10 Times Supervillains Killed Other Villains

4. Joker Kills Mister Freeze - Robin II: Joker's Wild

Joker Kills Mister Freeze
DC Comics

Before Batman: The Animated Series reinvented Mister Freeze in the critically acclaimed Heart of Ice, the character was treated pretty disposably by DC - and not without reason.

First of all, the original incarnation lacked the iconic design from the animated series. Some of the hallmarks of the character were present, such as the cryo-suit and transparent helmet, but he lacked the ice-white skin or the red goggles that have proven synonymous in the years since, nor the compelling backstory developed by Paul Dini in Heart of Ice.

Because Freeze was generally so forgettable at the time, even after Crisis on Infinite Earths reordered the publisher's continuity, the character was actually murdered by the Joker in 1991's Robin II: Joker's Wild #1. The Clown Prince of Crime unceremoniously electrocutes Freeze with his hand buzzer for attempting to take over his gang.

When Heart of Ice dropped the following year, winning a troff of awards and cementing BTAS as no ordinary children's cartoon, DC moved quickly to integrate the series' interpretation of the character into the comics, revealing that Freeze had actually regenerated after being stored in a block of ice.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.