Doctor Octopus vs. Mr. Freeze

## Description

*The tragic archvillains of the Dark Knight and the amazing web-slinger take their technology to the ring to see who will come out on top.*

## Interlude

**MBStarscream: Ever notice how in comics, every other villain has some kind of doctorate degree? You'd think those places would screen their applicants better.**

Hiro: Doctor Octopus, the tentacled supervillain genius.

**MBStarscream: And Mr. Freeze, the cold criminal of Gotham City.**

Hiro: I'm Hiro Hamada.

**MBStarscream: I'm MBStarscream.**

Hiro: And it's our job to examine both warriors' strength, abilities, weapons, and weaknesses to see who would win in a fight.

## Doctor Octopus

Hiro: Growing up with an abusive father and overbearing mother, Otto Octavius had it rough at home and in school. His mother encouraged him to push himself in school, in the hopes that he would have a better life than his factory worker father, and her wishes for him paid off when he was awarded a scholarship for university.

**MBStarscream: Right before Daddy Octavius got killed in a workplace accident. His father's death motivated Otto to work twice as hard in his scientific studies, eventually graduating and getting work with an engineering firm. Now he was a respected nuclear physicist and research consultant, as well as working as an inventor and lecturer. Good for him!**

Hiro: Otto soon developed a remarkable invention- a chest harness that connected the wearer to four mechanical arms. This invention earned him a new nickname: Doctor Octopus.

**MBStarscream: Cuz Otto... octo... yeah, it's stupid.**

Hiro: Around this time, he became involved with a fellow researcher, Mary Alice Anders, to whom he eventually proposed marriage. However, the happy couple was broken up by Otto's mother, who disapproved of the young bride-to-be. Otto broke off the engagement at his mother's behest, but she died soon after in the middle of a heated argument with her son.

**MBStarscream: Having lost all of his social ties, Otto became more withdrawn and sullen, and grew obsessively dedicated to his work while simultaneously throwing professional and operational caution to the wind. This recklessness with his personal safety lead directly to an accident that would change his life forever.**

Hiro: A radiation leak in the lab caused an explosion, which fused the harness and limbs onto his body. The radiation simultaneously caused mutations in his brain, allowing him to have direct control over the arms through telepathy. Driven insane by the accident and the damage it had caused to his body and mind, Doctor Octopus became dedicated to a life of crime, putting him in conflict with New York superhero Spider-Man along the way.

**MBStarscream: Doctor Octopus had all the tools to cement himself as one of Spidey's deadliest foes, like his genius-level intellect related to the field of atomic physics and radiation. He holds a PhD (heh) in nuclear science, and is skilled as an inventor and an engineer.**

Hiro: He is an excellent tactician, as well as being a charismatic leader, able to effectively segment his attention in such a way as to engage multiple people in battle while simultaneously performing some other, more delicate task. But his main weapons are the four prehensile, electronic arms that are attached to his torso, which he has telepathic control over.

**MBStarscream: His arms have pincers at the end of them and can extend to 24 feet at the maximum, and are capable of superhuman strength and enhanced reaction time. He can use them to lift a maximum of three tonnes per arm, though at least one arm must support his body, and he can use them similarly to legs, to lift his body and move rapidly over a variety of terrains, and also to scale walls.**

Hiro: Although there are no nerve endings throughout the length of his artificial arms, Otto can "feel" basic sensations with them. As a result of the mutagenic changes from exposure to radiation during the accident, electrical connections have been made from his chest harness to his spine. Thus, Doctor Octopus can mentally perceive "tactile" sensations by feeling the amount of electrical resistance that the pincer's electric motors feel when the pincers grasp an object.

**MBStarscream: Otto possesses extraordinary mental abilities and concentration, and through years of practice is able to perform two complex and two simple independent actions, simultaneously, one with each arm. In combat, Otto has managed to force opponents as formidable as Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Captain America to take up a defensive position in a fight, and has kept going after taking superhuman-level hits despite being pretty unfit.**

Hiro: The years of fighting and injuries, however, have forced Otto to wear an armored body suit which adds an additional four cybernetic arms that he can control telepathically along with an army of small, eight-limbed robots called Octobots.

