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    Mr. Freeze

    Character » Mr. Freeze appears in 1128 issues.

    After his wife became terminally ill, Dr. Victor Fries devoted his life to saving her and used cryogenics to freeze her to get time to find a cure. After being attacked by his boss Ferris Boyle and exposed to some of his chemicals, Fries could only survive in sub-zero temperatures and built a special suit to keep himself alive, becoming Mr Freeze.

    In this universe, there's only one absolute... everything freezes

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    RazzaTazz

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    Edited By RazzaTazz
    No Caption Provided
    I went from getting a song stuck inside my head, to creating a list based on a line in that song, to then wondering about a disparity in that list.  My list is one which tries to identify all the characters in DC with cold based powers or abilities.  I had never thought about it before but most cold based characters are villains.  There is no readily apparent answer for this as those characters with cold based powers (Icemaiden or Iceman) do a pretty decent job of being a hero with what they have got.  However, digging a little deeper does reveal a few things.  I am thinking first of all of Batman and Robin (the movie) in which Mr. Freeze encases various people in ice, explaining that the heroes have 11 (it might have been 13) minutes to save them before they die.  This is partially true.  A good lifeguard or emergency room doctor will tell you that a patient is not dead until they are warm and dead (as was sort of realistically portrayed in the Abyss) and this is so much true that a lot of heart surgery in modern years involves putting the patient into near hypothermia.  This overlooks something about the situation though, people who can be resuscitated in this way have generally gotten cold slowly (at least more slowly than a cold gun allows) in which case most people would start to suffer brain damage after 3 minutes without oxygen.  That having been said, a lot of the offensive abilities of ice powers are portrayed as potentially fatal.  An ice attack would not have to involve encasing the head though, which is what the heroic characters do.  To be honest I think there is something even more primal at play here and something which social workers that deal with the homeless in cold climates have to worry about, that being that the cold is a lot more dangerous than the heat in a certain sense.  If you fall asleep in +50 degree whether (that's Celsius) you might wake up dehydrated.  On the other hand if you fall asleep in -50 degree weather chances are you never do wake up.  An aversion to cold is something which is natural in most people (yes, even for Canadians) so it is not surprising that the ability to control cold is usually portrayed as something which only villains do.  Incidentally the ability to control cold also created about 500 bad cold puns in Batman and Robin
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    SC

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    #1  Edited By SC  Moderator

    I use to fear the snow and ice that is abundant in Australia. I agree about the primal fear associated therefore with the cold.  
     
    What are your thoughts do that man's fascination with fire on such a base level, gives fire based characters a head start of sorts over ice characters (I remember a comic writer trying to identify why Human Torch seemed more popular than iceman in the 70's and 80's. (or possibly 0's as well, I can't recall the specifics) 

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    cattlebattle

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    #2  Edited By cattlebattle

    COOL PARTY!!  LOL
     
    I always thought Killer Frost had quite a brilliant name for a villain considering the definition of that term, even though the actual term is the "killing frost"

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    MajinBlackheart

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    #3  Edited By MajinBlackheart  Moderator

    Pfft... Celsius

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    CellphoneGirl

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    #4  Edited By CellphoneGirl

    I noticed this before myself, but i did always wonder as to why it was like that. Nice way of explaining it :]

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    RazzaTazz

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    #5  Edited By RazzaTazz
    @jloneblackheart: Well I wouldn't want to sleep outside in either +50 or -50 Fahrenheit.
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    azza04

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    #6  Edited By azza04

    I had never been a fan of freeze powers until I played Infamous 2. Now I think there awesome.

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    Mr.Q

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    #7  Edited By Mr.Q
    cold hearted. cold blooded killer. 'murdered' in cold blood. particularly bed or 'villainous'  people are often referred to as just 'cold'. as you say we do have a tendency to link unfavorable actions or characteristics with cold. cold is the unknown. cold is night. cold is the absence of the comfort of warmth. when frightened it is said we feel a 'chill' run down the spine. as you have said we will most likely always associate cold with the unpleasant, cruel, and the evil. thanks for the thoughts. will mull this over... 
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    difficlus

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    #8  Edited By difficlus

    I think the brain boils at over 47 degree Celsius temperature so sleeping in 50+ would most certainly kill someone. 

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    Godlovesusall

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    #9  Edited By Godlovesusall

    This quote is one of my most favorites,along with "Tonight's forecast..a freeze is coming!" and "Prepare for a bitter harvest.Winter has come at last!" This may be because I played the Batman and Robin videogame for the classical PlayStation (that cryo-beam did a LOT of damage but I emerged victorious.Mwa hahahahahaha!!:)

    I believe cold is more renowned than heat not only for villains but also for the good guys.There's a reason Sub Zero is so famous and is the only character present in ALL Mortal Kombat games-except the spin-off Special Forces.And favorite character of the franchise for many,including me.

    PS:You forgot about Russians.Even at summer,the temperature rarely goes above 10 degree Celsius!

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