- "No, Victor! She DIES! But I'll let you live long enough to see her go!"
- —Ferris Boyle showing his true colors
Despite a carefully-crafted philanthropic image, GothCorp's CEO was a ruthless businessman. Ferris Boyle's callous disregard contributed to the presumed death of Nora Fries and the ensuing accident that turned her husband into the cryogenic criminal, Mr. Freeze. Boyle's fall from grace was seen as a turning point for Gotham, souring his fellow elites' appetite for charitable works.
Biography
Incident Reports
Before Arkham Origins Incident
Ferris Boyle was running a secret cryogenic weapons program at GothCorp and hired scientist Dr. Victor Fries to work on it. In return for Fries' work, Ferris would give Fries resources to try to cure Fries' terminally ill wife, Nora. However on the 29th of December, when Ferris learned that Victor put his wife into cryogenic stasis, he forgot about the weapons and demanded to know how Fries did it. Realizing that Boyle never intended to keep his end of the bargain, Fries refused and began to conduct research on Nora's illness himself. In response, Ferris, armed with a gun and two guards, entered Fries' labs, and beat Victor to the ground while a third guard took Nora away. However, their ensuing brawl caused a prototype Cryo-cannon to be knocked over, freezing one of the guards and hitting a cryogenic chamber. The sudden pressure on the chamber triggered a cryogenic explosion that affected Fries and the remaining guard, altering their metabolism. Boyle was knocked by the shockwave and lost his gun in the process, but he was able to escape unharmed and quarantined the lab immediately, leaving his staff for dead.
Cold, Cold Heart Incident
On New Years Eve, Ferris was being honored at Wayne Manor as Gotham's Humanitarian of the Year. He accepted the award proudly, before happily greeting Bruce Wayne and Alfred. While he was on his way to be interviewed by Vicki Vale, Mr. Freeze crashed the party. Penguin's Henchmen beat Ferris as Batman raced to find him. As soon as Batman rescued him, Freeze kidnapped him and took him out of the party in a helicopter. Batman eventually tracked him back to his own company, GothCorp in South Gotham.
Ferris was seen being held at gunpoint by The Penguin and his henchmen, who had betrayed Freeze and wanted the weapons promised by him. When Batman intervened, Freeze used the distraction to freeze Penguin and his men. Freeze then used Ferris to enter the restricted area where Nora was being kept. Despite being at a disadvantage, Ferris defiantly refused to give the code to release Nora to Freeze. At that moment, Batman entered the room, trying to reason with Freeze, revealing that he knew the truth and so would the police, promising that Ferris would face justice for his crimes.
However, Freeze grabbed Ferris and locked him inside a cryogenic chamber. Batman defeated Freeze, and released Ferris, who promptly revealed his true colors and released cryo gas on Batman, freezing him. Believing him dead, Ferris then began to beat Freeze with a piece from his own suit while promising he will keep him alive long enough to see Nora die. However, before he could finish, Batman managed to break free of the ice, disarmed Ferris and knocked him unconscious. Afterwards, Boyle was arrested by the GCPD on charges of assault, kidnapping, and unlawful possession of weapons.
Arkham Shadow Incident
Boyle was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Nora Fries (despite her still being alive, just cryogenically frozen), and sent to Blackgate Prison. In July, he was accosted in the yard by Whiting and Trevor Graves, members of The Rats. GothCorp was unaware of his actions, and did not condone his violent acts towards Victor and Nora Fries, and as such, was ousted from GothCorp. Later, Ian Chase, another former socialite, would come across Boyle, who assumed him to be another thug harassing him, offering to do business with him as well as keep him safe after reassuring him of who he was. At this, Boyle admitted that he regretted harming Nora Fries as he did so, but deflected his actions by stating that the reason he stopped Victor Fries’ experiments to cure Nora was due to her endangerment being “the cost of business”. Over the days that followed, they would make monetary deals to survive, with Ian Chase falling in with Carmine Falcone, a prospect which Boyle deemed unwise. On the Day of Wrath, during the day, he would be harassed by the Rats for protection money in exchange for aid in Boyle’s agenda. Though he wrote Chase off as being “rich with ambition but intellectually destitute”, he did not wish to hear any details as to what happened to him, as his focus was on the bigger picture. He then vowed that when he got out, he would restart his business enterprise. At this, Graves reminded Boyle that he would still be paying the Rats for his survival, though Boyle also reminded them that they were fuelling his enterprise with a billionaire’s money, and then admitting that he had fallen in with stranger people.
Arkham City Incident
A poster for "Boyle Cryogenics" is on the wall in the Sionis Steel Mill, implying that Boyle did ultimately manage to get out of prison and restart his business. The events of Cold, Cold Heart are discussed by Mr. Freeze and Hugo Strange in an Interview Tape.
Psychological Profile
Ferris Boyle
Real Name: Ferris Boyle
GCPD Profile
Ferris Boyle
Batman's Database Profile
Boyle
Trivia
- Ferris Boyle first appeared in the critically acclaimed episode of Batman: The Animated Series "Heart of Ice", which Cold, Cold Heart is based on. He is voiced in the episode by Mark Hamill, who later went on to voice The Joker in the series, as well as many other Batman media, including the Arkham series. In fact, Hamill's performance as Boyle was a major factor behind his later role as the Joker.
- The Boyle Cryogenics poster being located at the Steel Mill, which acted as Joker's hideout during the events of Arkham City, and to a lesser extent Joker holding Nora hostage to ensure Mr. Freeze's cooperation, may have been an indirect reference to Mark Hamill's ties to both characters in voice roles.