Summer is here, and the heat is unbearable. Summertime makes life seem to move faster, so we have got something refreshing for you today. As a result, we have compiled a list of comics featuring this DC supervillain, who is quite literally the coldest character in the comic and film worlds. Captain Cold is one of DC’s most infamous supervillains. He is not only as cold as ice, but he also gives Flash a run for his money on a regular basis.
Captain Cold is one of the most entertaining DC villains and characters and has played an important role in the Flash comics since 1957. He has appeared in 858 comic issues so far, and he has kept us entertained the entire time. Captain Cold is one of the most endearing villains in comic book history. Cold, a blue-collar supervillain, has a sense of integrity that prevents him from killing innocent people…though he would be happy to rob them blind.
Let us take a look at how he became as icy as ice and acquired the moniker, Captain Cold.
Captain Cold Endured A Harsh Childhood
People who suffer greatly either become heroes or suffer long enough to become villains. Captain Cold belongs to the latter category. Captain Cold was born Leonard Snart, and he had a very tough upbringing. Snart’s mother passed away when he was a toddler, leaving him and his younger sister Lisa in the care of their father.
That did not go well as he had not dealt well with the loss of his wife. His grief took an ugly turn, and he turned to drink, which also led to physical abuse towards his kids. He liked to vent out his grief in the form of rage by beating his son. Leonard would do whatever it took to keep his younger sister safe from their father’s fury, even if it meant enduring every possible beating. Leonard learned two vital lessons from his father’s conduct.
The first lesson was that a person needed to be able to control their emotions in order to get through life. The second lesson was that hurting weaker individuals than you were never acceptable. Everything Leonard would do as an adult would be encapsulated in these lessons. Leonard’s caring grandfather was the only refuge in these tough times.
He would occasionally bring Leonard and his sister to join him at the ice factory where he worked to give them a change of scenery or peace of mind. Leonard grew up associating positive feelings with the cold and started to treasure the frigid climate; he looked at the cold as a symbol of his escape from abuse. However, his father was a man who instilled emotional coldness in him, especially after the death of Snart’s grandfather. He dealt with all those things at the tender age of twelve.
After this, he decided to leave the house and start his career as a thief and a criminal. He did not want his sister, Lisa, to get involved in his criminal life, so he ran away from the house. Leonard started his career as a criminal by doing smaller robberies, such as stealing automobiles and robbing gas stations, but as he improved, he advanced. Leonard began pursuing more prominent positions, such as banks and diamond stores, with the help of local gangs.
Throughout it all, Leonard followed his second rule and never assaulted or attacked anyone he was robbing, which frequently resulted in him getting into fights with his fellow crooks. Despite the fact that Lisa was a prodigy on the ice, Leonard’s protective attitude towards her and Lisa’s grateful acceptance led her to abandon her passion and instead follow her brother down a darker road.
She also became a supervillain using the alias Golden Glider. When Snart was compelled to face the city’s newest hero, the Flash, after stealing a Cold Gun to employ in his plots in Central City, he adopted the title “Captain Cold.” He learned about and stole a cold engine while in prison, putting himself and Flash on a more level playing field. Snart and his sister “Golden Glider” linked up with several other Flash’s Rogues Gallery members as a survival strategy, becoming the appropriately called Rogues.
How Did He Turn Into A Deadly Supervillain?
Snart used a gang of small-time criminals while preparing for a bank robbery. All his gang members were each given a gun and a visor to protect their eyes from the flashes of gunfire. Snart would subsequently modify this visor design into his signature suit. He has just installed a radio receiver to them that picks up the police frequency, allowing him to keep an eye on local law enforcement.
However, the worst thing that could have occurred to a Central City criminal happened to Leonard on one of these jobs: the Flash showed up there. Leonard was apprehended by the speedster and imprisoned. While incarcerated, Leonard started looking for ways to stop Flash from foiling his plans. During that time, he found an article on how the energy discharges of a cyclotron could interfere with the Flash’s abilities.
He devised a weapon to capture that power and broke into a cyclotron facility with the intention of charging up his experimental pistol with the gadget. A security guard surprised Snart as he was concluding his experiment. Inadvertently pulling the trigger while attempting to terrify the guard, he learned that his weapon had been altered in ways he had never imagined. The moisture in the air around the guard froze and formed ice crystals.
