Neive's Playground

steelfoot:

catbountry:

denteddimension:

schrodingersvet:

banana-oil:

Nora loved the snow.

All he did was make it snow and Batman was on his ass?

What an asshole.

I think I feel more sorry for Mr. Freeze than Dr. Horrible.

…/states at that statement

;______;

These comic pages pretty much exemplify why Batman villains are some of the best villains in comics, if not in the entirety of writing.  They aren’t simply madmen with a fixation on some theme of crimes or some outstandingly nefarious or outlandish endgame; they’re three-dimensional characters with storied histories, past lives, and reasons for their choice of a life of crime.  Of course, a lot of them are insane (or else Arkham would be out of a job), but there’s reasons for their fixations, as well as what they do.  Though he was obsessed with cryogenics from a young age, Victor here wasn’t a super villain until a cascade of events cost him his wife and his existence as he knew it.  Harvey Dent had an abusive father who would beat him over a coin flip every night, causing Harvey to struggle with free will for his entire life, but he remained one of Batman’s greatest allies until sulfuric acid was thrown over half of his face, causing him to break and no longer be able to make decisions outside of a coin toss.  The only real outlier is the Joker who, quite frankly, is enough of a character in and of himself to not really need much of a backstory (which apparently really never has been worked out in the comic continuity anyways).  Having such complex histories and personalities makes them better villains, capable of not only being just as destructive and scary and nefarious as others of their kind in writing, but also being able to elicit sympathy at times, or even a different kind of fear—the fear that even we might be one terrible mistake or accident away from being just like them.

Also, as villains go, this iteration of Mr. Freeze probably has the best costume design possible for this character.  A frozen, robotic, almost art deco suit with burning red goggles not only makes Victor look threatening, but is accurate to the character himself—an exterior that shows him for who he has become, but an interior driven by passion, by love, and by grief, a force to bring justice to those he feels were responsible for the death of the woman he loved.

^ Reblogging for this awesome commentary. :3