Nora Fries
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Lazara | |
 Nora Fries as Lazara. Art by Pop Mhan |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | As Nora: Batman: The Animated Series "Heart of Ice" As Lazara: Batgirl #70 (January 2006) |
| Created by | Paul Dini |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Nora Fries |
| Abilities | Reanimate the dead and Conjuring Flame. |
Nora Fries is a fictional character from DC Comics and an adversary of Batman known as Lazara. She is the wife of villain Mr. Freeze, and was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series.
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[edit] History on Batman: The Animated Series
After marrying Victor Fries, a cryogenics researcher working for GothCorp, the couple lived happily until Nora was diagnosed with an incurable and terminal illness. Fries used the company's equipment to cryogenically freeze his wife until a cure could be found. But GothCorp CEO Ferris Boyle cut the funding and later went into Fries's laboratory to shut down the project personally with some security guards. According to "Heart of Ice" and The Batman Adventures Holiday Special, Nora was presumed dead after the resulting scuffle that destroyed the lab. But Nora was still alive within her chamber, which was soon recovered by theme park mogul Grant Walker.
Victor, who had by then become Mr. Freeze, eventually found Nora's chamber again and kept it in his cave in the Arctic until Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, when Nora's chamber was broken. No longer frozen, Nora did not have long to live. In desperation, Freeze bribed an old colleague into helping Nora. This led Freeze in to hunting down Barbara Gordon, the closest woman they could find with Nora's rare blood type. Freeze planned to use Barbara for a fatal organ transplant that would save Nora until Batman intervened.
Afterwards, Nora was cured by Dr. Francis D'Anjou of Wayne Enterprises. According to The New Batman Adventures episode "Cold Comfort", Nora waited for the missing and presumed dead Freeze for some time before she decided to remarry her doctor. This subplot was expanded upon in Batman Adventures, a comic series based on Batman: The Animated Series.
The web cartoon Gotham Girls also revealed that Nora had a younger sister named Dora. Dora was very close to Nora and hated Victor Fries for his attempts to preserve Nora's life instead of just letting her go, ignoring the fact that Victor's measures saved her sister's life. Dora's campaign against costumed vigilantes and villains resulted in her becoming one herself in the series finale.
By the time of Batman Beyond, Nora is not seen; however, when Mr. Freeze (whose frozen body slows his aging to an almost immortal level) returned his normal human self of Victor Fries in the episode "Meltdown", at one point he started a Nora Fries Foundation in memory of his wife.
Nora Fries never had a voice actress; in her only appearances in the animated series, she was always unconscious (usually floating in the cryogenic tank) and, she was only seen awake in photographs and in issues of Batman Adventures. Jason Hall, who wrote her appearances in Batman Gotham Adventures #51 and Batman Adventures #15 established Nora as being a scientist herself which is the reason she married Victor, then Francis. Nora's personality and reason for her devotion to Victor is further developed in that issue. Nora feels guilty over the fact that Victor neglected his condition while tending to her own, which resulted in his body deteriorating leaving him as only a head. Nora's new husband, Francis D'Anjou, is jealous of the love Nora still has for Victor and hides all of the letters that Victor sends to her. Once Nora finds out that Victor still cares, after finding one of the letters, she seeks him out. Nora is shown to be extremely in love with Victor and she very quickly sees past the fact that Victor is only a head and tries to make things work out, although Victor's past as Freeze kept it from happening. [1]
[edit] DC universe comic history
[edit] Falling ill
Nora was an attractive and gentle girl. She met Victor Fries in a strict boarding school, and later married him. Shortly after their marriage, Nora fell terminally ill. Victor discovered a way to put Nora into cryostasis, hoping to sustain her until a cure could be found. In time her husband would become one of Batman's well known enemies, Mr. Freeze. Over time she would fall to pieces while in her ice state, but Freeze would put her back together.
[edit] Lazara
Freeze helped Nyssa al Ghul by creating a machine for the Society that could also be used to capture Batgirl, and in return, Nyssa would help him restore his wife using the Lazarus Pit. Instead, they put Nora in the pits themselves. But because of all the years of being altered and broken, she had absorbed the pit's alchemy, giving her the powers to conjure flame and reanimate the dead.
Calling herself Lazara, she now is a powerful villain.
[edit] In other media
Nora Fries was played by supermodel Vendela Kirsebom Thomessen in the movie Batman & Robin, but had no lines and was cryogenically frozen throughout the movie. The only lines she has in the movie are in their wedding video, which is past tense. In this movie, her disease was the fictional 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.
At one point in the movie, Poison Ivy, who was infatuated with Mr. Freeze and the power he possessed, pulled the plug on her machine in an attempt to kill her so that Freeze could love Ivy instead. But at the end of the movie, Batman revealed that Nora was still alive, and that he would have her sent to Arkham Asylum so that Mr. Freeze could continue his research for a cure during his imprisonment there.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Nora Fries at the DC Database
