It’s that time again pop culture fans! We have a blizzard of a “Versus” for you this time! We take two cold masters, and turn them against one another. On the south pole, we have Iceman from Marvel Comics. And on the north pole, we have Mr. Freeze from DC Comics. Both of our characters have aired in movies, tv and video games over the years! (You might want to thank them for having those movie theatres air-conditioned during those blistering summers.) Who will turn you to ice, and which one will warm your hearts but have a cold handshake? We start out with a little info about each character. Then we have a poll! We’ll let you, the reader, decide who wins. Without further ado, here are the cold-hard facts.
Mr. Freeze (DC Comics)
Dr. Victor Fries (Pronounced “freeze”) was an accomplished cryogenicist whose beloved wife Nora was stricken with a fatal degenerative disease. Fries placed her in suspended animation while searching for a way to cure her. But GothCorp’s CEO Ferris Boyle stopped funding the research—and Nora’s life—and pulled the plug, triggering an accident that transformed Fries’ body into a cold-blooded form that must always be kept at subzero temperatures; at normal room temperature he will die.
Wielding a number of freezing weapons, he wears a protective cryogenic suit in his quest to somehow restore his wife to full health and avenge her fate—which he partly holds Batman responsible for.
When Victor Fries was a child he made a hobby of freezing animals in order to preserve them so they can continue to exist in the future. Worried by this behavior, his parents sent him to a strict boarding school where Victor felt outcast and became depressed. However, when he met and befriended a young woman named Nora, the two fell in love and later married. But their happiness was short-lived: Nora was diagnosed with a fatal disease, and Fries, sickened with sorrow, attempted to save her using cryogenic technology. However, the experiment went terribly wrong and Fries’ equipment malfunctioned, consuming him and his lab in an explosion of ice.
Victor somehow survived, but now his body could only survive at sub-zero temperatures, and Nora’s condition was now even more serious. In an effort to continue his wife’s treatment, he constructed a suit which would now protect him in his altered state. Calling himself Mr. Zero, he began to rob several banks to get money. He was eventually thwarted by Batman and Robin, but struggled on. As Mr. Zero, he uses cryonic technology to create a gun, which fires a beam that freezes any target within its range.
After faking his death, Gotham City believed he was dead. During this time, Fries rearranged his costume and returned, calling himself Mr. Freeze. To this day he continues to fight Batman and Robin.
In Villains United #1, Freeze has frozen everyone inside a courtroom. While using a frozen man as a chair, he talks with the Calculator, who convinces him to join the Secret Society of Super Villains. During his time with the group, he fashions for Nyssa al Ghul a sub-zero machine in exchange for the use of her own Lazarus Pit. He attempts to restore Nora to life without waiting for the adjusting needed in the pool chemicals. However, she returns to life as the twisted Lazara, and escapes. She blames her husband for her plight, and estranges herself from him.
He is usually imprisoned in Arkham Asylum when apprehended by the Batman, as it is the only facility in Gotham that can accommodate his medical requirements for a refrigerated cell.
He appears in the Robin section of the No Man’s Land crossover, as one of the villains competing for control of Gotham City’s sewers. During this time he flash freezes the duo Tommy Mangles and Gearhead.
Mr. Freeze has joined with the Injustice League but was arrested after the villains attacked Green Arrow and Black Canary’s wedding. Amanda Waller has the remaining members of the Injustice League taken away to a distant planet, Freeze included.
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Freeze’s head on robotic spider legs, inspired by The New Batman Adventures
He appears in Justice League Adventures #12 along with several other cold based villains like Captain Cold, and Snowman. They attempted to take over an African nation, and were defeated by the Justice League.
Powers and Abilities
• Decelerated Aging: Some interpretations suggest that because he has been soaked in the serum he intended to use for cryo-preservation, his age progression has slowed drastically.
• Toxic Immunity: His unique physiology makes him immune to most toxins, bacteria and viruses.
• Superhuman Strength And Durability: Mr. Freeze’s suit grants him superhuman strength and durability.
• Genius-Level Intellect: Mr. Freeze is a scientific genius, his specialty in cryogenics. He employs an extensive array of cryo-weaponry in his driven quest, motivated by his grief and anger over the fate of his wife Nora.
• Polymath: Victor is also a polymath who has specialized in multiple fields of medicine, engineering and science.
• Multi-Lingual: He’s able to speak English, German, Greek and Latin.
• Mechanical Engineering: He’s a gifted mechanic, having built his Cryo Suit, Cold Gun and life support machine for Selina Kyle, who had her heart removed by Hush.
