Nora Fries

Nora Fries
Cover art of Detective Comics #1014 (October 2019). Art by Doug Mahnke.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	As 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 (writer) Bruce Timm (artist) As Lazara: Andersen Gabrych (writer) Pop Mhan (artist) As Mrs. Freeze: Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Doug Mahnke (artist)
In-story information
Partnerships	Victor Fries
Notable aliases	Lazara Mrs. Freeze
Abilities	As Lazara: Reanimation of the dead Conjure flame Immortality

Nora Fries, also known as Mrs. Freeze, is a fictional character appearing in media published by DC Entertainment, commonly in stories featuring the superhero Batman. She is married to Batman villain Mr. Freeze, and was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, before being adapted into the comic books. Across most versions, Nora suffers from a terminal illness and is kept cryogenically frozen until a cure can be found. Nora doesn't play a major role in most stories beyond serving as Freeze's motivation for turning to a life of crime, which is to cure her illness by any means necessary. However, the character has also been depicted as a supervillain, under the alias Lazara.

Nora Fries made her live-action debut in the 1997 film Batman & Robin, played by supermodel Vendela Kirsebom Thomessen. She has also appeared in the second season of Gotham portrayed by Kristen Hager, the 2018 Arrowverse crossover event Elseworlds, portrayed by Cassandra Jean Amell, and Batwoman portrayed by Jennifer Higgin when her aging started to continue rapidly.

Fictional character biography[]

DC Animated Universe[]

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; the episode "Deep Freeze" reveals that Nora is still 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 The 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, but 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.

The comic series Batman: The Adventures Continue, which follows from The Batman Adventures comics, reveals that Nora's terminal illness had relapsed, and with Victor still missing then, and therefore not present to put her in cryostasis again, Nora succumbed to her illness and died. Afterward, somehow, Victor had been found, obtained a new suit, and returned to Gotham. In his grief, he becomes obsessed with resurrecting Nora, and steals a shawl that legend (incorrectly) claims has the power of resurrection. The theft brings Freeze into conflict against Batman again, along with Azrael, sent by the religious order that possessed the shawl. Victor is defeated and taken into custody, with Nora still deceased.

Nora Fries never had a voice actress on appearances in the animated series and 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 and left Fries's body permanently ruined due to the blistering cold while also causing him to become Mr. Freeze.^{[volume & issue needed]}

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.^{[volume & issue needed]}

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 his 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]

DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults[]

Nora and Victor's backgrounds and the beginnings of their romance are the premise of Victor and Nora: A Gotham Love Story, written by Lauren Myracle and with art by Isaac Goodhart, released in November 2020.^[6] Nora's full maiden name is Elinor Grace Faria in this version.

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. It is unclear if she is alive, dead or simply not with him while also not playing any role in his career as a criminal (that we know of).
• Nora Fries appears in season 2 of Gotham, portrayed by Kristen Hager, appearing in "Mr. Freeze" and "A Dead Man Feels No Cold".^[7] 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.^[8] The trauma caused by her death would lead Victor to attempt suicide by injecting himself with his own cryogenic chemicals, only to be turned to a metahuman unable to survive outside subzero temperatures. Incarcerated at Indian Hill, Victor laments not being able to join Nora in death but after some convincing from Strange, agrees to forget her and begins his new life as Mr Freeze.
• Nora Fries appears in the TV shows set in the Arrowverse portrayed by Cassandra Jean Amell as a young woman^[9] and by Jennifer Higgin as an old woman:
  • Nora Fries appears in Elseworlds, the Arrowverse crossover event between The CW series The Flash, Supergirl, and Arrow. 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 Batwoman. There is a reference to her escape from Arkham where she was placed after going insane following the cure for her disease and the apparent loss of Victor Fries. Since then, her age has caught up with her and Nora is now an old woman being cared for by her sister Dora Smitty (portrayed by June B. Wilde). After Dora had obtained the canister of Mr. Freeze's liquid nitrogen from the GCPD precinct where she works, both of them were targeted by mercenaries working for an as-yet-unrevealed boss where they wanted the notes about Mr. Freeze's works. Batwoman and Batwing managed to rescue them, but the mercenaries escaped with what they learned from the notes. Nora and Dora are later seen in the park visited by Mary Hamilton where Nora mentions that she is ready to accept her upcoming death.
• 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. Harley and her friends try to offer condolences, but Nora angrily tells them to get out.^[10] Nora later makes appearances in "Bachelorette", where she attends Ivy's bachelorette party and enters a relationship with Maxie Zeus, and "The Runaway Bridesmaid", where she is a bridesmaid at Ivy's wedding.

