Nora Fries

Nora Fries, also known as Mrs. Freeze (previously known as Lazara prior to the continuity alteration), is a fictional supervillain appearing in media published by DC Entertainment, commonly as an adversary of the superhero Batman. She is the wife of villain Mr. Freeze, and was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series.

Nora Fries
Cover art of Detective Comics #1014 (October 2019). Art by Doug Mahnke. 
Publication information
PublisherDC Comics
First appearanceAs Nora:
Batman: The Animated Series: "Heart of Ice" First Comic Appearance:
Batman: Mr. Freeze (May 1997)
As Lazara:
Batgirl #70 (January 2006)
As Mrs. Freeze:
Detective Comics #1014 (October 2019)
Created by(As Nora):
Paul Dini, Bruce Timm
As Lazara:
Andersen Gabrych, Pop Mhan
As Mrs. Freeze:
Peter J. Tomasi, Doug Mahnke
In-story information
PartnershipsVictor Fries
Notable aliasesLazara
Mrs. Freeze
AbilitiesAs Lazara:
Reanimation of the dead
Conjure flame
Immortality

Nora Fries made her first live-action debut in the film Batman & Robin, played by supermodel Vendela Kirsebom Thomessen. She has also appeared in the second season of Gotham, portrayed by Kristen Hager, and the 2018 Arrowverse crossover event Elseworlds, portrayed by Cassandra Jean Amell.

Fictional character biography

DC Animated Universe (1992-2006)

After marrying Victor Fries, a cryogenics researcher working for GothCorp, Nora is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Fries uses the company's equipment to cryogenically freeze his wife until a cure can be found. GothCorp CEO Ferris Boyle cuts the funding and later goes into Fries' laboratory to shut down the project personally with some security guards. According to “Heart of Ice”, Nora is presumed dead after the resulting scuffle, which destroys the lab. However, in the episode "Deep Freeze" Nora is revealed to still be alive within her chamber.

Victor, who has by then become Mr. Freeze, eventually retrieves Nora's chamber and keeps it in his cave in the Arctic until Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, when Nora's chamber is broken. No longer frozen, Nora does not have long to live. In desperation, Freeze bribes an old colleague into helping her. This leads to Freeze hunting down Barbara Gordon, one of the few women on hospital records with Nora's rare blood type. Freeze plans to use Barbara for a fatal organ transplant to save Nora, but Batman intervenes. Nora is ultimately cured by Dr. Lyle Johnston of Wayne Enterprises.

According to The New Batman Adventures episode "Cold Comfort", Nora waits for the missing and presumed dead Freeze for some time before she decides to marry her doctor Francis D'Anjou. This subplot is expanded in Batman Adventures, a comic series based on Batman: The Animated Series, with one issue seeing Freeze working with Nightwing and Batgirl to stop a criminal who has abducted Francis D'Anjou out of recognition of Nora's feelings for him.

In Volume 2, after Nora receives a letter from Victor, D'Anjou is frozen in their home in an attack from Victor's technology. Batman and the police believe that Mr. Freeze was behind the attack and are suspicious of both his and Nora's intentions when Nora gets a ticket to the Arctic Circle. Nightwing discovers that the attack was set up by D'Anjou himself in an attempt to frame Victor and make Nora hate him. D'Anjou is quickly defeated and arrested by Nightwing. In the Arctic Circle, Nora reunites with Victor to confirm he wasn't behind the attack and confesses that she never truly loved Francis as she embraces him. Batman and Batgirl arrive to apprehend Victor, who chooses to fight back thinking Batman will arrest him for his other crimes even if he isn't responsible for D'Anjou's attack. During their fight, Batman causes Victor's suit to overload which leaves his head to fall into the Arctic Ocean, devastating Nora. After talking to her incarcerated ex-husband and Victor's former assistant Koonak (whom Victor looked after following the death of Koonak's parents), Nora returns to the Arctic Circle, hoping to find Victor's head.

The web cartoon Gotham Girls also reveals that Nora has a younger sister named Dora Smithy. Dora is very close to Nora and hates Victor Fries for keeping her sister in a coma. Dora's campaign against costumed vigilantes and villains results in her becoming one herself in the series finale.

