Batman: Arkham- Mister Freeze

Just like with the Batman Arkham look at Killer Croc, I felt that this book presents a full dossier at the decent into madness that Victor Von Fries takes to become Mister Freeze.

When we first meet Freeze, he's not really even the same character we have grown to love over the decades. When the character first appears in 1959, he's called Mr. Zero and he's referred to by the Caped Crusader as Dr. Art Schivel. While working on a freeze gun, the frozen mixture explodes and turns Schivel into a living breathing icicle. 

In the late 60s, as producers were looking for fun and unique villains to opposed Batman and Robin, they brought Mr. Zero back. But now he was called Mister Freeze and he mostly committed ice-themed crimes in order to fund his need for Freon. If wouldn't be until the 1990s when Dr. Art Schivel would become Dr. Victor Fries.

Paul Dini and Batman: The Animated Series would be responsible for turning the frozen fiend into a tragic figure. In 1992's 'Heart of Ice', we learn of Fries' life-long obsession with cryogenics and his strict, miserable childhood. Victor eventually marries a woman named Nora. Happy for the first time in his life, Fries becomes top in his field. But the happiness is short as Nora has a fatal disease that yet has a cure. Victor places her into a form of suspended animation. But a lab accident during his experiments turns Fries into Freeze!

Unable to go out into non-freezing temperatures, Freeze creates a refrigerated body suit. Unfortunately, it needs diamonds to fuel it. Plus, now a fugitive, Victor still needs funds to continue trying to save Nora. Disconnected totally from humanity, Mister Freeze, armed with a cryogenic gun, will let noone stand in his way to save the woman he loves.

Man, this is great tragic stuff! Shakespeare, Hemingway and Vonnegut couldn't write stuff this powerful. Okay, maybe the could. But the new origin of Mister Freeze is further proof Paul Dini belongs in some sort of comic book hall of fame!

While there is a Paul Dini penned story, there's not anything from the various comics based on the 1990s cartoon. 

After Dini, you start to really dive into Mister Freeze and his backstory. Victor Fries is possibly more demented than we thought. It's possible Nora Fries isn't really his bride. She might be a cryogenics test subject from the 1950s that Victor fell in love with while conducting his doctoral thesis. Plus, he might have killed a family member or two. It's kinda left up to the reader to decide.

Man, the New 52 and Rebirth did a number of this character. But wow!

I love the cold. Always have. And it's why I've had an affinity for Mister Freeze. Maybe I am a little biased. But I thought that this collection earned high marks. Freeze undergoes a very wide metamorphosis over the years. Yet that evolution kept getting better and better the more complex the character gets.

A chilling read for a hot summer's night. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Tis The Season To Be Freezin' #1

I'll give DC Comics some props- they still managed to put out a holiday special once again! Marvel Comics has been a Scrooge going on 4 or 5 years now. But I must say that DC's Tis The Season To Be Freezin' has got to be the worst holiday offering in many years!

There are 8 short stories in this book. The best was the opening salvo from Paul Dini. It's from the Batman: The Animated Series universe, with art to boot. Tim Drake is in downtown Gotham looking for a gift for Bruce Wayne when Mister Freeze begins to wreak some icy havoc. 

Also in the high level of quality was a Jeff Trammel (Truth & Justice) penned Christmas Eve encounter between Firestorm and newly reformed Killer Frost as both have agreed to monitor duty at JLA headquarters. Then Vixen and the Super-Pets had an interesting team-up in Iceland for a story by Tee Franklin (Harley Quinn: The Animated Series Kiss, Kill Bang Tour). I liked it enough to say that I'd love a limited series starring this group in the future as Vixen can speak with the pets. Come on DC- give this a chance!

A heatwave struck Central City tale between The Flash and Captain Cold was pretty good. It was written by SNL alum Bobby Moynihan. However this story was peppered with digs against science deniers, Karenism and other feeble attempts at post-2020 humor. Stick with character development and leave the politics to Weekend Update.

I also enjoyed the Legion of Superheroes story. Though I didn't really connect with the story so much as I wasn't familiar with the main character of Polar Boy.

