I never was a huge fan of Fries. He's a serial killer with

nobody had sympathy for the original
everyone loves the BTAS version, though

You're confusing sympathy with empathy.

You don't feel empathy for Freeze because his methods are extreme and often violent.

You feel sympathy though because you understand what his reason is.

Or at least you should, because if you really don't sympathize with someone who is desperate to cure their wife's terminal condition I don't know what's wrong with you.

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>>93161231
>Liking New 52 Freeze
Take your shit taste and go die in a fire

>>93161231
>with no empathy that would kill anyone for his wife
Nice contradiction.

Why doesn't Bruce just give Mr. Freeze a team of scientists to aid in his wife's recovery and supply him with the income to help treat her? That way he doesn't have to do anything evil, he can be rehabilitated, and you don't have Mr. Freeze killing people.

>>93161231
Sympathetic Freeze is a one trick pony, changing him up is a good idea.

Unfortunately people are too attached to BTAS in general to accept a different Freeze. Its better just to not use him.

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>>93161424
Because the entire point is that Nora is too far gone and will never get better. Freeze refuses to let go of the loved one he lost (yeah, shes basically gone) to mirror Batman's own tragedy. Freeze literally wants to "freeze" a moment in time when things were better. New 52 Victor was a bullshit excuse to get more mileage out of him in the worst way.

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>>93161424
Because Freeze is not a reasonable person.

OP SERIOUSLY, have you watched the TAS version of Mr Freeze?
That is the only version your suppose to sympathize with. He isn't a serial killer.
> 1st episode he believes she is dead and goes for revenge against only those directly responsible.
> 2nd episode it's revealed she is alive and he is semi black mailed into assisting a madman to aid her but goes good in the end.
> Sub Zero movie - Kidnaps 1 person for a transplant for Nora (succeeds)
> Adventures episode - Lost his humanity and what remains of his body he attacks gotham itself one last time (this is the single time his motive is 100% wrong)
> Batman Beyond - Gets a clone body but his condition reverts and he gets fucked over by the people who gave him the body (they try and murder him) and seeks revenge.

>>93161481
>>93161483
True, but it could still make a good story.

>the doctors see no chance to save Nora
>they try to tell Freeze about it
>he blames them for not trying hard enough
>gets a vendetta against Bruce Wayne for 'betraying' him

>>93161422
He claims its for his wife but I don't think he'd chage if she was cured. I should have mentioned that.

>>93161231
Isn't he just some guy in a cold suit with no actual motivation any more? He just kills people and......profit?

>>93161512
The comics also show his last encounter with Nora during TNBA.

>>93161548
>Every Batman villain needs to be connected to Wayne
Fuck off

This is just another one of those things where Gotham stuff does not really look like it exists in the same DC Earth as everyone else. Along with Barbara not being able to be healed from a gunshot wound to the spine. Gotham is still trying to somewhat be in the modern day with exceptions made for the villains that roam around.

Meanwhile they are on an Earth with cyborg parts, wizards, reality warpers, aliens everywhere, alien stuff everywhere, time travel, magic...

If Fries were really that desperate he would try using a Lazarus pit, cloning Nora, time travel to prevent everything, magic, Even Silver Age Fries which a chip on his shoulder could have just gone to live with the few existing ice civilizations that are there.

Did Nora have any family? It would be interesting to see Freeze dealing with in laws.

>>93161624
Fries has used a Lazarus Pit to bring back Nora. It went very poorly to say the least.

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>>93161453
>Sympathetic Freeze is a one trick pony, changing him up is a good idea.
No, what's a good idea is leaving him alone.

Not every villain has to be re-used over and over. That's what leads good villains like Joker and Two-Face and Scarecrow to become trash villains.

Most of the Golden Age Batman villains were designed to work as basically one-off stories, or if they were successful, a trilogy of stories. After seeing "clown-themed serial killer" three times, you've kind of done all you need to do with them.

Then you have the Silver Age villains that were themed GANGSTERS instead of killers. These villains were designed to keep coming back with themed crimes and heists, more focused on action than detective work-- though detective work was still an element with your Riddlers and Cluemasters. Some villains made a semi-successful transition like Joker and Two-Face. Others like Scarecrow just sat out most of this era.

The problem comes when you bring back gritty detective Batman and serial killer criminals but try to adapt them to be recurring. You get Scarecrow brought back with some good stories, but then you kind of run out of things to do with them and you get all the convoluted horseshit like Scarebeast.

