham by Strange), the pair of them return to Penguin's side. Fries then uses his weapon to freeze Penguin's former friend turned traitor Edward Nygma (but not killing him); which leads to Penguin planning to display Nygma's frozen body at his newly planned bar: the Iceberg Lounge.
After Penguin was overthrown by Sofia Falcone, Freeze returned to doing independent work and continued with his research. When Penguin planned to save a captured Nygma from Sofia, he hired Freeze to incase him in a block of ice and turn him over to Sofia for a bounty, which Freeze complied with. After collecting the bounty from Sofia, Freeze left her mansion, and Penguin managed to escape the ice and successfully liberated Nygma.
Freeze, along with several other villains including Firefly, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter and Penguin, was united by Jerome Valeska as part of his villainous team which he named the "Legion of Horribles". Although it was initially thought that Jerome was planning to takeover the criminal underworld following Sofia's downfall, Jerome made clear that he simply wanted to drive the city of Gotham into madness. Freeze and the other villains complied with his idea, although Penguin was secretly against it. Freeze was witness to Scarecrow testing out a new toxin on a kidnapped victim for Jerome, which caused the person to laugh uncontrollably.
Freeze and Scarecrow infiltrated a Wayne Enterprises research facility, and forced the scientists there to make batches of the laughing gas for Jerome to use in dousing the city in. Jerome's plan eventually failed and he committed suicide, leaving Freeze to again work on his own.
After Jerome's brother Jeremiah Valeska and his partner in crime Ra's al Ghul isolated Gotham from the mainland by destroying the bridges, Freeze began to claim his own territory, as did the other villains across the city. Months following Gotham being declared a No Man's Land, Freeze was involved in a turf war with Firefly, although the outcome of the battle is unknown.
Trivia[]
- Unlike his DC Comics counterparts, this version becomes Mr. Freeze prior to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman.
- In the comics, Victor becomes Mister Freeze after an accident in his lab trying to save Nora, however in this version, he becomes Freeze after attempting suicide after Nora's suicide.
Appearances[]
- Gotham
- "Rise of the Villains: Worse Than A Crime"
- "Rise of the Villains: Mr. Freeze"
- "Rise of the Villains: A Dead Man Feels No Cold"
- "Wrath of the Villains: Pinewood"
- "Wrath of the Villains: Transference"
- Gotham Stories