Pop Culture
Victor and Nora: A Gotham Love Story
And how DC ruined this beautiful piece for the sake of cannon…
Victor Fries aka Mr. Freeze. A name every Batman fan is familiar with. One of the very few holding a place in The Dark Knight’s Rogue Gallery, who have a tragic backstory, and perhaps the only one who is a reluctant villain. Over countless adventures, we have seen Victor aiding Batman in his mission, often being crucial to his success even. But why would a villain do such a thing, that too in a place like Gotham? Why aid the only man who is standing between you and ruling Gotham? The answer to that lies in who Victor is and why he is.
Over the eighty years of Batman mythos, there have been many interpretations of this character, but the successful ones, were never a psychopathic killer with an affection for ice, they have always been a man so full of love for his wife, Nora, that when he failed to cure her illness, he put her to cryogenic sleep, her body put to stasis, while he devoted his life to finding the cure, that one cure that will bring his wife back to him. Because Freeze is committed to finding the cure, by whatever means necessary, he comes on Batman’s radar. While the likes of Penguin, Joker or Two-Face, are into crime to take control of Gotham, Freeze is not. This, is what makes him different, what makes me like this guy, makes me want him to have a happy ending.
But that simply cannot be. A happy ending for Victor Fries is the end of Mr. Freeze, much like an happy ending for Bruce is the end of Batman. It’s an intriguing similarity the two characters share, isn’t it?
So, when DC announced Victor and Nora, I was very excited to read the book. And, when I finally got my hands on it, the first emotion I felt was, “Oh My God! The illustrations are so damn beautiful.” The cover, itself, is a beauty to behold. Illustrator Isaac Goodhart and colorist Cris Peter, have done a fantastic job on it. The story simply comes to life, in their pages, penned by Lauren Myracle, author of ttyl, ttfn, and even Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale.
The story is actually quite simple and straight forward following Victor in his seventeens, several years before him becoming the notorious villain Mr. Freeze. Victor and Nora tells the untold love story of Victor Fries and Nora Kumar and is a heart-wrenching exploration of living life to the fullest, and how far one will go for love.
Victor Fries has a cold heart. After his brother died in a tragic house fire that Victor feels responsible for, his parents have isolated themselves, and Victor has dedicated his whole life to one thing: science. Nora Kumar is full of life, committed to living every moment of her life and has come to Gotham City to spend her summer.
When Victor and Nora meet one day at the cemetery outside of town, they are astonished to find the connection they’ve been missing in their lives. Their summer quickly spirals into a beautiful romance, and the boy who seeks cold lets his guard down, allowing himself to begin to enjoy life just a little more. But Nora has a secret, she has been diagnosed with a progressive, neurological disease, which shall slowly consume her, make her forget who she is, who her family is, she will become “not Nora.” She has got two months before it happens, and Nora has decided that on her seventeenth birthday, she will take control of her fate, die at her own terms, die “Nora.”
After a month of being together, one night Nora lets Victor in on her secret, something even her best friends are unaware about. Post learning about Nora’s illness, Victor throws himself into finding a cure for her. Burning his candles at both ends, Victor spends his entire time either with Nora or for Nora.
But, one month is simply too short for Victor, and when he realizes that he cannot cure her in time, he decides the unthinkable: freeze Nora, put her into suspended animation using his Accela Freeze, until he finds a cure for her illness. Bringing us, readers, to the climax of the story.
After her checkup, Nora realizes her condition is worsening at an increased pace, she flees the hospital. Hearing this, Victor goes out searching for her, only to find her at the Gotham bridge, the place she mentioned at their first meeting, the place she would want to end her life at. Victor arrives at the bridge and finds Nora prepared to jump, he pulls her back. Upon finding out that she is skeptical about Victor’s idea of freezing her, Victor tries to force the injection upon Nora, as she tries to resist. It is at this moment that Victor realizes his mistake, he admits —
“If I inject Nora with Accela-Freeze, then yes, I’ll save her life. But if I force this on her — and if that’s what it would take — I’ll lose her love. I thought I could fight her. But I can’t.”
This, is where the story’s natural flow has lead us to, the conclusion of the story: Victor coming to terms with the fact that our loved ones will die, one day or another, and we can only learn to let them go, cherish their memories and move on. But, this is where, the story takes a turn. After all her resistance, her worries that if she let’s Victor freeze her, he would never be able to move on in life, that if something goes wrong, he would blame it upon himself, Nora suddenly “don’t care who’s right or wrong.” She now wants Victor to freeze her.
This moment just doesn’t fit right, it defies all the character development we have seen through the pages, the progression of the story. It feels rather forced upon, and although it makes sense because without Nora being put to suspended animation, Victor wouldn’t grow up to become Mr. Freeze, yet it fails to convince the readers that this is indeed the Nora who brought Victor out of his shell, helped him learn to live again, who is now putting him into another shell. But without this turn of events, it would no longer be the backstory of an infamous Batman villain, and perhaps that is where DC is wrong about this book, this story.
Perhaps this story was never meant to be the backstory of a villain named Mr. Freeze. Perhaps this story was always meant to be the tragic love story of a boy named Victor Fries and a girl named Nora.