Mr. Freeze made such a great transition from a themed gangster to a classic, one-off/trilogy kind of villain, but again was ruined by having to be brought back over and over. The New 52 versions of him and Calendar Man are such generic garbage that no one actually cares about.

When you have characters that have limited potential for being recurring, JUST DON'T MAKE THEM RECURRING, it's as simple as that. I don't need to see Mr. Freeze come back once every two years. After the Sub-Zero movie I saw all I needed to see with him.

>tl;dr
The appeal of Batman's villains is that they can have complete stories and character development where Batman himself can't, DC needs to learn to leave them alone after their tale is told.

>>93162550
Making a few of the villains mafia dons at least provides some kind of explanation as to why they have lots of thugs, cars, and resources. The 89 Batman movie used this to fast track Joker having legions of minions and a chemical plant under his control real fast. The mafia thing might bring back more of a Dick Tracey kind of thing where their supervillain names are really just nicknames they get in the underworld as mafia hit men or leaders.

But I can only really see that working for a few villains. Penguin seems like the mafia family type.

Two Face, Joker, Croc, Zsasz, Freeze, and Firefly all seem like just crazy people who just like to hurt people.

Riddler, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow all seem like lone wolf weirdos that do things almost more for their own amusement. Maybe spurned on by the presence of so many other people in costumes roaming around, that they might as well go do it too.

>>93161588
>implying everyone isn't already connected to Wayne
>implying you aren't connected to Wayne

wew

>>93162672
>But I can only really see that working for a few villains.
Absolutely.

Penguin, like with Luthor in Superman, made a great transition from wacky-ass Silver Age villains (yes I know they both were created in the GA) to more realistic villains that have a genuine reason to keep coming back. And in Luthor's case according to Elliot S! Maggin it was basically completely by accident.

Meanwhile there's a good reason that Riddler, Mad Hatter and Scarecrow have a dearth of good comics after the Bronze Age, just like you said their motivations are pretty limited, so the best they get most of the time are cameos or small appearances amidst an ensemble of other villains, or with Hatter and Scarecrow's case just as plot devices to use their mind-control or fear gas technology.

I think the most buttfucked villain of the modern age is Killer Croc, who despite getting an absolutely fantastic revamp, keeps getting rolled back into a mindless, brutish cannibal in order to justify him coming back over and over.

Sure, there's a limited number of stories you can tell with Croc as an almost anti-hero, but they're much better stories than RAAARRR I'VE GOT YOUR SCENT BATMAN

>>93162967
>a limited number of stories you can tell with Croc as an almost anti-hero
Maybe. Just make him self proclaimed boss of the sewers and have Batman begrudgingly accept that he's not fun to deal with but a hell of a lot better than other shit that could take over the underground. It would justify him remaining a constant as he's what's stopping the wierder shit from crawling out of the sewers.

>>93161553
Hasn't she literally been cured before and he didn't change?

>>93161231
Hang yourself

>>93162967
I never really saw him as much of a Btman villain. After the early 90's he basically became a lizard mutant metahuman instead of guy who just looks really weird with a horrible skin condition.

After that he was just your average monster bad guy that we see in flash, Green Lantern etc. So you would think he would just go be someone that brawls with metahuman heroes since there is nothing really detective-ey or psychological to deal with when going after a crocodile mutant monster

Even Man-Bat does a better job of the human turned monster, addiction to mutating formula etc.

>>93163091
I would just as well make him a really expensive hitman the crime bosses in town occasionally hire to deal with low level metas that get in their way. When they really want someone to die in a real bad way they hire the crocodile man to eat them.

I suppose Firefly can be something similar too. Someone who specializes in killing and making it look like an accidental fire while it is really arson. Works better for Gotham than weirdo in a flying bug suit and a flamethrower.

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>>93162967
>Penguin, like with Luthor in Superman, made a great transition from wacky-ass Silver Age villains (yes I know they both were created in the GA) to more realistic villains that have a genuine reason to keep coming back
But the problem with modern depictions of Penguin is that all he ever does these days is make cameos in the stories of other villains.

Penguin's transition from goofy Silver Age antics into modern days was caused by three things. The first was Chuck Dixon and his take on the character, which was notable for writing him as a mob boss and who introduced The Iceberg Lounge. The second was Batman Returns, which completely overhauled the character and introduced tragic elements which helped to make him more three dimensional. And the third was Penguin Triumphant, which is considered one of the definite Penguin stories, that portrayed Oswald as a more manipulative and cerebral enemy. Penguin made a great transition, much better than the other rogues did.