**MBStarscream: As if Doctor Doom and his Doombots weren't enough.**

Hiro: Otto has possessed a total of three different harnesses during his career: the original titanium harness, a more powerful adamantium harness, and a carbonadium harness with tentacles bearing an octopus-like motif. The adamantium harness was powerful enough to both restrain and pummel the Hulk into submission, and the adamantium in his tentacles made besting Iron Man in combat possible, tearing the hero's armor apart with a defeat so harsh that Tony Stark began to doubt his abilities almost enough to allow his persistent problem with alcohol abuse to flare up.

**MBStarscream: The harness is also capable of holding a small jetpack, allowing him to fly to places faster and able to evade Spider-Man more easily. Otto is even capable of whirling his tentacles around to deflect small projectiles like bullets.**

Hiro: Doctor Octopus has certainly proven to be no slouch. He's given superhuman opponents trouble in combat while showing to be a glutton for punishment, and knows just how to manipulate the people around him, like when he got the X-Men to trust him after beating up Wolverine, or when he managed to turn the whole world against Spider-Man.

**MBStarscream: He's taken down most of the Avengers, led the Sinister Six, and became a Superior Spider-Man after killing the real guy. But all of this doesn't make him invincible.**

Hiro: On many occasions, Otto's pride has been a major factor in many of his defeats. Otto considers himself to be the smartest person on the planet and that he could never be wrong due to his massive intellect. This confidence in his own intelligence frequently causes him to ignore factors that could derail his plans leaving him unprepared for when these factors come into play.

**MBStarscream: He's also still human beneath all the mechanical tentacles and can be taken out if he takes too much damage, as his losses to Spider-Man can attest to, and he'll be left helpless if he ever loses those tentacles if his. But as long as he's got those babies attached to him, nothing compares to the genius of Doctor Octopus.**

*Doctor Octopus: The real crime would be not to finish what we started. We'll do it here. The power of the sun in the palm of my hand. Nothing will stand in our way! Nothing!*

## Mr. Freeze

Hiro: Victor Fries was a talented scientist, with a horrible past. An abusive father and lack of friends, however, didn't stop him from finding love in the form of a wife, Nora Fries.

**MBStarscream: But things would go downhill when Nora was diagonised with a rare terminal illness. Desparate to save his wife by any means, Victor began work at a large corporate company run by the evil and corrupted Ferris Boyle. But when he was unable to cure his wife, he found a way to place her in cryo-stasis.**

Hiro: He just needed to do one more thing to save Nora's life: Steal equipment from the company he worked for. When Ferris found out about Fries stealing from him, he and some of his goons tried to kill Fries in the cryo lab, resulting in an accident that changed Fries forever.

**MBStarscream: Now only able to life in sub-zero temperatures, Fries built himself a cryo-suit powered by diamonds to keep his body temperature below zero. From then on, he would clash with the Batman while trying to find a way to save his dying wife under a new fitting alias: Mr. Freeze.**

Hiro: In his quest to save his wife's life, Mr. Freeze would stand out in the Dark Knight's rogues gallery for a variety of reasons. His altered biology caused his skin cells to become storage units for the cold to help his body chemistry to be comfortably chilled, allowing him to become both entirely immune and adapted to sub-freezing temperatures.

**MBStarscream: Extraordinarily, Fries' age progression has slowed drastically in a suspended animated state; some interpretations also suggest that the chemical he was soaked in was glycerol, a cryo-protectant he intended to use for cryopreservation. And because of his extremely low body temperature, anything his skin comes into contact with will freeze.**

Hiro: Fries' unique physiology also makes him immune to most toxins, bacteria, and viruses. But one deadly weapon of his is own mind; a brilliant scientific genius with an incredible mind for invention, he is skilled in physics, engineering, genetics, computer science, chemistry, and medical science. His science and technology are even as advanced as Apokolips or Lex Luthor’s.