By the time of Batman Beyond, Nora is not seen; however, when Mr. Freeze (whose frozen body slows his aging to an almost immortal level) returns to his normal human self of Victor Fries in the episode "Meltdown", he starts a Nora Fries Foundation in memory of his wife.

Nora Fries has never had a voice actress on appearances in the animated series, she is always unconscious (usually floating in the cryogenic tank); the only time she is seen awake is in photographs and at the end of Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero, when a report is shown of her recovery.

Comic books

Falling ill

Nora is an attractive and gentle girl. She meets Victor Fries in a strict boarding school and later marries him. Shortly after their marriage, Nora falls terminally ill. Victor discovers a way to put Nora into cryostasis, hoping to sustain her until a cure can be found. In time her husband will become one of Batman's well-known enemies, Mr. Freeze.[1] Over time she falls to pieces in her ice state, but Freeze puts her back together again.

Lazara

Freeze helps Nyssa al Ghul by creating a machine for the Society that can also be used to capture Batgirl. In return, Nyssa has offered to help him restore his wife using the Lazarus Pit. Though Nyssa has told him the pit needs to be adjusted for Nora, Batgirl convinces Freeze that Nyssa has no intention of reviving her at all, and he throws Nora into the pit himself.[2]

Because of all the years of being altered and broken, Nora absorbs the pit's alchemy, acquiring the powers to conjure flame and reanimate the dead. She becomes a supervillainess, calling herself Lazara. Mr. Freeze manages to stop her by freezing her once again.[3]

The New 52

Nora's history was revised as of DC Comics' 2011 reboot of its continuity, The New 52. Nora Fries is now Nora Fields, a woman born in 1943 and placed in cryostasis by her parents at age 23 due to her being diagnosed with incurable heart disease. Her case was taken on by Wayne Enterprises employee Victor Fries, who fell in love with her, becoming obsessed to such a degree that he began believing that she was his wife. The project was terminated by Bruce Wayne, and in rage, Victor threw a chair at him. Wayne dodged the chair, which hit a freezing chemical tank, leaving Fries's body permanently ruined due to the blistering cold while also causing Fries to become Mr. Freeze.

Sometime later, Mr. Freeze escapes his cell and tries to steal Nora's body and flee Gotham while also vowing to kill Bruce Wayne. Batman intervenes and ultimately tells Freeze the truth concerning Freeze's "wife" with Freeze reacting angrily, saying that it's all lies. The two later engage in a fight with Batman eventually emerging as the victor and stopping Freeze.

This version of Victor and Nora's relationship has been acknowledged as far more disturbing than previous adaptions, to the point of actually bothering Batman, who comments to Freeze that Nora is old enough to be Freeze's grandmother.[4]

DC Rebirth

The Nora from New 52 had been retconned, thereby making her history more similar to the animated series and post-Zero Hour. She was the wife of Victor Fries (having a career as a talented ballerina) but discovered she had an incurable type of cancer. She had wanted to live the last years of the life of her own free will, but her husband forced her into the cryogenic storage.

Several years later due to the events in "Year of the Villain," Lex Luthor gives Mr. Freeze a vial that would cure and furthermore revive his frozen wife. Mr. Freeze had to kidnap several women who matched his late wife's characteristics, in both mental and physical states, going as far as modifying their DNA to hers in order to experiment with the vial before reviving his wife. In the end, it worked, and his wife came back to life cured. She soon took up the name Mrs. Freeze.[5]

Powers and abilities

After emerging from the Lazarus Pit, Nora Fries becomes Lazara. Lazara is a supervillainess who can summon fire and raise the dead. She blames her husband Victor Fries for her transformation.

