We all know Batman has a cornucopia of villains. He’s got clowns, he’s got freaks, and he’s got villains in Russia and in Africa. He’s got people against him in different planetary systems for god sakes! One villain I have always had admiration for is Mr. Freeze. Like the majority of people I got into the character because of ‘Batman: The Animated Series’. Freeze is such a tragic character that I find it so hilarious he was a joke for the majority of his existence. With the new 52 for DC and this ‘Night of the Owl’ story line headlining Batman it seemed like a no brainier that Freeze would be coming back. Hell you got Scott Snyder and newbie James Tynion IV writing him. How can this go wrong? (And how can I write this review without doing a cold pun?)

Now with two writers involved it is a bit tough to tell who is writing who. I could never figure out in other Snyder co-plotting issues on what he wrote on what page. Is he writing some of the dialogue or is it just ideas he’s giving to Tynion IV? Well with this annual it is quite easy to tell who wrote what page and boy does it make this issue a mess. There are some fantastic moments in this reintroduction to Mr. Freeze, especially with the flashbacks to his childhood. That is pure Scott Snyder writing and of course it’s grim as hell. But when we go to the present with Freeze trying to cut all ties with Gotham and leave with Nora? That’s when it becomes an issue for me. It’s just….well it’s boring. I don’t mind the changes in this let me be clear with that. Freeze being able to touch someone and “freeze” them (not a pun!) is fine and the twist with Nora was okay. But for me, it just felt like a generic issue for me. Nothing really stands out apart from the flashbacks and even then the moments with Freeze at Wayne Tech are tame. You can tell Tynion got most of the reign with the present and Wayne Tech flashbacks because it reads nothing like Snyder. I like Tynion and I think he has a lot of promise ever since he started those backups for Batman. I just don’t think Mr. Freeze is the right character for him to work on.

Jay Fabok is the artist for this annual and this is a man who has mainly worked for David Finch and worked on Soulfire comics. So you can sort of see what his style is before even seeing the pages. That didn’t deter me from this annual though; because a sharp, stylized look might work well for Freeze. There are some nice pages and panels in this issue; mainly towards the end with Batman confronting Freeze; but for the most part I also found the art to be a bit boring. It’s just there and nothing really stood out for me. That and his faces are just all over the place, especially with Bruce Wayne in the flashbacks. He looked more like ‘The Smiler’ from Transmetropolitan than Bruce Wayne. The cold effects are nice in this and for a book about Mr. Freeze it better be good. I don’t know, I just found myself wanting more from most of these pages.

Ever since Scott Snyder took over Batman with the relaunch there has yet to be a bad issue in my mind…..Fortunately I don’t think this is a bad issue so that previous sentence was meaningless. I will say this is probably the most disappointing work on Batman he’s done since the relaunch. Maybe he isn’t the problem though, and ‘the green’ James Tynion IV showed some of his rookie mistakes with this issue. But I don’t want to put all the blame on him so maybe Jay Fabok’s bland art is also the culprit. Whatever the case may be, this issue just could have been better considering it has one of my favorite Batman villains involved. Maybe these guys will get the chance to do Mr. Freeze again and it’ll be what I was hoping for.

….And I went the whole review without doing a cold pun.