WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman/Catwoman #4, by Tom King, Clay Mann, Tomeu Morey and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
Gotham City is filled with plenty of star-crossed, fan-favorite couples, and their love stories often veer into tragedy given the harsh, unforgiving environment of Batman’s hometown.. From heroes like Batman and Catwoman and Nightwing and Batgirl to antiheroes like Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, plenty of iconic characters have found love in that hopeless place. And that love lives on in the maxiseries Batman/Catwoman, which provides a look at Gotham’s possible future after Bruce Wayne dies from cancer with his beloved wife Selina Kyle by his side.
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And as Bruce and Selina’s crimefighting daughter Helena Wayne embarks on an investigation into a bloody murder close to home in Batman/Catwoman #4, she discovers that the classically tragic romance between Mister Freese and his wife Nora has since had its dynamic reversed.
In the wake of the Joker’s murder at the hands of Catwoman, Helena begins interrogating all the other supervillains that were active during the height of her parents’ own superhero careers to learn more about what the Gotham-based supervillain community was like decades ago. This line of questioning ends with Nora Fries, who maintains a studious vigil by her husband Victor’s side. In a bit of a role swap from most iterations of the married couple, it is Victor who is now held in a cryogenic stasis tube — with his Mr. Freeze costume left collecting dust — with Nora conducting research and longing to be reunited with her husband.
Victor and Nora’s tragic love was introduced not in the comic books, but in the supervillain’s inaugural appearance on Batman: The Animated Series in the Emmy Award-winning episode “Heart of Ice” written by Paul Dini. After Nora contracted a terminal illness without any known cure, Victor put her in a cryogenic stasis while he committed crimes to fund his research for a way to cure her condition. The universally acclaimed reception to Freeze’s new, tragic backstory led DC to incorporate this revised origin into comics starting with 1997’s one-shot special Batman: Mr Freeze by Dini, Mark Buckingham and Wayne Faucher. This backstory would appear in future multimedia depictions of Mr. Freeze, from live-action film and television to video games.
Nora’s appearance further suggests that the events of Batman/Catwoman occur outside of the main DC Universe continuity. In her conversation with Helena, Nora implies that she has never actually met Catwoman or the Joker learning about them only from conversations with Victor before he was put on ice due to his own undisclosed condition. During the DC Rebirth era, Nora had emerged from the ice to become the supervillain Mrs. Freeze and go on her own polar crime spree. And the Infinite Frontier era has launched on an ominous note for the Freeze family, with Nora discovered to be an apparent murder victim on the outskirts of Gotham while Victor’s current status — and how he will react to his wife’s death — are still unknown.
Batman and Catwoman are far from the only Gotham City power couple and, in Batman/Catwoman‘s alternate future timeline, one supervillain couple just can’t seem to catch a break. Victor and Nora’s tragedy has endeared them to millions of fans and made Mr. Freeze one of Gotham’s most sympathetic supervillains. And even though Nora has been cured by the time Batman and Catwoman’s daughter has become a superhero herself, time has caught up to Victor, necessitating his own prolonged ice bath for the foreseeable future, leaving his wife staring at his heart of ice.
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