The Cool, Cruel Mr. Freeze

"The fountains of Gotham City music hall. The perfect place to cool off on a hot day and relax with an ice cream." One can hardly disagree with the omnipresent words of the narrator, because relaxing with an ice cream is just one of the top ten awesome things to do on a hot day. However, what appears to be an ice cream man from outer space takes the "cool off" statement too far and freezes the hell out of the fountain. As if that wasn't bad enough, he then scoots over to the Gotham City waterworks with some of his chums and freezes all the water.

Such dastardly deeds won't go unnoticed at Wayne Manor, as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson (better known to you and I as Batman and Robin!) finish up on their workout, only to discover their water spout isn't spouting! Being men of action, they forego calling the plumber and head straight for the Batmobile, popping over to Commisioner Gordon's office. They're reminded of the basic fact that shit is frozen solid when it's scorching outside, when they receive a call - there's icebergs in Gotham harbour! That only spells out who's responsible for this abominable crime...

"The frigid, fiendish..."

"Mr. Freeze!"

At the scene of the crime, a bunch of dock workers and policemen on boats witness Mr. Freeze, indeed, making icebergs. Why? Because he's an asshole! The dock workers look at the stupidly-dressed individual with the giant freeze ray and only then realise that he's responsible for these acts of icy malice, and vow to pummel his face in.

They're told to cool off and are frozen to the spot, along with the police, who hadn't even bothered aiming their guns before they got frozen, despite having plenty of time while the dock workers drawled out their announcement of violence. The Batmobile rolls into the scene, the dynamic duo noticing they've got some frozen civilians sitting around. What's the safest practical way of thawing out someone from a block of ice?
 

Why, blasting them with full-throttle jet engines, of course. The freed individuals do pose a little just to demonstrate they haven't suffered any unfortunate ramifications, which is thoughtful of them. You'd think being melted to slush or being on fire would've been a concern.

Mr. Freeze is nowhere to be seen, so he's presumably vamoosed to freeze the last remaining water in town - the aquarium!

It's worse than they expected! Mr. Freeze is, indeed, freezing the aquarium (which seems to consist of just one giant container with one specimen in it), but he's freezing a whale along with it. And stealing the whale with a helicopter! Either Mr. Freeze has got some very rich Japanese fishermen he can sell it to, or he's just friggin' loopy.

Batman and Robin witness the theft, but choose to chase after Freeze in his ice cream truck. Unfortunately for them, Freezes crosses a rather rickety bridge and blasts it with his freeze ray, layering with a coat of perilous ice, sending the Batmobile askew and plummeting off a cliff.  Without so much as a scream from them, Freeze basks in his glory and resumes his crime spree.

wait what

Oh god you've got to be kidding me.

"Good thing we ran a safety drill on the parachute-pontoon release yesterday, Robin!"

Nobody was foolin' when it was said Batman was hyper-prepared. The two debate why Mr. Freeze stole a whale, but the two of them just can't understand what goes on in that fiendish mind of his.

At Mr. Freeze's rather unsubtle hideout (at least it isn't as flamboyant as in Batman & Robin), he's issuing demands to Commissioner Gordon - one billion dollars in gold before twenty four hours, or else he will freeze the entire city of Gotham! Naturally, Gordon is appalled by such a demand, but thankfully, since Freeze believes the Dynamic Duo are burning alive in a car wreck or something unfortunate, they have a cunning plan.

Bruce Wayne (who I may remind you is a millionaire) (and is also Batman) (because the narrator really likes you to remember) gets his cronies to convert all of his riches into gold, so when Freeze goes to claim it, Batman and Robin will ambush him! And because they've had a good track record of predicting what Freeze is up to so far, they swing onto the scene as he arrives at the harbour where the gold is being lowered onto a ship.
 

Mr. Freeze dispatches his gang of goons to dispatch of them, but faceless goons are no match for cunning and fisticuffs. Robin, however, is frozen by the freeze ray and bundled into an ice cream van, prompting Batman to give chase in the Batmobile. But he faces a dilemma... there are three ice cream vans!
 

That causes drama for all of two seconds, as it's revealed that Robin activated his utility belt tracing beacon, so Batman stops the van and pulls the driver out like a ragdoll. Robin thaws out of the ice off-screen and mentions that Mr. Freeze turned around a corner; he must've gone back for the gold!

The concern Batman displays is just astronomical.

Indeed, Freeze has fled on his ferry of funds, but thankfully the Dynamic Duo have the Batboat just sitting by the pier, without any implied means of keeping it safe whenever they don't need it to chase bad guys. The witness the boat moving into some fog... and then exploding. It friggin' explodes! Robin is rather dismayed that their fortune was sunk so suddenly, but Batman still believes it's safe, and he thinks he knows a way to recover it! To the Batcave!

