Polite Dissent

[This post marks the beginning of an occasional series on various medical diagnoses that are -- if not unique to comic books (particularly super hero books) -- generally restricted to comics and related genres and media. While most of these diagnoses are entirely imaginary, some are genuine conditions -- only re-imagined in a way only comic book writers can.]

I’ll start off with an oldie but goodie: Frozen Solid.

Classically, villains (and sometimes heroes) encased their victims and opponents in ice. They were trapped for a time, and undoubtedly very cold, but otherwise unharmed.

Medically, the largest risks involved were frostbite on exposed skin and hypothermia. Also, looking at some of these images, I think suffocation would have been a significant concern because it is damn hard to breathe through ice (Go ahead — try it. Get an ice cube from the freezer and just try to breathe through it).

Even in today’s comics, this remains the preferred use of ice:

In recent years, things have gotten more dangerous. Some villains are no longer content to just immobilize their opponents, but instead freeze them through. This can prove fatal as shown in one of the early Gotham Central storylines and the sadly overlooked one-shot Firebirds.

Medically speaking, the rapid freezing of body tissue is extremely damaging because it disrupts cell membranes and kills the cells. That’s the main reason we use liquid nitrogen to treat warts. Frankly, even if the frozen victim wasn’t shattered, they would never survive being frozen solid.

In the real world, I’m not aware of any cases of anyone every being rapidly frozen (fatally or otherwise) similar to comic book scenarios. Forozen bodies are common though; it seems that not a year goes by without a dead frozen body being found somewhere in the world, here a two recent examples:

• The Iceman of the Alps
• Frozen WWII Flier

You’ll notice that in all these cases the person ended up frozen after death.

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FINAL NOTE: Don’t ask me to explain Captain America other than the fact that it was a fairly slow freeze and he had the benefit of the Super Soldier Serum

Tags: comics medicine ice frozen mr. freeze iceman icicle