In other media

Television
  • Nora Fries also appears in The Batman. In the episode "The Big Chill", she is briefly shown in pictures in her husband's car before the accident that turns Victor Fries into Mr. Freeze.
  • Nora Fries appears in season 2 of Gotham portrayed by Kristen Hager.[6] As in the comics, she is the terminally ill wife of scientist Victor Fries performing cryogenic experiments to find a cure. Nora discovers that Victor has been freezing human subjects for these experiments and recoils in horror. Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock find Victor and Nora's residence and take her into custody. Nora becomes the patient of Leslie Thompkins and is moved to Arkham Asylum. Victor breaks into the asylum and takes both Nora and Thompkins. Victor attempts to perform a cryogenic treatment on her that Victor believes will save her life, but Nora sabotages it and allows the chemicals to freeze her solid and kill her, as she does not want to live in a world where Victor is either dead or in prison.[7]
  • Nora Fries appears in Elseworlds, the 2018 Arrowverse crossover event between The CW series The Flash, Supergirl, and Arrow, portrayed by Cassandra Jean Amell.[8] This version is shown as an inmate of Arkham Asylum who is released from her cryostasis after John Deegan causes a mass breakout. While looking for a way to get her body temperature back to 196 degrees below zero, she encounters Killer Frost and uses her husband's freeze gun on her. However, she is forced to flee after a scuffle with Oliver Queen in Barry Allen's body; knocking over confiscated canisters of Scarecrow's fear gas in the process.
  • Nora Fries appears in the Harley Quinn episode "Thawing Hearts", voiced by Rachel Dratch. Mr. Freeze has been working to find a cure for Nora after freezing Harley and claiming territory as part of the Injustice League in "New New Gotham". When Harley's plans to get revenge on Freeze ends in her capture, he tries to use her as his first human subject to test for a cure. In order to save herself, Harley persuades Freeze to spare her after mentioning that her friend, Poison Ivy, could find a cure for his wife. After witnessing Freeze's strange behavior with Nora's frozen body, Harley comes to the conclusion that Freeze froze Nora after she decided to leave him and that he made up her disease as a means to justify it. Harley defrosts her body and breaks Freeze's gun, only to learn he was telling the truth. Nora is eventually cured by Poison Ivy, though at the cost of Mr. Freeze's life, who sacrificed himself to give her the cure via a blood transfusion.[9] Nora also briefly appears in the episode "Bachelorette", where she attends Ivy's bachelorette party and enters a relationship with Maxie Zeus. In "The Runaway Bridesmaid", Nora attends Ivy's wedding as a bridesmaid and with Maxie as her date.

Film

Nora Fries is played by supermodel Vendela Kirsebom Thomessen in the 1997 movie Batman & Robin. She is cryogenically frozen throughout the movie and has no dialogue. In the film, she suffers from a fictional illness called MacGregor's Syndrome. Batman reveals that she has the most advanced stages of this disease, for which Mr. Freeze has yet to find a cure. Poison Ivy pulls the plug on Nora’s cryogenic tank in an attempt to kill her and have Freeze to herself. Nora lives, however, as her cryo-chamber was restored in time, and Batman has her sent to Arkham Asylum so that Mr. Freeze can continue his research for a cure during his imprisonment there.

Video games
  • Nora Fries appears in Batman: The Enemy Within. Her body is kept frozen in Mr. Freeze's part of The Pact's hideout. When infiltrating the Pact on Amanda Waller's behalf, Bruce Wayne can win Mr. Freeze over through promises to cure his wife Nora Fries after making sure the cryogenic technology was not damaged by the EMP that was accidentally set off by "John Doe."
  • Nora Fries is mentioned in Injustice 2 in pre-battle dialogue by Mister Freeze who is researching a way to cure Nora.
  • Nora is the default female name for the sole survivor in Fallout 4 who is cryogenically frozen at the beginning of the video game.

Batman: Arkham

Nora Fries appears in most games in the Batman: Arkham series.