Meanwhile, we witness what Mr. Freeze needed the whale for - as a remote-controlled guide to lead his submarine to the gold! Quite happy with the easiness of this plan, he--...

Okay, seriously, I can get behind shark repellent spray, I can perfectly understand exploding octopi, I can even comprehend the Batmobile having a parachute and a pontoon on it, but... why would you create such a deliciously absurd way of simply leading a submarine to a pile of gold? What, was stealing a whale simply for the sake of being evil just too dull? Was merely going there via submarine without a guide too much hassle? Just... there's no point in querying, is there? I mean, the writer died.

If anything, Dennis Marks did write some more comprehensible work. He wrote The Golden Lagoon, for instance!

At the Batcave, Batman's supercomputer deduces that the whale is the key to this mystery, as it had been used in "government sonic experiments," meaning that it can find gold anywhere is equipped with a gold detector.

... oh.

(sorry  Dennis.)

Batman plans to reclaim the gold by luring Mr. Freeze to them, and to do that, he makes Alfred steal the Melman Jewels, and if he and Robin assist him in escaping, it'll make Freeze believe they've become criminals. Crafty! As planned, the police are shocked to see the Batmobile dropping a smokescreen at them to assist an alleged-thief's escape.

As if that wasn't fiendish enough, Gotham Museum is unveiling two rare masterpieces, so what do Batman and Robin do? Steal the hell out of them. The fiends! The news report wastes no time in announcing that the former heroes have turned to crime, though excludes to mention that Batman hates art. George Bellows is spinning in his grave. Mr. Freeze, just as planned, hears the news and is delighted that the two have wised up. He mentions to his cronies that reserve gold is being brought into the city tonight, and it goes without saying that he wants it all for himself.

While Alfred tags the paintings for returning to the museum, Batman and Robin tag along on Freeze's scheme (which, of course, they predict perfectly) and are actually hiding in the U.S. Mint van, beating up his goons before he can react. Not even his freeze ray achieves much, and with a combination of batarang and bola, they take him down.

While the two of them gloat over how they're filthy stinking rich (moreso!), Mr. Freeze strikes a deal - the three of them join forces, add the gold to what he already owns, and they'll get the reputation of most dangerous criminals in the world. They accept! They scoot over to Freeze's ship and they're informed that Bruce Wayne's fortune is buried inside an iceberg with the whale circling it. And just like any villain, after telling them precisely what they need to know, he drops a net on them.

And then he frickin' freezes them! Though he's learnt his lesson by now after how everyone he froze was thawed out in seconds by some shoddily-explained means; he's going to feed them into an ice cube making machine! "I always said you two were square, but when this machine gets through with you, you'll be... cubes!" Mr. Freeze sounds very enthusiastic about his crap jokes.

You want to know how long this danger lasts? Thirty seconds.

Honestly, proving that you cannot kill Batman by any means whatsoever (you could probably saw him in half and he'd reveal he had magnets installed in his body so he can pull himself together), the two of them melt the ice with the inside (thermal controllers in their utility belts, apparently. Seriously, are they that prepared that they know what to do before they're frozen, or are these just really sloppy blocks of ice?) and push the block off the conveyor belt, freeing themselves. Meanwhile, Mr. Freeze is vamoosing via speedboat, but Batman and Robin take chase in the remote control Batcopter!

Mr. Freeze tries to blast them out of the sky, but Robin flings a batarang at him before the two of them simultaneously jump-kick his face. However, Freeze's gun messes up the control panel, rendering them on a suicide path straight for the iceberg! After so much farce in one day, Freeze thinks he may actually kill the two of them even if it means his own death, but Batman has an ace up his sleeve...

... yes, he totally just got a whale to scoop a speedboat onto its back. "It responded to my ultra-violet frequency!" He explains.

It probably also turns into a mongoose if you reverse its polarity.

Bruce and Dick head to Commissioner Gordon's office where everything is wrapped up - Mr. Freeze is imprisoned, Bruce Wayne's fortune is restored, and it sure is a good thing that Batman and Robin weren't crooks! Bruce desires to have the wanted poster of Freeze as a souvenir, hoping it'll be a rare and valuable document, but Chief O'Hara had 100,000 of them printed out. Shot down, Bruce!

It's no surprise, but the whale manipulation is pretty similar to the 1960s Batman movie wherein the Penguin has a whole platoon of mind-controlled sea life. This whale doesn't have a bomb in it, though, which is significantly less awesome.

The Batcopter is said to be remote controlled primarily to show how they can escape the ice cube factory and catch up with Freeze so quickly, and it seemed to keep up with the speedboat quite well - so couldn't they have just gotten it close enough so they could grab the ladder?

I wonder if there's any official Batman media where he can make toast with his utility belt.