The Suicide Squad video game released new content around the time of San Diego Comic-Con. Amidst the massive MCU reveals and the unprecedented transition to a new Democratic presidential candidate, it may’ve been easy to miss the introduction of a new Mrs. Freeze to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Season 2.
I’m a fan of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (SSKTJL). I understand it hasn’t sold too well. The story is wonderfully done, I strongly disagree with all detractors claiming otherwise. If Rocksteady Studios isn’t able to release its 10+ seasons of planned future content because of unmet expectations, it’ll be a shame, because it seems that the big-picture plan all along was for the Squad to kill the mind-controlled Justice League, and then for the Justice League to return to life over the course of several post-launch DLC seasons. I’ll be among those disappointed if we only ever get to play that first part of the long arc.
My initial review made a case for SSKTJL as the DC Universe equivalent of Avengers: Endgame, which we never quite got in movie form from the DC camp. It’s poignant and funny, the deaths are meaningful, the ending is huge. Granted, the gameplay could be more varied, the skins could be cooler. One wishes that it all rose to the level of the two-mission sequence in Chapter 4*, where the Squad rescues Waller’s convoy and escorts her back to the Hall of Justice while Superman and Wonder Woman are knocking each other around Metropolis, culminating in a big fight that’s truly affecting,
Worth reiterating, also, it’s a fairly rare action game that centers both a queer woman (Harley Quinn) and a Black man (Deadshot) as main playable characters. Not at all to the exclusion of the norm: Captain Boomerang is playable. So is Joker, and you can also be a shark. The game offers great options for those of us with the crazy notion that we don’t always wanna play as the beefy white dude.
The newest addition to SSKTJL’s playable roster is Victoria Frias, a.k.a. Mrs. Freeze. She is a new-ish version of a womanly Mr. Freeze, pulled from one of those ever-convenient alternate realities. Mr. Freeze’s boss battle was one of the most compelling events in Arkham City, so it makes sense for Rocksteady to build on that memorable achievement. Victoria is intended to be of Asian heritage; of course, she’s also a blue and frosty fictional person, so we needn’t get too hung up on the authenticity of phenotype here.
Again, alternate universe, so here’s this game-specific version of the story (according to some sparse wiki info and SSKTJL’s rather brief in-game exposition): Like original Mr. Freeze, Mrs. Freeze is married to a woman named Nora, who is rarely seen, but serves as the motivational muse for most of Freeze’s mad-scientist machinations. The relationship somewhat parallels Harley and Poison Ivy’s, in that Nora and Ivy are both eco-extremists, and Harley and Victoria are both Chaotic With Doctorate. The game amusingly diverts from making it weird(er) with a line about Mrs. Freeze wanting to go on a double date with Harley and Daphne, Ivy’s giant mutant plant — not Ivy herself, because in this game, Ivy is a young kid who evokes Greta Thunberg.
That’s another thing I love about SSKTJL; the sense of humor is pretty odd, a little wrong/transgressive, but it’s very much thought-out.
So now one can play as Mrs. Freeze, and find that the Flash may not be completely dead. (Spoiler level zero, if you’ve ever read a comic book.) The requisite grind to unlock all this is basically the same; it would be nice if there were more activities or puzzles to vary the pace, because it’s mainly at high-pitched kaleidoscopic swarm attack speed, with occasional breaks to manage gear. Still, it’s fun to blow up all the aliens in new cryogenically-assisted ways. Mrs. Freeze strikes a nice balance between her academic-nerd voice lines and her tank-style gameplay. She traverses on an Iceman-esque icicle bridge and can skateboard-charge through enemies. Her finishing moves are pro-wrestler sh*tkicker moves. I’d say she’s smoother to play than Joker, whose umbrella traversal I’ve yet to master.
At the risk of inviting some terrible superficial ogling discourse, I’ll opine it’s important that Mrs. Freeze is drawn a little different. Her design leaps out for not following the conventional standards set by most playable female protagonists in AAA games, e.g.: Lara Croft, 2B, Jill Valentine, Chun-Li, Stellar Blade’s Eve. They’re all generally super-fit ladies with long hair and big eyes (not 2B so much) in tight or fetish-coded outfits. Harley Quinn, in every canonical version up until the recent Batman: Caped Crusader, is a femme-pretty blonde white woman who looks a lot like Margot Robbie (as the snarky narrator in Barbie acknowledges, there’s a slight dissonance when Barbie/Robbie is advancing feminist ideas about appearance and body politics). The other Mrs. Freeze, of the comics and the animated show, is usually Nora Fries, and she’s also typically rendered as comic-book ideal-looking, that is to say, she looks kind of like Gwen Stacy. To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with being fit and having long hair, it’s just a bit of a dominant trope in, well, all media, but particularly in video games.
So it’s kind of a gas, as well as a flex, that Victoria Frias in SSKTJL has a short spiky haircut, wears a bulky armored suit and goggles, and is indeterminately Asian-coded (perhaps Filipina, from the surname?) and kind of masc. In the video game space, as far as playable characters with non-customizable facial features, it’s pretty different. The overall vibe she gives is (evil) scientist. Her voice performance is salty and calculating, much as Mr. Freeze is in Arkham City, Arkham Knight, and Gotham Knights. She has several fun dialogue lines with Harley which add stronger resonances to the team vibe, because hey, now there’s more than one playable woman on the squad! Shock and awe!
(The special video game feature of highly-customizable avatars is, potentially if not always in execution, one of the more progressive areas in the gaming world, and more games should have them — good on ya, Saints Row.)
The Suicide Squad game has been pretty consistent in its forward-looking representation of queer storylines and archetypes. The Pride-themed skins are arguably more flamboyant than innovative (a master of taste, I do like playing as asexual Deadshot), but the array of choice is thorough, ranging from aromantic King Shark to pansexual Boomerang to trans-inclusive gay men’s Joker. (And no, they did not ask you to pay money to add these color swatches, they were offered as free content for Pride Month, as far as I’m aware.)
If SSKTJL continues as originally planned, future roster characters (reportedly) will include Deadshot’s daughter Zoe and the fan-favorite assassin, Deathstroke. I’m definitely on the team that wants to main these characters; more than that, I would like to see how the full story of the Justice League’s resurrection unfolds. Even if it means having to slog through Brainiac’s shields for the umpteenth time. The writing and the visual/audio design in SSKTJL is still thrilling, and exceptionally well-integrated toward the story it’s trying to tell. So for this nerd, it’d be worth it.
*Because literally everyone asked, my Top 5 Favorite Sections From Marvel/DC Superhero Video Games (obviously I have not played every single one ever, but have played a lot of ’em):
1. SSKTJL / Saving Amanda Waller — Wall to the Hall — Worst Case Scenario mission sequence
2. Marvel Ultimate Alliance / Shi’ar Empire and Skrull Planet missions
3. Arkham City / The whole Museum section with Penguin and Solomon Grundy
4. Spider-Man / Miles Morales / the web-swinging and base-clearing, as a general activity, I could do all day
5. Arkham Knight / The Batgirl DLC