**MBStarscream: His childhood obsession with cryogenics has led him to become one of the most gifted cryogenicists in Gotham. Victor was also able to build a cryonic life support machine for Catwoman, whose heart was surgically removed by Hush, and was capable of inventing a wide variety of cryotechnology from Nora’s CC2000 cryochamber to his extensive array of cryogenic weapons and armor.**

Hiro: Freeze is a remarkable medical scientist in his research on the pathology and neuroscience of Nora’s neurological illness. His specialization in cryonics has successfully proven his thesis on immortality through suspended animation; preserving his wife in a frozen state to delay her illness until a cure could be found is the best supporting example of his research.

**MBStarscream: Combined with his cryo suit, his strength and durability are augmented to superhuman levels. Freeze’s suit protected him from a bomb attack by the Ventriloquist’s henchmen but the helmet of the armor was damaged by a sniper, causing the gases to leak outside due to the pressure. Freeze’s strength and durability increased further after receiving a more advanced cryogenic armor, which was less heavy then the previous one, and was capable of withstanding gunshots and explosives.**

Hiro: But the main weapon Freeze uses in combat is his Ice Gun, a weapon able to create gusts of cold that approach absolute zero. The gun is also capable of creating a "cold field" and imprison their opponents in a cocoon of ice. Mr. Freeze also carries Cryo Grenades, which can be used as a form of shrapnel to freeze people caught in their blast range, and can detach small drones from his suit and survey his environment for heat signatures.

**MBStarscream: Mr. Freeze is quite a formidable foe for Batman, able to trade blows with him and even defeat him in their first encounter. He's survived the accident that turned him into Mr. Freeze in several continuties, broke through his own ice structures, created a machine that froze a whole Kryptonian city, and survived a blast from Heatwave, who uses the one thing that is always superior to ice: fire.**

Hiro: But for every feat he achieves, Mr. Freeze comes with a weakness. He depends on his cryo suit to stay alive, as he cannot survive at or above room-temperature outside of it, and the diamonds powering his suit can run out at any moment.

**MBStarscream: And being a Batman villain, he's lost his fair share of battles with the Caped Crusader. That's not to say that he hasn't given Batman any trouble, however, and any villain who can say that they've kept up with the bat vigiliante of Gotham is not one you should mess with.**

Hiro: Regardless of who gets in his way, Mr. Freeze will stop at nothing to ensure that his wife survives, so you would be wise not to antagonize him, or you may be feeling a bit... colder.

*Mr. Freeze: What killed the dinosaurs? THE ICE AGE!*

## Fatal Fiction

*Mario flips a coin.*

Hiro: Well, Mr. Freeze edges out in territory, but can he stand up to Spider-Man's tentacled foe?

**MBStarscream: This is gonna be cool, I can tell.**

Hiro: Was that an ice pun?

**MBStarscream: Maybe, maybe not.**

*Gotham City*

Four metallic appendages slammed violently against the wall as they pulled someone up the building, forming cracks each time they hit the vertical surface again and again. The man climbing the building with these tentacles wore a dark green bodysuit lined with a black polymer, along with round welding goggles, and had dark hair that was balding.

Otto Octavius, better known as **Doctor Octopus**, reached the top of the building and overlooked the city that was unfamiliar to him. As he silently looked down at the street, pondering how he had ended up here, something in the sky caught his attention. He could see another man with blue skin sitting in some kind of flying contraption, clad in a special suit with a helmet and red goggles.

Pilotting this contraption was the supervillain **Mr. Freeze**, and as Doctor Octopus watched, he pulled a lever and a blast of ice was fired from his machine, freezing a small building in the process. Otto was intrigued, to say the least. This man had the power of ice in the palm of his hand. He had to find out more about him.

That was when Freeze noticed Otto standing on a building in the distance, the scientist's tentacles likewise catching his attention. He flew over to the building and stared down at Otto as the latter matched his gaze. "Who are you?" Freeze more or less demanded. "I won't let anyone stand in my way."

"You may call me Doctor Octopus, sir." Otto said back to him, his tentacles snapping menacingly. "Now I'd like to ask you: What's your secret with ice?"

"I will freeze this world," Freeze said, "and I can't have you in the way. Leave now, and you may just not be frozen today."

Otto was unfazed by this threat. "Some people just wanna watch the world freeze over. If you're as gifted as you say..."

