Much hay is made of the concepting of Batman villains, especially from 60s TV series ft. Adam West. It’s done within canon, even! The Condiment King was created for the 90s animated series as a play on those kinds of whimisical, pun-focused villains. He shoots sauce and says things like “You just don’t cut the mustard, Batman!”. Maybe when you have to put out at least one issue a month, you throw a lot of villain spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, and once something does you then go about making “guy who has a thing for the calendar” more of a rounded character – a sinister dude with a weird backstory. Or you make him the world’s greatest wife guy.
Mr. Freeze is, was and will probably always be my favourite Batman villian. Sure, he brings the puns as a 60s baddie, but he got his tragic backstory in the 90s. Turns out his whole deal is his drive to save his terminally ill wife Nora, who has been both metaphorically and/or literally fridged (depending on the version of his story) as motivation for him. This has been used to great effect in many adaptations, painting Victor Fries as a much more sympathetic figure all round. In the Harley Quinn animated series (which is very good) this is really brought to the fore, and he’s presented as less a villain and more a victim of circumstance.
Mr. Freeze is, in effect, a classic wife guy, a vintage brand. He was a wife guy before it was, if you’ll allow me, cool. “I love this woman and her curvy body”, but what are you doing to preserve that body for years to come, huh? If you love your wife so much why haven’t you frozen her? This is perhaps unfair on the Curvy Wife Guy; we might not all choose to cryogenically freeze our dying spouse and then do crime to fund the research, but also most of us haven’t had the chance. It might be that the lack of resource and relevant doctorate is all that’s stopping us.
Related: Mr. Freeze is also a humble king. He has a PhD, and could force us to call him Dr. Freeze, but he does not. Please, Dr. Freeze is his father. Here he is both reaffirming his identity as the wife guy villain persona – the entire reason Mr. Freeze exists is as the partner to his Mrs – but also redressing the balance whereby women with PhDs are often not addressed with the title. On many levels we can see that Mr. Freeze is a true feminist ally who chooses to lean in.
Anyway, I guess he might be coming to Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League as a DLC playable character now, or something (via PCGamer)? The potential leak was revealed when a player attacked main villain Braniac, playing as Harley Quinn, and Braniac called her “Freeze”. A Xitter user called Miller Ross, who is apparently known for leaks, then referred to this Freeze as “Victoria”, leading to speculation that this version will be a Mrs. Freeze.
Apparently Suicide Squad has a multiverse angle (big “I don’t understand the question and I won’t respond to it” vibes off of me here), so I suppose the idea is that it’ll be an alternate universe version of Victor that is in fact An Lady. It seems unlikely that a third-person, open-world, action-shmup will provide much opportunity for character nuance, but maybe Freeze (of whatever gender) will yell “THIS IS FOR MY BELOVED WIFE!” when you flash-freeze armoured goons. The first Season of Suicide Squad starts on March 1st.
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