Snart donned a parka and the visor mentioned earlier and called himself Captain Cold – the man who conquered absolute zero – intrigued by this turn of events. If a costumed hero was going to get engaged with his city, Leonard would take on the role of a costumed criminal. And thus, Captain Cold was created by Leonard Snart.
In the New 52 series, we have a new and refreshed Captain Cold and a different version of how he gained his powers. While leading the Rogues, Leonard had become increasingly aware of the fact that their high-tech weapons were not enough to stop the Flash from foiling all their attempts at criminal activity.
After a botched robbery, Leonard was furious and fired The Trickster from the team. His irritation and guilt over the situation drove him to drink excessively. This resulted in another sloppily attempted robbery that required the other Rogues to come and save him. Then, Leonard received an offer from Dr. Darwin Elias.
He said he could help him stop the Flash in his tracks, and he did. Elias helped them create weapons more suited to stopping Flash. He made the Rogues merge their DNA with the weaponry by inserting them into his genome re-coding device. While Leonard was blessed with Cryokinesis, his sister was not so fortunate. She was ejected from her body and transformed into an astral form. Her actual body had been rendered comatose and is now suffering from a cancerous brain tumor. Leonard, like Lisa’s boyfriend Sam, blamed himself. They decided to disband the team after that.
Flash unleashed an EMP blast that knocked out electricity to the Gem Cities leaving places without power. Due to this, the hospital caring for Lisa would not have enough reserve energy to run a laser that could save her from her deadly cancer. In order to exact vengeance on the Flash for causing the electricity blowout and potentially killing her sister, Leonard resolved to break the Rogues’ rules and murder him.
Captain Cold froze the river between the Gem Cities in an attempt to draw the Flash’s attention. However, Leonard discovered that if he got wet, his powers would backfire, and he mistakenly encased himself in ice, from which the Flash was able to release him. When the Flash got to know the reason behind this vengeful attack, he agreed to do everything he could to help. So, the hero developed a battery that was powered by Speed Force energy and saved Lisa’s life.
His Most Exciting Storyline Explored
Let us now explore some of the major story arcs as seen in the comics with Captain Cold. As we have seen, Captain Cold is one of the main adversaries of the Flash. He is seen multiple times in The Flash, and often their interactions include the Rogues Gallery as well. While he briefly runs a bounty hunting business with his sister Lisa, he decides that crime is his chosen lifestyle and returns to it.
We briefly see him in Underworld Unleashed as well. Underworld Unleashed is a brilliant crossover comic by the writer Mark Waid. It is filled with bright neon green ink and villains and superheroes from all over the DC universe. However, we encounter Captain Cold only briefly here.
We are introduced to a new mega villain Neron who, with the help of Abra Kadabra, tricks Captain Cold and four other rogues with the chance of becoming highly regarded villains. In the process, he steals their souls and their lives. Captain Cold’s soul ends up in hell while his soulless body stays on the Earth as a ruthless killing machine. Once Neron loses, though, Captain Cold’s soul returns to his body.
In the comic crossfire, we see the villain Blacksmith reassemble the squad of rogues after it collapsed due to the reformation arc of some of the Rogues. Cold isn’t invited, and he is enraged that his team is being taken away from him, so he attempts to disrupt their efforts. He assists Fred Chyre and Jared Morillo in rescuing Cyborg and the other prisoners kept captive in the Mirror World. He later helps Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, and the Trickster in their escape from the Flash. He then reforms the Rogues after reuniting with them.
The comic Identity Crisis gives us the new leader of Flash’s Rogues Gallery: Captain Cold. The Weather Wizard, the new Trickster, the new Mirror Master, and the new Captain Boomerang look up to him as their new leader because of his expertise and experience. After the elder Captain Boomerang was recently killed, Len appears to have taken the junior Captain Boomerang under his wing.
According to the tabloids, Captain Cold’s sister, the Golden Glider, was rumored to be Boomerang’s mother, making him Captain Cold’s nephew. This turned out to be incorrect, as Meloni Thawne, the mother of Bart Allen, was revealed to be the new Boomerang’s mother. Captain Cold’s heart isn’t fully frozen, despite his recent ruthlessness, as proven by the fact that he sent flowers to honor the death of Elongated Man’s wife, Sue Dibny.