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, which is unexplorable and also guarded by two Pact thugs. 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". It is later revealed that Freeze wanted the LOTUS virus as he believed it to be a possible cure for her condition, though he didn't know that while the virus does have healing properties, it also damages the host's brain chemistry as it did with the Riddler.
• Nora Fries is mentioned in Injustice 2 in pre-battle dialogue by Mister Freeze who is researching a way to cure Nora.

Batman: Arkham[]

Nora Fries appears in the Batman: Arkham series:

• In Batman: Arkham City, Nora is depicted being in cryostasis while Mr. Freeze works on a cure for her condition. Freeze's work was halted after he became an inmate of the titular mega-prison, and the cryogenics chamber holding Nora was confiscated by its warden, Hugo Strange, who later gave it to the Joker. Using Nora as ransom, the Joker forced Freeze to develop a cure for his own illness, until the latter was captured by the Penguin. After Batman rescues Freeze, he asks him to find Nora's chamber, initiating a side mission, aptly named "Heart of Ice". Once Batman finds Nora, he informs Freeze of her location, ending the mission. Freeze later retrieves Nora's chamber to continue working on a cure. Nora and Freeze's backstories are explored in the former's in-game biography.
• A cryogenically frozen Nora appears in the Cold Cold Heart DLC for the prequel Batman: Arkham Origins, which explores her and Mr. Freeze's backstories, and the latter's first encounter with Batman. The DLC establishes Nora's disease as Huntington's Chorea. After learning of his wife's illness, Victor Fries had her placed in cryostatis to extend her lifespan, and made a deal with Ferris Boyle to develop weapons for GothCorp in exchange for the company directing its resources towards finding a cure for Nora. However, when Victor discovered that Boyle never intended to uphold his end of the deal, Boyle removed Nora from his lab. The struggle that followed resulted in the accident that transformed Victor into the vengeful Mr. Freeze. When Freeze kidnaps Boyle to force him to release Nora, Batman investigates the former's past, and, while he emphasises with his motivation to save Nora, determines that both Freeze and Boyle must be brought to justice. During Batman and Freeze's fight, Nora's chamber slowly loses power, threatening her life. This distracts Freeze, allowing Batman to defeat him, but Boyle takes advantage of the situation to mercilessly beat Freeze while taunting him over his wife's inevitable death. Batman intervenes just in time to save both Freeze and Nora, subduing Boyle and restoring power to the latter's chamber. Though Freeze was arrested after the incident, he was grateful to Batman for saving his wife's life and bringing Boyle to justice.
• Nora appears again in Batman: Arkham Knight, voiced by Cissy Jones.^[11] She appears in the "Season of Infamy" DLC pack, in the Mr. Freeze-centered side mission "In From the Cold". Members of Arkham Knight's militia steal Nora's chamber and hold her at ransom to force Mr. Freeze to kill Batman, but he refuses, and instead attempts to rescue her on his own. The conflict quickly catches Batman's attention, and he agrees to help Freeze find Nora. When he does so, however, he is forced to release Nora from her chamber due to its damaged condition. This gives Nora the chance to talk to her husband for the first time since she was frozen, during which she reveals that she was aware of Victor's efforts to cure her, and tells him that she no longer wants him to dedicate all his time and resources for her. After Freeze sacrifices his equipment to stop the militia and is reunited with Nora, he removes his helmet and informs his wife that they both have mere days to live. They then sail away together and Batman decides not to track them, leaving the couple to spend their final days in peace.

Miscellaneous[]

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

References[]

External links[]

• Nora Fries at the DC Database
• Nora Fries at the DC Animated Universe Wiki