Comments

1. deepspacesamurai says:

   May 31, 2012 at 12:41 am

   This was a fair review and I found myself nodding in agreement to you comparing it to a M. Night Shymalan twist. I can understand it leaving a sour taste in the mouth of many bat fans, not just you. On the other hand the more I think about it, the more I might prefer it this way. I always found the tragedy behind Freeze and his wife to be hard to swallow, and found myself often wanting Freeze to succeed in his efforts regardless of the crimes he commits. Gotham City breeds mad men, the worst kind of insane criminals. The idea of Mr. Freeze now being similar to other Gotham nut jobs leaves me more satisfied and less conflicted when seeing Batman take him down. Truthfully, the new freeze fits a Gotham criminal in my opinion, and probably always should have been so. Great review.

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   • riffraffrave says:

     May 31, 2012 at 5:34 am

     Thank you very much for taking the time to read my review and for the honest feedback. It’s my first review on the site and it’s fairly long compared to others’ so I really appreciate you responding.

     Change, especially in superhero comic, is inevitable; it just depends how skillful a writer is in implementing change and showing why it works for the characters (see Jeff Reid’s article on the site about Jason Todd for an example of change becoming squandered).

     I can see what you mean about the “Freeze has always been crazy” update making the Freeze/Batman conflict a bit more black & white and how Freeze now fits right in with the rest of the insane/mentally disturbed inmates of Arkham, but some of the best villains in literature/entertainment are regarded as such because they make us sympathize with them, that make the audience believe for a minute that they *should* win (like you said yourself). I always felt that gut-wrench when Freeze faced Batman, like “Damnit, Freeze, just turn yourself in and ASK BATMAN or BRUCE WAYNE FOR HELP!” I don’t believe that having a very black & white world of “hero is always right, villain is always wrong” makes for great stories in the long run. That extra layer that the tragic origin gave Freeze made him comparable to Frankenstein’s monster, now I believe he’s lost something in becoming just another crazy Gotham criminal.

     I have faith in Snyder &, Tynion IV to use this new interpretation of Freeze well in future stories, given how Snyder has commented on iFanboy how Freeze is one of his favourite villains.

     2 things I forgot to compliment in my review:

     – Nora Fries is back to being cryogenically frozen, a welcome retcon considering that the last I’d read of her she had finally been revived by Freeze in a Lazarus Pit, gone crazy and had become a villainess calling herself…uh…”Lazara”.

     – Freeze’s’ mother referring to “the old country”: I liked this reference even as a throwaway line as makes sense by addressing Fries’ surname and heritage.
2. jgraff says:

   May 31, 2012 at 10:37 am

   Good review, although the writing grade might be a bit high.
   I actually enjoyed the Owls tie in element. It added a layer and showed Gotham as a complex place, without feeling forced.
   The tweaked origin, however, was very disappointing. It seems strange that even with the criticism DC has received of late regarding their depiction of mental illness, they would still choose to strip Freeze of the one element that made him different (and interesting, and sympathetic) in favour of making him just another “madman”. Especially cheap was the inclusion of the tired old “he used to hurt animals as a child”, a la Black Hand, Joker, etc.
   So his mother has an accident, and as a result they both go CRAZY, him becoming an instant sociopath? This is lazy writing that completely changes the character for the worse. I’m hoping Snyder has something better in mind for the long term.
   Art wise, the fight sequences and costume reveal were quite striking, but Fabok needs to lay off the iPad – all the in-focus tiny-line detail on peoples faces during conversations scenes looks constructed rather than drawn.

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   • riffraffrave says:

     June 1, 2012 at 8:09 am

     Thanks for taking the time to read my review and for commenting.

     I don’t know whether the “freezing animals as a child” aspect was in the comics pre-New 52 but Paul Dini wrote it into the character in Batman: Arkham City. You’re right that animal abuse is a bit of a cliche in fictional psychopathic characters but I was happy to accept it in AC because of how Dini wrote the character’s history as a whole in the game (can’t recommend checking out AC enough to any Batman fans who haven’t picked it up if only to see Dini play with these characters again).

     I liked seeing it getting a reference in the Annual, but the stuff with Freeze’s mother felt out of place. Is the message that he’s always been a psycho and has killed family members? Or was it just a build up to the red apple/red goggles payoff?
3. johnomcg says:

   May 31, 2012 at 12:56 pm

   Nice review.

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   • riffraffrave says:

     June 1, 2012 at 8:09 am

     Thank you for taking the time to read it!
4. batglassjaw says:

   May 31, 2012 at 2:57 pm

   Hmmmm….whether or not to check this out…..hmmmmmm…..

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5. davetheman1010 says:

   June 3, 2012 at 12:22 am

   First off great review. ***SPOILERS***Freeze has been one of my favorite batman villains, top 5 for sure, and the idea of the twist I feel was a good Idea. Thought it could have been executed a little better. Like people before mentioned I don’t like the fact that they are making him a “cookie cutter” psychopath with “the freezing animals as a child”.
   Seeing your mother have a tragic accident like this, and having her be almost helpless, would be horrible for anyone. It drove him insane to the point of murdering his own mother. I can see how freeze became obsessed with cold and ice, coming up with a concept of loving a woman he has never met because he, more than anyone, knows how it may feel to be frozen and trapped. This is a great concept and makes me feel almost sorry for him. Just wish they excited a little better.
   I feel batman was the villain here the way he treats freeze telling him he cannot understand the meaning of love, empathy, and compassion. That all he can feel is hate. What a dick.

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   • rwpos says:

     June 3, 2012 at 10:33 am

     I really struggled with understanding how we go from seeing a young boy panic over his mother’s sudden accident to that same boy shoving that same miraculously saved (albeit mentally damaged) mother to her death very soon after her rescue. The only explanation would be that Freis was born with a significant mental defect; witnessing his mother’s accident alone wouldn’t account for that behavior. So between that and his clear break from reality in how he cryo-stalked Nora (did he really know that he and Nora didn’t actually know each other?) I found myself without any sympathy for the character. Bottom line for me, the once tragically motivated Mr. Freeze is now just one more of a multitude of crazy bat villains, and I can’t help feeling that we’ve lost something in that transition.