In a flash, one tentacle lashed out and grabbed Freeze, throwing him out of his contraption and slamming him into the ground. Another tentacle held onto Freeze's flying vehicle before it could fall into the street, tangling it above the building the two men were standing on. "Prove it to me."

Freeze got up and glared at his fellow evil scientist behind his goggles. "You challenge me? For that," he pulled out a large gun. "I shall freeze you solid."

"You wanna play games?"

**FIGHT!**

"Catch!" Otto swung Freeze's vehicle across the air, missing its owner by a hair's breadth as Freeze ducked under Otto's lashing tentacle. He fired an ice blast at Otto, but another tentacle blocked the shot, encasing its head in ice. Throwing Freeze's vehicle away, Otto sent another tentacle towards Freeze, grabbing his ice gun out of his hands and throwing it near the edge of the building. Breaking the ice on his frozen tentacle, Otto jabbed forward with that tentacle, hitting Freeze inteh chest and causing him to slide towards the edge on his back. Freeze got up and managed to dodge Otto's tentacles before punching him a few times until Otto extended one of his tentacles upward, launching Freeze into the air.

Otto grabbed Freeze's ice gun as the scientist hit the ground again, as he got up, Otto hit him with the gut with his own gun, pushing him back. Throwing the gun to the ground, Otto advanced on Freeze and prepared to launch a tentacle at him, but Freeze managed to dodge the appendage and quickly retrieved his ice gun, firing a blast aimed at Otto's head that one of his tentacles managed to block just in time. This time Freeze would not let up; he fired multiple ice blasts that Otto tried his best to block with his tentacles, more and more ice appearing on each appendage. Otto knew this could be probematic, so he slammed two tentacles on the ground hard enough to make a shockwave, cracking the floor and nearly making Freeze fall over.

Freeze saw Otto charging at him and fired an ice blast at one of his lower tentacles, distacting him. He rushed Otto head-on and tackled him onto his back, punching at his face until two tentacles lifted him off of Otto and threw him away. Freeze narrowly grabbed onto the edge of the building as he tangled pecariously. He could hear loud thudding as Otto got closer and closer until he felt something grab his hand and lift him into the air by his arm. Before he could fire another ice blast, Otto grabbed his ice gun and let it fall towards the streets below while he held Freeze over the building.

"You never had a chance against my brilliance." Otto taunted. Scowling, Freeze aimed one of his dual wrist-mounted cryo-guns at Otto and hit with an ice blast, making him back away with an exclamation of shock and pain as he dropped Freeze in the process. Barely managed to grab onto the building in time, Freeze pulled himself up and charged at a distracted Otto, tackling him off of the building.

As they fell, Freeze hit Otto's face with his fists as the villain hit the wall. Otto's tentacles managed to grab onto the wall, stopping Otto's descent as Freeze held onto him, still punching him and trying to make him fall as Otto tried to hold him off. Otto pushed him down with a tentacle, but Freeze grabbed onto Otto's foot, trying to pull him down with him. He climbed up Otto's leg as the scientist held onto the building with his tentacles, and started hitting him again until Otto grabbed Freeze's wrist. Freeze held onto Otto's chest with his free hand. Otto tried to climb back up the building, but Freeze wasn't having it and fired another ice blast from his wrist gun at one tentacle.

Otto looked over at the frozen area on his tentacle, distracting him enough for Freeze to hit him in the face again. Grabbing Otto's shirt, Freeze pulled on it until his tentacles couldn't hold onto the building anymore, leaving Otto to fall with his foe once more. More blows hit his face as they plummeted, and he fought back the best he could before they landed on a parked car, shattering the windows and triggering a blaring alarm. Otto's tentacles threw Freeze away, and he landed on the hard road as Otto rolled off of the demolished car and onto the ground. As both fighters slowly got to their feet, Otto grabbed the car with two tentacles and chucked it at Freeze, slamming it into him and sending him towards the front door of the building behind him.

Freeze pushed the car off of him and stood on top of it, glaring hard at Otto. "Not cool." he growled. Otto wasn't sure whether to chuckle or shake his head at the pun; even his tentacles looked at him as if sharing his confusion over Freeze's corny joke. "You may specialize in cryogenics, but I must say, comedy is not quite your strength." His two upper tentacles nodded in agreement.

