@SupBatz said:
@Durakken:
1. While I see your point, I still don't think that Freeze's new origin is a rip off of Batman Forever. It's a relatively common sort of origin and, as I said before, reminiscent of a sort of "mad scientist". It anything, it takes more elements from B:TAS's "Heart of Ice" (as is to be expected). Victor Fries works for a big company studying crygenics. His job, however, is really a front for him to further his own interests - specifically preserving Nora and trying to find a means of curing her. He is told his work is in danger of being shut down ("Heart of Ice" - financial reasons; "Batman Annual" - moral reasons). Fries does not heed the warning. His boss comes to shut down his work upon discovering Fries' alterior motives, and he is frozen by his own cryogenic technology. It's not really fair to say that the entire story (or even any of it) was drawn from Batman forever because Snyder, like any writer giving an old character a new origin, took the character's previous origin and changed it to fit the twist he was adding to the character. I highly doubt that Batman Forever even crossed his mind in the process.
As far as the sympathy goes - you present a good point (regarding the "Could everyone be capable of this in his situation?"). That quality in itself is lost but I still am hopeful that Freeze, in the future, will be written in a sympathetic light. That he was bring the fact that he studied Nora for years and feels that he knows her. That his motivations, like any well-minded citizen's, are to help a defenseless girl.
2. And, as far as the origin "mak[ing] him a 'Oh well we can just throw him in here because he's insane' type" character, we should wait before passing that judgment. While it is entirely possible that you are absolutely right and Freeze will be thrown in anywhere (even if he doesn't benefit the story) because of his new origin and wacko status, it is also quite possible that he will be used sparingly (as he should be) when it concerns rescuing the woman he believes he loves. He has yet to make an appearance since his origin was revealed (albeit that was not too long ago) and until he is used in a way where he was just thrown in because he is "insane" we should not assume he will be.
3. I haven't read the Penguin miniseries (though I've heard good things about it). But I don't think we can say that Snyder stole that from it. This is Mr. Freeze after all. 4. Freezing people is his M.O. And Snyder was trying to establish his growing fascination with the cold along with his lack of empathy. What better way is there than showing him, as a child, throwing his half-brain-dead mother into freezing water? To be fair though, I haven't read the miniseries so you could be completely right. I'll reserve judgment on that detail until I come across Penguin.
5. As far as I'm concerned, people down at DC are far too concerned about the timeline to the point where they're making stupid and contradictory decisions regarding it. They want all of their heroes to be young and just starting out so they're shrinking down everyone's timeline. Batman takes the bulk of the beating as a result. It's like you said, the DC staff comes and goes so hopefully this whole mess will be rectified when someone new comes along. I've always believed that when it comes to characters who have been around for decades (particularly comic book characters) it's best to not let the timeline rule the writing. Just keep making good stories and I won't be thinking "how did all of this stuff happen and Batman is so young?" or any such questions.
This site's quoting system sucks. It is so not easy breaking up a quote and I don't feel like doing it... so I think I'm just going to throw a bold number as a reference point in the quote.
1. In Heart of Ice I forget whether Fries works for Waynetech or not, but if I remember right story goes something like: Fries was a cryogenics scientist whose wife contracts an incurable disease. So Fries freezes her in hopes that a one day soon a cure will be discovered and will a defreezing method. In the Pre-Flashpoint storyline he did this secretly, but in B:TAS it was well known by the company who she was and all that. In B:TAS he is fired due to the research being scrapped and Nora's chamber is to be powered down, which btw would be illegal in the real world and Fries would have every right to not only rescue her but anyone else he saw fit to in that scenario. During the shenanigans to save Nora Fries is hit with his own chemicals and is frozen himself. In the Pre-Flashpoint continuity Fries is working with a company that is forcing him to weaponize cryogenics and he is refusing to complete such a dangerous weapon. He is then fired, Nora is to be decommissioned, and his research is going to be used to weaponize his research. All this happens at once and Fries tries to save Nora by sneaking into the lab. He is caught and in the heat of the moment gets hit with the Cryo chemicals, turning him into Fries.
Both of these stories are so well done because Fries is in the right in both of them. He's a good guy, trying to do what is right, but is screwed over by the system and so, he snaps. His actions reflect an attitude of he tried to be the good guy and tried to do everything right, but in the end all it has done for him is make him a monster, taken away his life, and most importantly his true love.
The Bizzaro Freeze is simply a delusional psychopath who has fabricated a false memory who is dangerous to everyone, including himself. He lacks a depth of character and we as readers do not sympathize with him because in the end he is wrong at every point. He's never right. He's not a good guy. He's nothing more than Zsasz with ice gun rather than a knife and not only is Bruce justified if Nora isn't his wife in this scenario he is justified even if she is. So now we have no psyche conflict with Batman either because Bruce is 100% right in this situation.
2. Here's the thing. If he isn't written that way then the origin story makes no sense because the character isn't the same. If the character isn't the same then that isn't his origin. It's a loop.A character develops from the events that happen in their life. There is a logical progression from point A to point C where B must be crossed and A must still be able to be seen within that character at point C. More importantly, Snyder's reasoning for doing this is because even though he loves B:TAS and the great stories in there, there are few if any in the comics (which is BS by the way. Fries' Pre-Flashpoint origin for one is a good story, as is Nora's revival, and the Gotham PD series story) and that they use him too sparingly because He doesn't fit in just anywhere. Or if you read what he means is that "we suck too much to write good stories that use Fries' great character so we are making him a shallow character that we can toss in anywhere," and there isn't really any other way to read that because the writers of DC are the ones responsible for more, better, story with Fries so if there aren't more it is them who can't write them. Also do you want to say that Night of Owls happened before or after his new origin was told? Either way this type of thing had to have been known well in advance and the Freeze character in Night of Owls does not reflect this origin.
3. Read it. That miniseries is great, though it does ease back towards the end.
4. The over the top obsession with the cold and the Lack of empathy are traits that develop out of the facts of his story above, AFTER, he becomes Freeze, which makes sense. He has been screwed by the world and he is stuck in a frozen world trying to revive a frozen wife. He because obsessed because of him cracking under all that has happened. Bizarro Freeze we are supposed to believe he has a lack of empathy and such but also that he empathizes and loves the frozen girl. There is no reason for him to become a scientist fascinated by the cold because we don't see him seeing that the ice can be used to preserve people, but rather we see him hurt people and he uses it to kill someone he supposedly loves. These things are contradictory and the events of the child Fries would never give rise to the Scientist Fries and he would never give rise to what we saw in Night of Owls.
5. I would love to get my hands on Didio and Lee and just kick them in the balls for hour for what the have done. I would also love to get my hands on the DCU and create something akin to the Marvel Ultimate Universe which they are somewhat doing, but doing such a horrible job at it. One of the first things I'd do is create a series of books, telling the history of the DC that would be like 100 pages and be the absolute authority to all the important events that happened that year of the DCU. Actually there would be 2 series. One going forward in time and one going backward. The one going forward would come out pretty quickly and then maybe once every couple years while the one going backwards would have to stop somewhere. The Series going forward would be called "After Superman" and the one going back would be "Before Superman." Everything in those books would be an absolute canon at least for DC Ultimate and the AS and BS time scale would become the way time is measured. There would obviously problems as time goes on, but it would give a very solid base for quite long time for people to write stories around and on.
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