Ferris Boyle

Ferris Boyle was the owner and CEO of GothCorp.

HistoryEdit
Boyle was Victor Fries' employer and CEO at GothCorp cryogenics lab. When Ferris learnt that Victor was using the CC100 cryotube to freeze his wife Nora Fries, knowing that it is costing him millions to run the project, he orders it shut down. Victor tries to fight them off but ends up in a coolant blast, transforming him into Mr Freeze.

A year later, executives at Gothcorp are being frozen to death and Ferris discovers Freeze in the old cryo lab where Nora is being kept so that Ferris can use her to gain a profit. Batman shows up when Victor starts freezing Boyle and when Victor accidentally blasts Nora's capsule whilst firing his freezing ray at Batman, supposedly killing her (although she survived), he freezes Ferris Boyle to death in a fit of rage.

In Other Media
Ferris Boyle was the CEO of GothCorp. He appears to be compassionate, but is really ruthless.

HistoryEdit
Boyle promoted GothCorp as "the People Company", creating an image of a softer, more compassionate corporation than people expected. He was even nominated for Gotham City's Humanitarian Industrialist of the Year. It was, however, all an act: underneath, Boyle was greedy, ruthless, and cold-hearted. A year before his nomination, he became infuriated when Dr. Victor Fries, a GothCorp scientist, was using company equipment without authorization (or as he later put it to Bruce Wayne, "wasting [his] money"). Boyle confronted Fries in his lab with two security guards and ordered him to shut down his unauthorized "project". Fries pleaded that the "project" was actually a stasis tube preventing his terminally ill wife, Nora, from dying, and that shutting it off would kill her. Boyle was not moved in the slightest, and ordered his guards to disconnect the equipment. In desperation, Fries seized a gun and ordered them to stay back. Boyle, exercising some of his old charm, appealed to Fries to be reasonable, and promising that they could work things out without violence—causing Fries to lower the gun, just long enough for Boyle to kick him in the chest, sending him crashing backwards into a table of unstable chemicals. Boyle and his guards fled the scene, and presumed that Fries and his wife had both died. He gave a mental shrug, and went on with the business of running his company.

In fact, Fries had survived, though his body chemistry was radically altered. Believing Nora dead, Fries began a campaign of vengeance against GothCorp and Boyle, culminating on an attack on the building where Boyle was to accept his humanitarian award. Boyle was shocked to recognize his assailant as the presumed-dead Victor Fries. Boyle was reduced to begging for his life as Freeze slowly froze him in ice from the feet up, until Batman arrived and subdued Freeze. Having saved Boyle from being murdered, Batman then handed over to Summer Gleeson a videotape of the tragic accident, and didn't bother to free Boyle from the ice, simply saying to him "Good night, humanitarian" in a disgusted tone.

Although the tape would technically be incontrovertible proof of Boyle's crimes, it is unknown if it actually did send Boyle to prison, since Batman would later state that any evidence found by him had no legal providence.

It is said that after the incident, Boyle lost everything and he blames Victor for ruining everything and he tried to get his revenge; however, he was killed, although ironically not by Freeze, but a replica of him designed to frame the real Victor Fries by Nora's jealous new husband.

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TriviaEdit

 * Ferris Boyle was voiced by Mark Hamill, who is more well known as the Joker in the Batman mythos. Incidentally, his performance as Ferris Boyle was also what led him to be cast as the Joker due to their original choice, Tim Curry (who had previously voiced Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the film adaptation of Stephen King's It), not being available.

Batman: The Animated SeriesEdit

 * Season 1
 * "Heart of Ice"