Although, I'll admit I never cared all that much for Heart of Ice. I don't know, I'm just not sure what people see in it.
I wanted to gush about Heart of Steel for this round of "why BTAS is incredible" but I now I
have to educate you on this travesty of a post. But I will thank you for giving me an excuse to watch this episode again.
Get a cold drink, sit down, and shut up because I'm going to tell you why Heart of Ice is the best goddamn episode of Batman ever.
Batman the Animated Series is renowned and almost revolutionary simply for how, despite being a cartoon on weekday afternoons for kids, the show took the viewers seriously. The show focused on slow build instead of bombastic overwhelming music and exposition drivel. Heart of Ice encapsulates everything that was fantastic and wonderful of, not just the animated series, but the Batman universe itself.
Simple stuff out of the way first, the animation is EXTRAORDINARY. Performed by the sadly defunct and bankrupt Spectrum animation studio, episodes handled by this group had such fluidity, form, scale, and weight to everything they presented. But it goes beyond that, they would emulate natural movement to objects such as the Batmobile's spinouts on sharp turns and when dealing with frozen terrain, and more widely known was the expanded attention to detail that would enhance and expand the presence and believability to characters as shown by the voluntary and time-consuming process of adding misty fog to Freeze's helmet
by hand. The hits feel hard, the characters are given believable mass, and the visuals make this fantasy world solid and scale.
Music, like the rest of the series, is tailored to the tone and the features of the episode. To capture the cold and empty Mr. Freeze and the frozen landscapes in his wake, the score relies on flutes, violins, and simple piano keys. The sharp notes the flute pieces give emulate the sharp, biting bursts of icy wind but are not forceful to be overbearing, making them create the image of walking through a dead and isolated patch of nothing that the cold destroyed, and then left behind. The violin has always been an amazing tool for conveying sadness which is vital for this episode and Freeze's tragic character. The piano pieces naturally also are used to emphasize the sad tone of the story but also simulate solid icicles and its other forms vibrating from wind or drops of water hitting them. Again, all played together to subtly create the mental image to compliment the visuals without competing with them.
Which brings us to the writing. God damn what a giant umbrella this is. The characterization, the dialogue, the pacing, and framing; I have so much to say yet I don't even know where to begin.
I'm just going to lump them together under characterization, starting with Mr. Freeze first and then the bulk with Batman. Going back to my initial point about what made BTAS so stand-out and revolutionary was how seriously it took its audience and did not talk down to them, but it isn't just that. This show also took risks and creative gambles to expand on the material to create their own icons and stamp to the mythos, with the most practical examples being how they fleshed out the villains, often improving the comic's originals to the point that they became part of the new canon. Second to Harley Quinn, no one symbolizes this better than Mr. Freeze's presentation in this episode. Originally presented as a jewel thief in the comics (because diamonds are called "ice" in the black market, huehuehue), Freeze's background and motivations were made entirely from scratch in this episode and turned a throwaway villain of the week with an ice-motif, into one of the most empathetic, compelling, and tragic characters the Batman series has ever known. The basis for his creation and revision is like most genius acts is how simple it is. "Freeze is a man with no emotions, so the antithesis of that is to make him the most emotional man of all". Freeze was a man who had happiness, but then had it stolen from him through no real fault of his own, but instead thanks to the greed and shortsightedness of an uncaring businessman. It's true that Freeze's response to murder that man as well as anyone that tries to stop him is unjust, but doesn't Freeze deserve justice for what was done to him and his wife? Should Boyle just be allowed to go free and unpunished? These two conflicting but both morally based principles are the basis of not just this episode or of Freeze himself, but the very concept of Batman himself. How do you balance your logical sense of right and wrong with your emotional one? Which one wins out in the end for you personally? And how do your actions reflect that. A kid's show succinctly and effectively introduced the concept of grey morality in a way that none of its peers at the time even attempted to do.
Which brings us to Batman's depiction in this episode.
Holy shit, where to start...
No other episode captures every aspect of Batman so perfectly and so efficiently than Heart of Ice. Just following the flow of the episode, we get to see what an intelligent investigator he is. He is considered the World's Greatest Detective and this episode uses that to great effect. First, he uses the stolen technology and the criminal's seeming ability to leave ice and snow in the midst of a heatwave to deduce that the stolen goods can be used in a configuration to create a weapon capable to creating intense cold, but it is short one component. While leaving this phantom component and its role in a hypothetical weapon vague can seem like a cop-out, it works for the episode because taking time to explain what that component is and its purpose would bog down the episode, hurting the pacing and would talk down to the audience by having Batman explain what he considers the obvious to the sidekick, which would be Alfred in this instance. Rather than use this roundabout writing to create a superfluous exposition to justify how Batman figured out what part is needed, he just figures it out and treats it nonchalantly and matter of fact. It portrays him so much smarter than the viewer in that he can deduce what the criminal is doing, what he needs to finish it, and it is so simple to him to do.