Another major arc was the Rogue War. In this comic arc, Cold had begun to reassemble his team and form ties with other, more powerful villains like Gorilla Grodd. This attracted the FBI’s notice and the attention of former Rogues, who had subsequently reformed. The group of reformed Rogues attacked him and his crew, igniting a city-wide conflict. He battles Heat Wave and the Flash for a brief moment.
Cold freezes and shatters Top when he admits his hand in pitting the Rogues against one another. Later, he fights Top’s new Rogues before fleeing with his team when Professor Zoom and Hunter Zolomon divert Flash’s attention. He makes the decision for the crew to join Lex Luthor’s Secret Society.
Inertia invites Cold and the Rogues to join him in a conspiracy that he claims will allow them to freeze time and loot the entire universe in Full Throttle. However, instead of freezing the planet, the machine steals Bart Allen’s abilities. Cold and his crew overcome Allen, but they know they’ve been duped when they unmask him and reveal his connection to Inertia. Cold and many other team members then fire on Allen when he tries to restore his speed, killing him.
Salvation Run follows the Rogues and Cold as the first villains to be sent to the prison planet Salvation. The story follows the various villains as they arrive on the planet two weeks later. Since all the villains are forming alliances to either escape the planet or rule it, he sides with Team Lex and leaves the prison planet on Luthor’s teleporter.
The final crisis shows us Cold after the death of Bart Allen. in the aftermath of Bart Allen’s death, there is a lack of support offered by the Rogues. So, Cold refuses to join Libra’s Secret Society. Libra dispatches a posse of a knock-off version of the Rogues to track them down, kidnapping Cold’s father and demanding that he surrender to Libra. Cold leads his team to kill the new Rogues, while Heat Wave murders his father.
He and his gang chase him down, intending to retire after exacting vengeance on Inertia. They kill him together, and Cold leaves a message on his body reminding Flash that they are now on equal footing. However, when he learns that Barry Allen has returned, he decides not to retire.
What Makes Him So Powerful?
Snart, like the majority of the Flash’s Rogues, lacked natural superhuman abilities. Instead, he relied on his senses and cold guns. However, when we talk about his powers and skills, that is not all. Captain Cold is powerful mainly because of his cold gun. He can be seen wielding the cold gun that can produce absolute zero-degree temperatures or even produce a total immobilization of atomic movement. The gun may be used to create various effects, including freezing items in ice blocks, generating cold areas that delay anyone or anything that enters them, creating slippery or reflective ice patches, and forming icicles.
Snart had adapted his weaponry over the years to provide for a range of effects, including a chilly beam that instantaneously freezes anything it comes into contact with. He curated his gun so it could create a frigid environment in which people and objects come to a halt.
This ability came in handy when he used to try to slow down the Flash’s movements. His gun could also bathe his opponent in a wide beam of ice designed to freeze the target’s flesh, allowing them to remain conscious and not go numb to the pain. In order to kill Chillblaine, who had killed Cold’s sister, he froze the outside layer of Chillblaine’s skin when he killed him to inflict as much pain as possible.
He did other creative things with the ice, like creating a slick ice field that would slow down the Flash. He would also create sharp stalagmites on the ground to impale his adversaries. He had an “ice grenade” that would, according to the description, “transform this place into an iceberg.” We saw it in action during the events of Blackest Night when it was used to freeze everything in a vast radius, including the whole town of Iron Heights.
He can also use intense cold-like heat to create “mirages.” Snart’s skills of thermokinesis allowed him to drop the temperature in the atmosphere to deadly levels, and his ability to manipulate the weather allowed him to create a tremendous snowstorm across Central City.
In the New 52 universe, he had developed metahuman powers that allowed him to control ice and temperature using his own hands. Although a brief superpower, it gave the Flash a real run for his money. Cold is also somewhat a genius as he was able to recreate the cold gun from memory within half an hour after losing his cryokinetic powers.
Captain Cold is one of those villains that make you somehow root for them a little bit, even when you know that they are the bad guy. He always makes the Flash comics exciting and shows us what an interesting villain is like. The story arcs with Captain Cold are endless, and each one is worth it. What do you think of him?