• Genetics
• Cryogenics Expert: While Mr. Freeze is a skilled scientist in multiple fields, his specialty is cryogenics, an interest that started at an early age. His skill has allowed him to put his wife in suspended animation and make multiple cryogenic weapons.
• Chemistry
• Freeze Gun: A weapon able to create gusts of cold that approach absolute zero. The gun is also capable of creating a “cold field” and imprison their opponents in a cocoon of ice.
Iceman (Marvel)
Bobby Drake discovered his mutant power to create ice while in his early teens, yet kept his condition hidden from everyone but his parents. Initially, Bobby was unable to stop feeling cold and shivering, but soon managed to keep it under control. When a bully named Rocky Beasely and his friends attacked Bobby and his then-girlfriend, Judy Harmon, the youngster panicked. To save Harmon, Bobby temporarily encased Rocky in ice, thus revealing his abilities for all to see. Believing the boy to be a menace, the townspeople organized a lynch mob. They broke into Bobby’s home and overpowered him, but the local sheriff took the teenager into custody for his own protection. Meanwhile, the situation had come to the attention of Professor Charles Xavier, the telepathic mentor of the team of teenage mutant super heroes the X-Men.
Professor X dispatched his first X-Man, Cyclops, to contact Bobby. Cyclops stole into the jailhouse as planned, but the two began fighting when Bobby refused to accompany him. Caught by the lynch mob, Cyclops and Bobby were about to be hanged when they broke free. Professor X used his mental powers to halt the townspeople in their tracks and erase their memories of Bobby’s powers. A grateful Bobby then accepted Xavier’s invitation to enroll at his School for Gifted Youngsters and took the codename Iceman. Though initially granting him a snow-like form, Bobby soon learned to increase his degree of cold control resulting in an ice-like, almost transparent form.
Hated and feared by humanity, the X-Men honed their amazing abilities while standing in defense of a world pushed to the brink of genetic war by a handful of mutant terrorists. Iceman, the team’s youngest founding member, became known as the comedian of the group. Regardless, he pulled his weight and worked well with rest of the team.
Following a short break-up after believing their mentor was dead, the X-Men reformed with two new members – the magnetism-manipulating Polaris and the plasma-charged Havok. Bobby had a brief romantic relationship with Polaris until she realized that her heart belonged to Havok. Bobby had trouble accepting her decision, which led to increased tension between himself and Havok. Eventually, Bobby quit the team for a short time to sort out his feelings.
Later, when the sentient island-being known as Krakoa took Bobby and his team mates captive, Professor X assembled a second team of X-Men to rescue them. Soon after, most of the founding members left the team and Bobby began attending college on a scholarship. Eventually, he helped his former team mate Angel form the Champions of Los Angeles. When the Champions disbanded, Bobby went missing, and Angel teamed up with the costumed adventurer Spider-Man to find him. Bobby had been hypnotized by the Champions’ enemy Rampage into donning his battle suit, and Angel and Spider-Man were forced to battle him. After Rampage was defeated, Bobby quit his life as a costumed adventurer and returned to college full time to study accounting.
Later, Bobby was contacted by Professor X to assist in rescuing friends and family of the X-Men from the assassin known as Arcade. Along with other former X-Men Banshee, Polaris, and Havok, the ad-hoc team managed to free the hostages and Bobby finally came to accept Polaris’ love for Havok.
During a summer break from college Bobby went to visit his former X-Men teammate Beast and soon became involved with the loose-knit collection of costumed heroes known as the Defenders. Along with Beast and Angel, Bobby helped reorganize the team into a more formal and cohesive unit. The Defenders eventually disbanded when several of their members appeared to perish during a climactic battle.
Soon after, Bobby joined the other founding X-Men to form X-Factor, an organization that intended to seek out and aid other mutants under the pretense of hunting down those perceived menaces to society. During his time with the team, the Asgardian trickster god Loki captured Bobby, hoping to use him to gain control over the Frost Giants. Loki enhanced Bobby’s powers to such an extent that he was forced to wear a power-dampening belt that was originally created by the subversive organization known as The Right to cancel out his powers. Once able only to sheathe his own body in a protective coating of ice, Bobby found he could encase the entirety of the Empire State Building. With time, Bobby gained sufficient control over his augmented powers that he was able to stop using the inhibitor belt. Believing he had achieved his full potential, Bobby never attempted to push himself beyond his perceived limits.