Stories starring personal favorites of mine such as Bizarro and Harley Quinn were hard to read-literally. I've always complained that whomever writes Bizarro doesn't do enough with his vocabulary to be reverse enough. (You know up is down, bad is good.) But writer Amedeo Turturro (Batman: Three Jokers) figured out a way to turn things up to 11 in this global warming Bizarro World story and I couldn't keep up with the opposites. 

With the Harley story, I feel that editors edited out some important information to this story. There were just too many awkward jumps in scene. I wonder if this was supposed to be a 16-pager and it got chopped in half. It did not flow well at all.

Lastly we have the JLQ story. It's an ad-hoc team of LGBTQ+ heroes. Earlier this year (I think), DC Comics had a contest where fans could vote for a new series. The Justice League Queer was one of the voting options. It was eliminated in the first round. But DC cried foul with the fans and have continued to pursue making this idea a reality. I personally think it's not fair to the other 14 projects that also voted down and have been buried in the vaults. If DC decides to do the Round Robin vote again (and I think they should) it should be if you lose- YOU LOSE! Too bad, so sad.

Anyways, the story was in desperate need of introduction. If I am not mistaken, this is only the second appearance of the JLQ. There's so many C-list or lower characters in this thing, a line-up card, similar to what used to happen in the pages of Justice League of America is needed here. One of the characters is not a part of the JLQ- it's Sigrid Nansen AKA Ice Maiden, AKA Ice. There is such a major change to the character, which normally I would be okay with. But This character also appears in some current issues of The Human Target. Once again, DC just jumbles the timelines and the issues currently on shelves don't have any connectivity. 

All 8 stories have an ice/snow theme. Thus, there's dozens of warnings about climate change. Thankfully, DC stayed away from Trump, The Alt-Right and COVID. But with the level of snide comments about people who don't think the way the creative team at DC does with this book, I had to double-check to make sure that I wasn't reading an Axel Alonso edited Marvel property. 

I read other current DC works. They don't have this level of 'wokeness' to them. I don't think DC realizes that their holiday specials are big opportunities for gaining new readership. There are a lot of folks who haven't bought a comic book in years. But they'll go for a holiday comics because of the nostalgia. You'll always get a Harley Quinn and a Batman story. Sadly, DC adds a lot of unfamiliar characters and unproven talent to fill in the rest of the 75% of the book. 

These specials are $9.99. At some point, I am going to stop buying these. The recent Halloween book was a stinker and this one is far from perfect. Would it kill DC to put something festive on the cover? Yes- I am thankful that DC Comics put out another holiday special. But did it have to be such a waste of my hard earned cash in an age of rampant inflation and a time where quality is lacking? 

Take my advice- if you haven't bought this book yet- don't! Wait till it hits a bargain bin. You'll have a much more merrier Christmas if you do!

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.

The Batman Strikes! #7

Original cover to issue #7.

The Batman Strikes! cartoon on WB was a really good show. It captured a lot of the style of the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight films while incorporating the best and brightest of the DC Universe. Sadly, it didn't last longer than a season or two and that's in very large part to the demise of Saturday morning cartoons.

   In this issue based on the cartoon, Batman faces Mr. Freeze who's been busted out of the slammer. Batman loses his first battle with the Emperor of Ice and almost loses Alfred in the process. It takes the very ego of Mr. Freeze for Batman to finally be able to put the villain on ice.

    Obviously, there's some unsettled business in this issue. First of all, one of the guards enters a code that frees the villain from his cell. Batman never confronts this officer for what he's done. It's very un-Batman of the Caped Crusader. Then, there's a 2 page segment in which 'Boss' Thorne suddenly appears. The mobster alludes to his planning to put the kibosh on the Batman, but nothing comes from this scene. So, either, the story editor overlooked this or further issues in this series continue this storyline.

    I checked this book out at the library. While it reprints a single issue from the series based on the show, it was published in a hard-bound library edition. Like many of the Franco & Baltazar library editions, this book includes a study guide for parents and teachers.

    Unfortunately, this is the only issue in the series that was available at my local library. Hopefully, I'll come across this series in a bargain bin or collected edition.

Worth Consuming

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.