Pre-Crisis version ). Art by
Curt Swan. To create an ice gun, a scientist whose name remains unknown starts experimenting with a concentrated freezing solution. He suffers an unfortunate accident that changes his physiology, forcing him to live in environments below
zero temperature. He adopts the criminal identity of Mr. Zero. To be able to go out to the normal environment, Zero creates an
air conditioned costume, which helps him remain in cold temperatures, even in hot climates. Using this equipment, Zero gathers a small gang and starts a crime spree in
Gotham City, stealing mainly diamonds and other precious jewels. Mr. Zero is eventually confronted by the local vigilantes,
Batman and
Robin. Unable to stand against his cold weapons, the Dynamic Duo fails to stop Zero. They are captured by him and brought to his secret cold hideout, near the mountains. Trapped in blocks of ice, Batman and Robin learn Zero's plan to steal a large collection of gems. Batman eventually breaks a nearby steam pipe, causing steam to fill the hideout, melting the ice away and apparently curing Zero from his ailment. After this, Batman and Robin are able to capture the whole gang and bring Zero to the authorities. Long after this, Freeze becomes part of a
mock criminal trial. Mr. Freeze later changes his cryo-suit with one that allows him more mobility. Freeze eventually falls in love with a woman called Hildy. To slow her aging process, Freeze sets out to recreate the accident that transformed him. For his experiments, Freeze uses wealthy people in Gotham as test subjects, but all the efforts result in failure. The victims turn into frozen zombies, who follow Freeze's commands. His new crimes alert the police and Batman. In the ensuing fight, Batman is only able to win when Hildy shows her true intentions and betrays Freeze, only to be encased in solid ice when her plan backfires. Freeze's next plan consists of freezing Gotham City by removing all the heat and transporting the energy to the neighboring city of
Metropolis. Freeze is unable to accomplish his goal and is stopped by Batman and
Superman. During one last attempt to freeze Gotham entirely, Mr. Freeze creates a large ice cannon. After robbing a bank, Freeze is confronted by Batman and the new
Robin, who manages to defeat him with help from
Vicki Vale and
Julia Pennyworth, whom Freeze previously captured. {-}
Post-Crisis version Following the 1985 "
Crisis on Infinite Earths" storyline that rebooted DC Comics' continuity, Mr. Freeze's origin is retroactively revamped to match the one conceived by Paul Dini for
Batman: The Animated Series. Dr. Victor Fries is a brilliant expert in cryogenics in Gotham City. As a child, he was fascinated with cryonic preservation and its potential to preserve and prolong life, and liked to freeze animals. His parents are horrified by his "hobby" and send him to a strict
reform school, where he is miserable, bullied and
abandoned by his parents. As a result, he feels detached from humanity until going to college and meeting
Nora, the woman he ultimately marries. While planning to freeze the elderly to preserve them, Mr. Freeze was secretly planning to steal their assets causing his henchmen Ice and Cube to get concerned. Though Batman defeats Mr. Freeze, he ends up getting away. He would somehow revert to his pre-upgraded appearance causing him to sport a new cryogenic suit and wield a new freeze gun. Initially locked in
Arkham Asylum, Freeze was eventually transferred to the Gotham State Penitentiary, from where he escaped and attempted to steal technology from
S.T.A.R. Labs until he was stopped and returned to prison by Batman. During the "
No Man's Land" storyline, Mr. Freeze sets up a base in the sewers which is stumbled upon by
Gearhead and Tommy Mangles. Mr. Freeze finds them and uses his freeze gun on them after getting information about a storage room with canned food in it. He and
Ratcatcher were defeated by
Robin and arrested by Detective
Mackenzie Bock with the Gotham City Police Department also bringing the frozen bodies of Gearhead and Tommy Mangles into their custody as well. Freeze's crimes tend to involve freezing everyone and everything that he encounters or
Black Mask during the
return of
Jason Todd. In one of his notable team-ups, Freeze constructs a cryogenic machine for
Hush so that Hush might take revenge on Batman, Freeze's equipment allowing Hush to preserve
Catwoman's surgically removed heart to use as a means of threatening her life. During the "
Infinite Crisis", Mr. Freeze appears as a member of
Alexander Luthor Jr.'s
Secret Society of Super Villains. After Batman's
death, most of the Arkham inmates were
freed by a
new Black Mask. Freeze was among them and he started working on a project called Ice-X Protocol when the GCPD tried to capture him. He stunned them with his gun and captured Gordon, taking him to his secret lair. Gordon managed to break free and defeat Freeze by causing an explosion that weakened Freeze. After his capture, Freeze was taken to
Iron Heights Prison. During the "
Salvation Run" storyline, Mr. Freeze is among the villains who are sent to another planet by a Boom Tube by the
Suicide Squad. Mr. Freeze later fashions a sub-zero machine for
Nyssa al Ghul in exchange for the use of her Lazarus Pit. He attempts to restore Nora to life without waiting for the adjusting needed in the pool chemicals; she returns to life as the twisted Lazara and escapes. She blames her husband for her plight, and she estranges herself from him.