When Professor Xavier returned to Earth following an extended absence in outer space, Bobby and the other members of X-Factor rejoined the X-Men. Shortly thereafter, Bobby confronted former Cosmonaut Mikhail Rasputin, the reality-warping mutant brother of Bobby’s steel-skinned teammate Colossus. Rasputin forced Bobby into a form composed entirely of ice, affording the young mutant a glimpse into his true nature. Subsequently, Bobby began experimenting with his abilities – using ice to add mass to his slight frame, or lift himself high into the air without the benefit of his usual slides.
Months later, the psychically incapacitated mutant telepath Emma Frost took mental possession of Bobby’s body. Frost was able to activate the full extent of his powers, using his powers in ways Bobby had not thought possible until she was coaxed back into her own body by Professor X. With Frost’s prodding, Iceman later learned to completely transform his body into its full ice state on his own. Frost later also showed Bobby that he could safely revert back to his human form after his ice form’s chest had been shattered in battle.
Bobby later took a leave of absence from the X-Men to spend more time with his father who had been injured by the grass roots anti-mutant movement the Friends of Humanity. He returned briefly to the X-Men to rescue mutant doctor Cecilia Reyes during the government-sponsored anti-mutant Operation: Zero Tolerance, after which he returned to his father’s side.
Two subsequent events served to shed further light on Iceman’s untapped potential. To secure a new host body, the would-be conqueror Apocalypse sought to siphon the awesome energies of “The Twelve” – mutants of incredible power, destined to alter the course of human history. Among their number was Iceman, who survived the ordeal thanks only to the apparent sacrifice of Cyclops.
A second defining event occurred when the sentient spaceship Prosh escaped the confines of a Celestial prison, returned to Earth and dispatched a group of disparate beings on a journey through time to uncover the keys to preserving human evolution. Their mission: Save the human race from a threat that might not manifest itself for millions of years. When Prosh reassembled the members of his team in the present, they fought and defeated the enigmatic alien entity known as the Stranger, who sought to control the natural evolution of humans and mutants.
These experiences forced Iceman into the realization that he no longer need fear the evolution of his abilities, and he returned to the X-Men to explore his mutant powers to the fullest. After suffering a chest injury, Bobby was unable to prevent his body from transforming into solid ice due to the manifestation of a secondary mutation.
After the House of M incident Iceman was believed to be among the mutants who lost their powers, but this apparent loss of powers was quickly revealed to be a subconscious reaction to the trauma of that reality warp. Since recovering his powers, his ice form has taken on a much more jagged appearance.
Recently, Iceman has been using his powers in innovative ways, including the ability to exist as a sentient gas. He discovered this ability while fighting the Children of the Vault when they attacked the Mansion. After the fight with the Children, he joined Rogue’s team of X-Men.
Powers and Abilities
Iceman is able to lower his external and internal body temperature without harm to himself, thereby radiating intense cold from his body. Iceman is able to reach -105 degrees Fahrenheit within a few seconds, and is immune to sub-zero temperatures around him.
In addition, Iceman can freeze any moisture in the air around him into unusually hard ice, and thereby form simple objects such as slides, ladders, shields, and bats. He has even once shown the ability to achieve absolute zero temperatures, with the help of the Human Torch (who pulled the ambient heat away from Iceman), and was able to stop the molecular motion of a bomb. Iceman can augment his ice form with extraneous moisture to enhance his strength and durability, and can reshape his body’s ice form at will by using any available moisture from his surrounding environment. Similarly, Iceman can rebuild his ice form if any part of it is broken or if it is shattered completely without suffering any permanent damage.
Previously, Iceman was able to transform his body into solid ice and back to human form at will. For a time, however, his body was permanently transformed into solid ice as a result of a secondary mutation. After M-day, Iceman appeared to have lost his powers, returning to human form. However, this was revealed by Emma Frost as a mental block, and Iceman later regained his powers, along with the ability to change from human to ice form.
Iceman also possesses the potential to transport himself quickly over great distances through nearby flows of water by merging his body’s molecules with those of the stream.
And there’s your snow report! Who will leave you with a chill after all is done? We want you to decide which character will give you the cold shoulder. Want to hear more about this piece? Click on over to podcastunlimited.com, and look through our archives for episode 97, where will discuss this in our “Versus” segment. Don’t forget to vote in the poll and comment below. Also, tell us what characters you would like us to talk about. ‘Til the next time, this is the Engineer and Mr Freeze saying “Allow me to break the ice. My name is Freeze. Learn it well. For it’s the chilling sound of your doom.”
“Cold as ice, you know that you are.” – Foreigner, “Cold As Ice.”
– The Editor