Batman Annual #1
Writers: Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV
Artists: Jay Fabok and Peter Steigerwald
Cover Artists: Jay Fabok and Peter Steigerwald
Publisher: DC
Being a fifth week last week, there weren’t a whole lot of new DC books out, and for me, just the one. But fret not, it was a fantastic one. Scott Snyder and James Tynion have written here one of the best single issue, one-shot superhero stories this year. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Freeze in the new DC, but it is the first time we’ve gotten a glimpse into the history that made him the way he is. Fair warning for those of you who are just interested in the Court of Owls event, while the issue does touch on the subject, it isn’t a major factor. Instead, we get a fantastic story with multiple flashbacks, that are not hard to follow, but are tremendously fascinating to read.
What is exceptionally great about this story, is that Snyder and Tynion have completely changed Mr. Freeze, but at the same time kept him exactly the same. He has always been this mad scientist type character who’s tinkering away at his frozen wife, when he’s not wreaking havoc on poor Gotham. And in that sense, he’s the exact same character. However, that subtle change of her being frozen for years before he met her changes everything. Does it change canon? Sure. But this is post-Flashpoint, things change, move on. What it really does, is it clarifies his character. He’s no longer the romantic that will randomly kill people, he’s not the psychopath with serious issues that earns him a spot amongst the rest of Arkham’s inmates.
Jay Fabok and Peter Steigerwald make for a terrific artistic team, that any book would be lucky to have. The character drawings, backgrounds, and slight adjustments to layouts all add up to a gorgeous book. The colors help develop tension and plot progression. This group of creators has brought new life into an already invigorating character with this creative twist. 4.5/5
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Arnab Pradhan
arnab@comicattack.net
This was a great issue and being that I was already a Mr. Freeze fan it helped to solidify that in the New 52. Great twist on his origin and I loved that ending!
I don’t know if it’s the way you present it in the review, or the comic itself (which I haven’t read), but that sounds awful. Where’s his motivation now? Why is he a villain? It sounds like they took an interesting character with a legit background, and made him some crazy nobody.
@Kristin- That’s actually a very reasonable point, which could be because of how I reviewed it or not. The original origin has Freeze being a disparate husband trying to save his wife. The new Freeze is pretty much driven be snow. I wouldn’t say it’s his first love, but it is basically what drives him. His mom falls through a frozen lake, but she survives because of the extreme cold preserving her. Thus, his interest in the healing properties of cold was born. This eventually brings him to Nora, the first person to ever have been cryogenically frozen. He one-sided falls in love, which may not exactly be the same as before, but to him it is.
I mean, he’s still driven by “love”, albeit a bastardized version of it. The best way to describe his actions would be to say they are one part good(love for Nora) and one part bad(willingness to hurt others). Originally he was probably 60/40 in favor of his good side, whereas now it’s the opposite. Which personally, I think is a better fit. I always felt the amount of damage he’s caused and people he’s killed in the name of love was a little absurd. But now he’s a shade off being a complete psychopath, so the destruction is almost expected, but he’s still enough of a doctor and a romantic to believe he’s serving the greater good.
This is a long way of saying, yes they’ve slightly altered him. And depending on any one person’s point of view, it’s either for the better or for the worse. Of course it could also just be my inability to explain him properly, to which I’d recommend reading the issue because Snyder and Tynion properly make a better defense.
So…again, why is he a villain? What’s his motivation The healing properties of cold? How does that drive him to be evil?
And…in love with a woman he knows nothing about that he only found because of an obsession with the preservation properties of extreme cold….. How is that not absurd? Or psychotic? There’s no real reason for him to love Nora. He’s obsessed with the science around her, not with her. And I can buy that. But don’t try to make it sound like something more than it is. It sounds like they grossly simplified his character.
Guess I’ll have to track down a copy so I can judge for myself.