The New 52 and
Peter Steigerwald. In September 2011, "
The New 52" rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, during the "
Night of the Owls" storyline, the
Court of Owls sends assassins known as Talons to kill 40 of the most important citizens of Gotham, including Mr. Freeze.
Red Hood,
Starfire, and
Arsenal choose to save him, and subsequently remand him into
Batgirl's custody.
Batman Annual (vol. 2) #1 introduces a new origin for Mr. Freeze. Here, Victor Fries' fascination with cryonics began when he was a boy and his mother fell through the ice of a frozen lake. The ice was able to keep her preserved long enough for help to arrive, thus sparking his lifelong obsession with cold. It is later revealed that the accident left Fries' mother in constant pain, and Fries ended her suffering by pushing her into the same frozen lake. In this new origin, Nora was never Fries' wife. Her name was Nora Fields, a woman born in 1934. When Nora was 23, she was diagnosed with an incurable heart disease, so her family placed her in cryogenic stasis hoping that a cure would be found in the future. Fries, having written his doctoral thesis on Nora, took on a position as a cryogenic researcher and technician at Wayne Enterprises, the facility that housed Nora's body. Eventually, he fell in love with Nora and became dedicated to finding a reliable method for slowly thawing cryogenic subjects. However, Bruce Wayne ordered the project to be shut down, as he began to feel uncomfortable with Fries' obsession with Nora. Furious, Fries hurled a chair at Wayne, who dodged the attack; the chair smashed into an array of cryonic chemical tanks, the contents of which sprayed onto Fries and transformed him into Mr. Freeze. The Court of Owls uses Freeze's cryogenic-thaw formula to revive their Talons, and then they try to kill him. Freeze survives but is captured by the Red Hood and sent to
Arkham Asylum. He escapes shortly afterward and rearms himself with the Penguin's help. Freeze decides to kill Bruce Wayne and takes Nora, whom he believes to be his wife so that they can leave
Gotham City behind forever. Infiltrating
Wayne Enterprises, Freeze has a brief fight with
Nightwing and
Robin, but he subdues them. Then, Freeze goes to the penthouse, where he finds Batman and the frozen Nora. Batman defeats Mr. Freeze by injecting his suit with the thawing formula, which he had intended to use to revive Nora from suspended animation. During the "
Forever Evil" storyline, Mr. Freeze appears as a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains at the time when the
Crime Syndicate arrived from their world. The
Scarecrow later visits Mr. Freeze to let him know of the war going on at
Blackgate Penitentiary. The
Man-Bats are able to bring the remaining Talons to Mr. Freeze after the Man-Bat and the Scarecrow steal them from Blackgate. Mr. Freeze and
Clayface later encounter the Rogues when they land in their territory. Mr. Freeze tells
Mirror Master he is not interested in capitalizing on the bounty on their heads, only to use the
Weather Wizard to create optimal conditions for him to freeze Gotham. As the Rogues are fighting the two, Black Mask (alongside his
False Face Society) arrives to capture the Rogues to receive the bounty.
DC Rebirth In 2016, DC Comics implemented a relaunch of its books called "
DC Rebirth" which restored its continuity to a form much as it was prior to "The New 52". In
Doomsday Clock, Mr. Freeze is among the villains who meet with the
Riddler to discuss the Superman Theory. When the
Comedian crashes the meeting, Freeze's helmet is punctured by a bullet shot by an unseen combatant. In the "Ends of the Earth" story arc of
All-Star Batman, Freeze has awoken many people who have been held in cryogenic stasis — using them as an army to steal resources for his research to cure his wife Nora, himself, and all of these people — and plans to release deadly bacteria held in one of the world's oldest ice cores to make a new world, but
Batman has injected himself with a cold-resistant virus that becomes airborne when his skin is exposed and is able to kill the spores. In "
Dark Nights: Metal", Mr. Freeze was given a special playing card by
The Batman Who Laughs that gave him innate cryokinesis. Mr. Freeze and his frost monsters fought different superheroes who moved through his domain. Robin is the one who defeated Mr. Freeze and he regressed back to normal when the threat of the Dark Multiverse was sent back to its own dimension. Several years later, in "
Year of the Villain",
Lex Luthor gives Mr. Freeze a vial that would cure and furthermore revive his frozen wife. Freeze had to kidnap several women who matched his late wife's characteristics in both mental and physical states, going as far as modifying their DNA to hers to experiment with the vial before reviving his wife. In the end, it worked and his wife came back to life cured. She soon took up the name "Mrs. Freeze". After Mrs. Freeze betrayed him, Mr. Freeze turned to Batman for help. During the fight, Mrs. Freeze used a syringe on Mr. Freeze, which started to heat him up while also eradicating the special nanites that kept him cold without the assistance of his cryogenic suit. Batman places Mr. Freeze in the same cryogenic state that Nora was in while Mrs. Freeze flees to the northern parts of Canada. ==Powers and abilities==