But what ended up happening was that The Iceberg Lounge and the mob boss persona clipped his wings and neutered his character significantly and he has been delegated to a lesser Kingpin who exists to be beaten up by Batman for information (and it doesn't help that Dennis O'Neal had a significant dislike for Penguin and Riddler).
I'd argue he is faring worse than several other rogues these days because of his fall from grace. Imagine if, in the Marvel Universe, Doctor Octopus was suddenly about as relevant as Hammehead in Spider-Man's rogues gallery. That's what Penguin has been turned to these days.

But at least he's not Croc or Hatter.

>>93164948
At the same time I doubt short overweight bird themed bank robber who uses gadget umbrellas would have stuck around through the 90's to today. He was just a little too goofy and none of his gimmicks were unique enough to keep with modern tweaking like Scarecrow and Mad Hatter.

There is just not much you can do with the guy to keep him as a street threat. But when you think of an older gent in a tuxedo and an eye for crime, mafia boss makes a little more sense at least. He is not going to fist fight Batman, and gas umbrellas are not really that great thematically.

And also Dr Octopus did not survive in the hardcore extreme 90's. They killed him off along with a couple other classic villains when Marvel wanted everyone to be super extreme with leather coats, torn ripped clothes and fangs. They had Kane (the 90s-est villain of them all in a Spidey Book) kill him mostly off panel.

>>93164948
>>93165291
Count yourself lucky, he could have been remade into some Penguin mutant that lives underwater in the Gotham sewers or something if they did not go with the Iceberg Lounge angle.

Most likely ditching the hat and suit for a penguin looking costume with razor fins

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>>93165291
I agree that Penguin's original gimmicks would not have survived, but as I said, he made a pretty great transition from the days of camp into the modern age thanks to those things I mentioned as well as others. Sure, I miss the trick umbrellas and the bird-themed heists, but I also embraced his family issues, the Cobblepots having a family rivalry with the Waynes and the idea that Penguin, rather than steal diamonds, would be instead doing things like manipulating the stock market or framing Batman for criminal activity (closer to what he did before the CCA happened). And, as Batman TAS and Penguin Triumphant demonstrated, you could try and have it both ways with Penguin still being a tragic gentleman-wannabe quoting Shakespearae as well as a cunning and disgusting monster who controls crime beyond Batman's reach.

The problem is that the mob boss idea instead just became an excuse for DC to unofficially retire him and relegate him to cameos, and as of right now he's being neither. The character is a Rupert Thorne clone delegated to cameos in Joker or Batgirl stories. That's the problem. The Iceberg Lounge might have been a good idea, but it quickly became a plot device to explain Penguin's absence. His existence is tied to it nowadays and not the other way around.

I brought up Dr.Octopus because, while Octopus had it rough in the 90s, he did manage to rise back and regain his place as one of the top Spider-Man villains thanks partially to the movie and his role as a bigger threat. While both Green Goblin and Venom outweight him in popularity, Otto is still on the top and he's still doing shit. The same can't be said for Oswald, who once occupied a similar position.

>>93165443
Yeah, poor Croc.
Although given how controversial Batman Returns's depiction of Penguin was, even if they did make it the default comics version, it probably wouldn't last (and that version had more to it than just being a gross sewer monster).

>>93164948
>That penguin on his left

W-what happened to him?

>>93165671
Aren't most of the classic villains just shoved to the background these days?

Joker sticks around due to tie-in popularity but we never see Riddler, Scarecrow, or Hatter any more.

>>93165853
... there's literally a big Riddler story coming up next month.

>>93161231
You like nu52 Freeze because they butchered his character so you could rationalize hating him.

They basically turned him into a more ridiculous version of mad hatter with a freeze gun.

>>93165671
>>93165291
>>93164948
Doc OC I think came back when the movies started in the early 00's which then brought up a lot of interest in the pre Edge days of old classic supervillains all over again.

Lots of books were winding the clock back around that time, Oc and Green Goblin were back, Random evil genius Luthor was back, Sinestro was alive again, there was an evil Flash in bright yellow spandex again.

People were looking to the "definitive" version of heroes and their villains. So a lot of the super edgy 90's stuff was dropped.

>>93161548
No he doesn't need that. Not every villain needs to despise batman, and not every villain without a vagina shouldn't be redeemed in the end.

>>93165853
There's a big Riddler story coming up.
And Scarecrow has gotten a push lately thanks to Arkham Knight and Injustice.
I don't think Hatter has ever been exceptionally prominent.

>>93165937
isn't that how it works with almost every female villain? They always have that
>hero tries to save them, they can be reformed
thing going on no matter what?