  • Chronologically, she first appears in the Cold Cold Heart DLC for Batman: Arkham Origins, in cryostasis. In this continuity, her terminal disease is Huntington's Chorea. Victor Fries made a deal with Ferris Boyle, secretly developing weapons for GothCorp in exchange for Boyle devoting his company's resources to finding a cure. However, when Fries discovered that Boyle never intended to uphold his end of the deal, Boyle removed Nora from his lab to another section. The struggle that followed resulted in the accident that transformed Victor into the villain Mr. Freeze, bent on saving his wife at all costs and exacting revenge on Boyle. Freeze kidnaps Boyle to force him to release Nora. When Nora's chamber begins to lose power, Boyle tries to stop Freeze from saving her, intent on forcing Freeze to watch his wife die. Batman intervenes, however, and saves Nora while subduing Boyle.
  • In Batman: Arkham City, Nora is still in cryostasis, and Mr. Freeze is said to have been working on a cure for her while imprisoned in the titular mega-prison. However, the prison's warden, Dr. Hugo Strange, had Nora's cryogenics chamber stolen and delivered to the Joker, who demand that Freeze creates a cure for the Joker's disease in exchange for returning her. Upon being saved by Batman from the Penguin's clutches, Freeze asks him to find Nora's chamber in Arkham City in exchange for developing a cure for the Joker's disease, which Batman also suffers from, having been infected by the Joker. The player can find Nora and relay her location to Mr. Freeze in a side mission, aptly named "Heart of Ice". Nora's biography states that she was a gifted dancer. Mr. Freeze's interview tapes recount his first meeting Nora at a reform school and marrying her soon after, only to realize Nora was terminally ill. He tried to put her in a state of cryogenic sleep until a cure could be found. Ferris Boyle discovered the experiment and tried to stop it, claiming that Victor was illegally using GothCorp property. Victor attacked Boyle, who knocked him into a vat of cryogenic chemicals and left him to die. Victor then became Mr. Freeze and planned on murdering Boyle and reclaiming his wife. At first, Batman tried to stop him, not knowing his intentions, but eventually learned of Boyle's actions and helped Freeze to be reunited with Nora, while stopping him from killing Boyle, who was exposed and arrested, leading to Freeze being grateful to Batman. After the completion of the side mission, Nora is last seen reunited with Freeze, who thanks Batman for finding her.
  • Nora appears again in Batman: Arkham Knight, voiced by Cissy Jones.[10] She appears in the "Season of Infamy" DLC pack, in the side mission "In From the Cold". Members of Arkham Knight's militia steal Nora's cryogenics chamber to try to force Mr. Freeze to kill Batman for them. Batman helps Freeze track down the chamber. When he finds it, he is forced to release Nora. Nora tells Victor that she no longer wants him to try and save her. Mr. Freeze sacrifices his equipment to stop the militia and he is reunited with Nora. Mr. Freeze removes his helmet and informs his wife that they have mere days to live. They then sail away together and Batman tells Alfred not to track their ship and to let them go.

Miscellaneous

Nora Fries is featured in the Smallville Season 11 digital comic based on the TV series.

gollark: ```haskellfoldM' :: (Monad m) => (a -> b -> m a) -> a -> [b] -> m afoldM' _ z [] = return zfoldM' f z (x:xs) = do z' <- f z x z' `seq` foldM' f z' xs```
gollark: I just noticed that the FractalArt code contains a complex-looking monady function which is not actually used at all anywhere.
gollark: I am NOT using a zerophone.
gollark: I *was* looking at the LG V20 as a cheap old device I can buy, they were very good for their time.
gollark: But there are... less bad ones?

References
  1. Greenberger, Robert (2008). The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Del Rey. pp. 141–142. ISBN 9780345501066.
  2. Andersen Gabrych (w), Pop Mhan (p), Jesse Delperdang, Robin Riggs (i). "Love's Labors..." Batgirl 69 (December 2005), DC Comics
  3. Andersen Gabrych (w), Pop Mhan (p), Jesse Delperdang, Dan Davis (i). "The Resurrection and the Life" Batgirl 70 (January 2006), DC Comics
  4. Batman: Annual #1. DC Comics.
  5. Tomasi, Peter; Mahnke, Doug (October 2019). Detective Comics #1014 - Cold Dark World: Awake!. DC Comics.
  6. Hayner, Chris A. (October 30, 2015). "'Gotham' Casts 'Being Human' Star as Nora Fries - Wife of Mr. Freeze". Zap2it.
  7. Bruno Heller, Megan Mostyn-Brown (2015-03-07). "A Dead Man Feels No Cold". Gotham. Season 2. Episode 13. Fox.
  8. Gelman, Vlada (September 14, 2018). "Cassandra Jean Amell Joins Arrowverse Crossover as Mr. Freeze's Wife". TVLine. Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  9. Hyndman, Tom (April 24, 2020). "Thawing Hearts". Harley Quinn. Season 2. Episode 4. DC Universe.
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