Air Date: September 7th, 1992
Recap:
After a string of robberies, Batman comes face-to-face with Mr. Freeze and narrowly escapes. After investigating why he's targeting businessman Ferris Boyle, Batman discovers that Mr. Freeze is in fact Victor Fries, a scientist who has lost everything in his life due to Boyle's corporate greed.
Reflections:
Seeing this episode sandwiched between a number of kid-friendly shows was jarring, because it felt like watching a movie. Most importantly, it showed that this series's supervillains weren't just going to be overblown caricatures, rather those with a tragic backstory just as dark as those as Batman's.
Ironically, Mr. Freeze up until this point had always been an overblown caricature with no well-known backstory (plus I think he unceremoniously got killed by the Joker in the comics a year prior). This origin because the basis for many of Mr. Freeze's origins to come in the comics, movies and Arkham games.
This episode also introduced us to Summer Gleason, who was more or less a clone of Vicky Vale, minus the romance. I was never a fan of the character's presence, and apparently neither were the show's producers as she was eventually phased out.
Ferris Boyle's great voice acting came from none other than Mark Hamill, who would go on to voice the Joker. That's something I never figured when watching this initially.
Chronology Notes:
This was the 14th episode produced, but the third to air, and the first to air in its regular weekday timeslot. Likely Fox Kids wanted to put the strongest episode available first.
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