"Allow me to break the ice for you." Freeze responded before charging at Otto. He slid under a lashing tentacle before throwing punches at Otto that the scientist managed to block. The supervillains punched at each other, and Otto was quick to realize that his blows weren't quite as effective as his opponent's; Freeze's helmet and armor kept his him well protected from any blow Otto threw at him, while Otto's head was well exposed and vulnerable now that Freeze was fighting up close. He knew he would have a much better chance at fighting from afar with his trusty tentacles, which were much stronger than his own fists, so he climbed onto the building behind him and jumped, landing behind Freeze and swinging a tentacle at him, knocking him down.

Freeze caught something from the corner and turned his head to see, to his dismay, his ice gun broken in two on the ground. He turned back to Otto as he slowly approached, and got back up. Otto grabbed Freeze with one of his tentacles and picked him up by the throat before smashing him into the ground. He put the same tentacle on Freeze's back and tossed him into another car, causing the door to cave in and smashing the glass. Shaking his head, Freeze looked up as Otto readied his tentacles, and then got an idea. A tentacle flew towards him, and ended up grabbing onto the car as Freeze dodged it and froze it with his wrist ice gun in quick success, causing it to be stuck to the car. Then with a mighty punch, Freeze shattered the tentacle's hand, causing Otto to pull it back in shock.

Sparks flew out of the stump where the tentacle's clawed head used to be as Otto stared at his amputated appendage, shocked that he had been tricked into this easily. Meanwhile, Freeze took out some kind of grenade and hurled at Otto before he could react; next thing he knew, his lower body and two lower tentacles were trapped in white ice. As he tried to break out of the ice, Freeze slowly walked over to him. Otto's remaining upper tentacle lashed at him, only to be immediately frozen by Freeze's wrist ice gun. "Impossible!" Otto shouted as he struggled to break free.

"Nothing's impossible when you're as cool as me." Freeze quipped. Without another word, Freeze froze Otto's head with a final blast of his wrist ice gun, pulled back a fist... and threw a punch.

It was like smashing glass. The force behind the punch sent pieces of ice flying in all directions, scattered all over the floor. Those pieces were what remained of Otto's head, which was now a decapitated stump atop a partially frozen corpse. Freeze looked at the man he had just killed with nothing but his own cryogenic knowledge, and walked away with one more taunt.
"It was *ice* to meet you before you were a cold corpse."

**FATALITY!**

## Results

**MBStarscream: Boo, only I get to make puns!**

Hiro: This was a tough one to figure out, as this fight easily could've gone either way. Freeze is someone who has a lot of firepower, being able to create tech that can destroy city blocks, fly to the Sun, and even level Kryptonian cities. Otto on the other hand is generally fast and tough, being able to contend with Spider-Man with his tentacles.

**MBStarscream: Now they're both arguably equal in strength, but Freeze's armor slightly edged out in durability. Problem is, Otto is very quick and agile and good at keeping his foes at a distance without closing any gaps. But another problem is, everything else besides his harness is very vulnerable to damage. So it came down to who could pull off a killing shot first.**

Hiro: While Otto's tentacles could survive being frozen, Otto's body is completely vulnerable to attack, which would force Otto to stay on the move. As for Freeze, his suit gives him a lot of durability and added strength that allowed him to contend with Otto up close, once he bypassed the latter's arguably stronger tentacles, and Otto's lack of bodily armor meant that he could easily take him down with a well-placed shot from any of his cryo weapons.

**MBStarscream: Otto may have had his strong tentacles and genius on his side, but his exposure to Freeze's weapons and lack of defense aside from his tentacles left him open to the killing blow ultimately delivered by Freeze in this chilling fight.**

Hiro: Mr. Freeze wins.

## Advantages

### Mr. Freeze (Winner)

* Armor could protect against anything Otto threw at him
* Otto's lack of armor left him completely open to being frozen
* Better firepower and techonology
* Could easily overpower Otto up close with his armor and superhuman prowess
* Better hax
* Has more weapons at his disposal, and ice-themed weapons at that