This episode continues, giving a powerful presentation of Bruce Wayne, both as a businessman and as a role to gather information. Wayne meets with Ferris Boyle, the president of the company that Freeze has been attacking in an attempt to find out who Freeze is and his goals. He gets some information but we get to see more characterization from comparing Wayne to Boyle. Boyle describes the former employee that died with indifference and disinterest, only to show emotion with resentment and disdain for wasting company money while also gloating about his upcoming award that he is earning through his PR efforts that he himself mocks as lipservice. It tops off with him gesturing to fellow businessman Wayne as if to say "You know what I mean" as though all CEOs and presidents do that, which Wayne is visibly disgusted by. This is again Batman and Bruce Wayne's strongest trait that despite all the wealth and prestige Wayne has and all the hardships and tragedy that Batman has experienced, he is still an idealist with a abundance of love and respect for his fellow man.
While the above speaks volumes to Batman's personality and values already, it is exemplified when he finds Freeze's video and confronts Freeze directly. While I adore this episode, I have to chuckle at Freeze's video. It's a video journal, yes, but why does it have so many camera angles? And who edited it in such a dramatic way? It doesn't hurt the episode, but it is a silly scene logically. The standout part of this scene is the delivery by Kevin Conroy. After viewing the video, he can only mutter a horrified and disgusted "My God..." before being attacked by Freeze. When captured by Freeze, we get a beautiful scene of the two talking and Batman's first response is to express his condolences to Freeze for his loss, in all likelihood being the first and only one to do so. Fantastic delivery by Conroy again as he tells Freeze he's sorry with the same weight as a doctor informing a next of kin that their family / friend died on the table. The exchange between the two has powerful and artistic lines which brings us back to the grey morality the show was confident enough to present to the audience.
"I intend to pay back the man who ruined my life. Our lives."
"Even if you have to kill everyone in the building to do it?"
"Think of it Batman: to never again walk in the middle of a summer's day with a hot wind in your face and a warm hand to hold. Oh yes, I would kill for that."
While the series has done great things to humanize and expand on the villains, Batman was also expanded to be endlessly sympathetic and compassionate to his enemies. He knows that many of them were good people but had that 'one bad day' and he wants to help them, which makes Batman himself more human as well.
Action-wise this episode does a fantastic job at showing how proficient Batman is at combat taking on multiple of Freeze's goons, ending in the iconic blind backhand to the unsuspecting henchman sneaking up behind. For one, that's hilarious to see but it also shows what a keen awareness of his surroundings. Then we have his fight with Freeze himself where he's not a better fighter than Batman but he's clearly not someone you can fight hand to hand. Instead, the show depicts what an intelligent fighter Batman is with how he improvises to defeat Freeze.
Which brings us to what I think is one of the best lines said in the series, not only for its comedic effect but because of how it summarized Batman's intuition, deductive prowess, and wit.
"What was that?"
"The only way to fight a cold."
Oh my god, I
LOVE that line and how it sums Batman up. The line begins when Batman is starting his investigation into Freeze but has gotten a cold. First, that's funny already that fighting Mr. Freeze has given Batman a cold but then before he leaves Alfred hands him a small container. "Knock out gas?" Alfred, "Chicken soup. The only way to fight a cold." That exchange right there perfectly shows the relationship between Batman and Alfred. Alfred being the fatherly figure to Batman gives him something for his cold, but all Batman can think about are weapons and tools, which Alfred responds in his dry humor as "It's soup, dingus." The soup doesn't come into play until the end of the episode during the fight with Freeze when he dumps the soup on Freeze's helmet. This is brilliant on a couple of levels. First, it shows Batman's creativity with his surroundings. The body-temperature soup making contact with the sub-zero glass helmet and the sharp difference in temperatures would cause the glass to expand and shatter. Second, the reason he went for the helmet specifically is because he knew already about Freeze's need to be in sub-zero environments at all times from their earlier conversation, speaking to his deductive skills again. Finally, the line is just so clever and witty, bringing back Alfred's comment works literally and figuratively for beating Freeze.
That one line captures everything interesting and charming about Batman.
The episode finally ends with Freeze in a special cell, without his suit showing what a fragile and sad person his ordeal made him, begging forgiveness from his late wife through beautiful symbolic imagery of a ballerina toy in a snowglobe that stops working from Freeze's cold touch. All with Batman looking on from a distance. It all creates a powerful and tragic visual to close out a story that could never have a happy ending.
God. Damn.
Heart of Ice has everything that makes not only BTAS spectacular but everything that makes Batman and his world timeless and engaging. We have a sympathetic villain when there wasn't one to begin with, Batman's compassion not only with his interactions with Freeze but with his interactions with Boyle, we see how intelligent and effective Batman is at investigations, how skilled and effective he is in combat even against a foe that is seemingly immune to physical attacks, smart and witty writing, incredible animation from a gifted studio that deserved better, all with a brilliant music score to tie it together.
Heart of Ice isn't just the best episode of Batman: The Animated Series; it could possibly be the best
anything of Batman. And it only needed 22 minutes to do it.
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