In the latest DC Comics “Batman- One Bad Day” release, Mr. Freeze glides in, slipping and sliding around, with an evil slant.
Writer Gerry Duggan dumps snow all around, setting the scene for us Northern peoples, picking up this issue in mid-November. The time of cold, freezing, intermittent snowfalls, and skidding around. Short days, long nights of comic reading and shivering while we shop.
Mr. Freeze is in a panic. His wife is deathly ill, and he is trying to save her. To Hell with the world, he wants to control his surroundings and he ain’t too chill about it, neither. On with the show!
Enter Batman and Robin, without their winter parkas or Bat-toques (Canadian term for “winter hats”). The Batmobile still trying to gain traction in the drifts and banks. The All-Season Radials, or the three-season radials, perhaps. How about them carolers, harmonizing in the dangerous dark alleys?
Anywayyy, it’s Duggan’s tense, action-filled script that we enjoy here, accompanied by exaggerated poses and dramatic blasts of arctic-temperature violence, the cold stabbing pain of regrets, and the hot tears of anger. Matteo Scalera (White Knight Presents Harley Quinn, Black Science, etc) shovelling piles of darkness, splash pages coloured in blues and oranges and greens by Dave Stewart, and Deron Bennett lettering the effects, the terse yells, the futility of the negotiations. It’s drawn for effect, it draws us in, the faces and the names of the terrorized and the small of heart.
It’s wonderfully seasonal, and a touching glimpse into the cold, cold skull of Mr. Freeze, resistant, impudent, recalcitrant, and many other words that al say: He’s a mean one.
DC Comics, Batman One Bad Day: Mr. Freeze, $7.99 for 69 pages of content.
Newsdesk 
Brian Isaacs - Executive Editor / Publisher