Gotham: Mr. Freeze Opens Door For Full-On Supervillains

Mr. Freeze is the gateway to full-on supervillains terrorizing Gotham!

Gotham has been plagued with terrifying villains from the start of the show, but none of them have really been these larger than life supervillains that generally you’d need someone like say Batman to deal with. Even ones like Penguin and Riddler are really just on the start to their journey. The arrival of Mr. Freeze to Gotham brings what executive producer John Stephens calls the first real supervillain in Gotham. He talks about the journey to a character like Mr. Freeze and why Freeze was the first supervillain they chose.

"I think Firefly was someone who, while she can’t fly like the one from the comics, she isn’t wielding guns and knives,” describing another villain who took a step towards “super” status this year. “She has a Gotham-ized armature. I think Theo Galavan was another baby step toward that world; he had the connection to the Order of St. Dumas, and was a villain that we might not have seen at the beginning of season one. The Maniax were another baby step toward that kind of anarchtic pre-Joker type of villain that paves the way.He’s also a science villain – he’s not like some of the others from Batman’s rogues’ gallery like Solomon Grundy who has more of a mystical or magical nature. He’s still someone who, in theory, could exist in a world where science progresses to that point. His feet are not firmly rooted in reality, but there are some roots there.We really want our villains to be as human and relatable as possible. We wanted to give Freeze a compressed version of what we gave to someone like Nygma, who we gave an emotional reason to why he became the person he became. We also wanted him to serve as a mirror to what’s going on in Jim and Lee’s life, at the same time. Those coincide together, so that the path Freeze goes down mirrors the path that Jim’s going down, and they sort of go down that together."

Next: Gotham: Azrael Is Still Coming

And while John Stephens said they’d be hesitant to bring someone like Solomon Grundy in because that brings a mysticism and magic element into the show, if they could bring Grundy in while keeping their reality grounded, he would love to do it. Of course Mr. Freeze isn’t the only full-on supervillain slated to come to the show this year, as both Mad Hatter and Clayface are still reportedly appearing in season two as well. Now that the door has apparently been opened to full on supervillains, who will turn up to further drive Gotham to the crime-filled hellhole that needs a Dark Knight? Gotham returns February 29th on Fox!

h/t Comicbook.com