The following events are fictional in nature. The story is inspired by the book An Unauthorized
Detailed Account of Gotham (1919-1939) by GiantPandaKing. Viewer discretion advised.
In the wake of the Great War, fewer people were allowed immigration to the U.S. from Europe,
but some were still admitted. One such person was Victor Fries,
a scientist from Austria. He had traveled to America to further develop his research
into the newly budding field of cryogenics. He expected to find much in his research,
but what he did not expect to find was true love. It was here in America that Victor met Nora.
The two fell in love and soon became married. She was the only one who could melt his heart.
Soon, Victor's research began to gain the attention of many important people.
He was approached by the board of GothCorp, the second biggest company in Gotham.
They offered him funding for his research and a laboratory to house his experiments.
With Victor at the lead, GothCorp was in a full-on technology race with Wayne Enterprises to find the
next big breakthrough. This soon began to unravel, however, with the discovery that Nora was sick.
In fact, she was dying. Victor thought that his research might be the key to her salvation,
beginning to embezzle funds from GothCorp to advance his experiments faster and faster.
This did not go unnoticed, and he soon found himself being confronted by the GothCorp board
of directors. They moved to forcibly shut down his experiments and lab, but Victor,
in pure desperation, tried to stop them. His attempt resulted in machinery being knocked loose,
spraying him with an experimental subzero substance he had developed.
It changed the very fiber of his being, increasing his strength, allowing him to be immune to pain
and sickness, but at a terrible cost: he could only survive in sub-zero temperatures.
It was soon after this incident that his wife Nora passed away from her illness.
Victor, upon this tragic event, gave in to his anger over his grief.
He constructed a suit that allowed his body to stay in an environment of extreme cold.
He weaponized his cryogenics technology, creating a "freeze gun," which he used to assault the
members of GothCorp's board. His vendetta against those who, in his mind, were responsible for
his wife's death, rocked Gotham to its core. The city's occupants saw fluctuations in the weather,
experiencing snow in the dead of summer, stretches of frozen road causing multiple accidents,
and in some cases death. The police tried their best, but Victor Fries, now dubbed Mr. Freeze by
the Gotham Gazette, proved too much for them. The Bat-Man, having learned Victor's tragic reasons
for his actions, confronted him trying to reason with the broken man. Try as he might, Freeze's
heart was cold as ice. The only person who could have thawed it was dead. In a climactic battle,
The Bat-Man defeated Freeze by breaching his containment suit, causing him to be incapacitated.
JACK RYDER:"Jack Ryder here, bringing you a live report of the battle between the Bat-Man and Mr.
Freeze! Much of Gotham's business district is covered in a blizzard to rival the Knickerbocker
Storm of '22! The Bat-Man seems to be gaining the upper hand... Oh Freeze just blasted the Bat with
his freeze ray! Now Bat-Man is reaching for one of his utility pouches! Zing, zang pow! He knocked
Freeze's gun right out of his hand! It looks like they're about to say something!" FREEZE:
"They killed her, Bat-Man. Now I'm going to kill them and put them on ice." BAT-MAN: Victor,
they had nothing to do with it. You'll pay for what you've done to this city." JACK RYDER: "Only
time will tell whether or not the Dark Knight will be able to thaw this conundrum of cold!
Stay tuned Gothamites!" Because of his extreme condition, a special containment
cell was constructed for Mr. Freeze at Blackgate Federal Penitentiary. It allowed him to survive
in lockup as long as he didn't try to escape. It was the start of Blackgate's Special Inmate
Program which took into account special cases such as the Man-Bat and Killer Croc.
Victor's story was a sad one, though, eventually, even his anger gave way to nothing but coldness.
He was a shadow of the man he had once been, and there was no melting his heart this time.
He remained a prisoner in Blackgate until it closed its doors. His enhanced biology allowed
him to live much longer than the average man. Eventually, once the prison was closing, and
having served his sentence, he was released in the dead of winter and wandered into the wilderness.
Some claim he traveled to Antarctica where he could live out his days in peace,
while others claim he died once winter passed. No one knows for sure. Some of his technology
surfaced during World War II on both sides of the war, but not much else is truly known
about what happened to Victor Freeze. In 1954, at the first Cryogenic Engineering Conference,
his work was discussed in great detail, for even in spite of his erratic behavior,
Victor had made strides in the industry. His work helped lay the foundation for modern cryogenics.
This did not absolve him entirely, however. At the end of the day his legacy was one of ice and cold.