Will there be some ice cold puns?
What They Say:
Batman must stop a vengeful Mr. Freeze from fulfilling his vendetta against a callous businessman.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One of the things I appreciated about this show when it started was that it didn’t rely just on really well-known top tier villains to work with. Starting with Catwoman wasn’t a surprise since that fits into the ambiguity and we had the whole Batman Returns movie, but also playing with a character like Man-Bat wasn’t the norm for a lot of folks familiar with the gangster style characters of the 60’s series. With this episode, we get the complicated character of Mr. Freeze, which was made very cartoonish in a live-action film by Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is very different from this more tragic character here. With it leaning well into the noir/gothic style of something far older, the design for Mr. Freeze is great as it has that older feeling that definitely clicks and feels both familiar and distinct.
With a wave of cold-related crimes going on throughout Gotham, Batman’s working the detective side well to reveal that all the thefts are part of a bigger plan that looks to be for a weapon of mass destruction. That sets him on the right course to figure out where the next strike is and that’s where we get our first encounter between the two. One that while filled with passion has a villain that’s very tempered in his style of speech that makes him all the more threatening. Mr. Freeze is a good foil for Batman as we see here because he’s pretty straightforward and without the flamboyance of some of the other villains, more methodical and almost in a way reminiscent of Dr. No from the James Bond world in this incarnation for me. The initial fight is a strong one to showcase both hero and villain with its execution but also its cruelty in how Mr. Freeze operates.
This early episode also gave us more of a look at the Batcave with Batman bringing back one of Mr. Freeze’s hired hands to try and help from having his legs frozen. It’s not gone into in a big way but just some of the little design elements, especially its bigger sixties style design for all the gear, always leaves me grinning. Also leaving me grinning with this episode is having Batman fighting off a cold, which gives us some comical sneezing moments and a lot of coughing when he goes as Bruce Wayne to investigate the company involved in one of the thefts. The balance of investigations both as Batman and Bruce Wayne was one of the strengths of the show early on as well, letting us see both incarnations of our leading character while not really taking a stand on which identity he likely believes is the real him. All of these little things build a world that feels pretty nicely layered early on.
It also helps that the series, while giving the villains prominence, rarely let them overshadow an episode. The Mr. Freeze origin is revealed about halfway through here and we do feel some sympathy toward him because of the loss of his wife and his attempts to save her. But that goes only so far considering the things he’s done to save her, which keeps him in the villain column still. The origin is well-presented in this as we get to see it through an awkwardly cut videotape that Batman discovers, allowing him some empathy for his opponent. There’s a tragicness about him Mr. Freeze that clicks even with all the things that he does and with the voice that they gave him. Michael Ansara really worked well in this role and it was just a delight to get to hear him at the time as I had grown up with him through Buck Rogers a bit and it was a nice touch back for me.
In Summary:
Heart of Ice works a fairly traditional origin story for the villain and it’s one that lets Batman discover it while trying to stop the rampage that he’s on. Mr. Freeze has all the reason in the world for the path he takes here with what happened to him and his path of seeking revenge and justice in some other form might be one where he’s the hero of the story. And here, from his point of view, he is the hero of the story in getting revenge for his wife and his own life. That being able to sympathize with him and why he does what he does makes him a compelling villain and one that comes across wonderfully here from start to finish. Mr. Freeze has had a lot of interpretations since his comic book creation but it’s in this incarnation that I found my favorite one.
Grade: B+
