Dr. Makent is a superior physicist and engineer. His key invention is a “cold ray” technology that makes cold behave like a radiant energy rather than the absence of heat. It was used to build weaponry, in industrial processes, and possibly as a youth-maintaining treatment.

The Icicle is neither a strong man nor an athletic one, but his reflexes are startling and he excels at sudden bursts of speed. He’s also an excellent shooter with his special gun, though admittedly the wide beam makes it hard to miss.

The Icicle wears a distinctive white costume that insulates from cold. The soles make it possible to run on ice without slipping. They do not just negate the slipperiness inherent to frozen water, but allowed him to confidently move on surfaces that would have been daunting even if made of concrete - for instance narrow, very inclined bridges between tall buildings. In DCH this is modelled by some Cling, though not enough to support his full weight. Thus, he can’t walk on vertical or inverted surfaces.

Joar and the cold gun

The earliest designs of this futuristic handgun could only freeze existing humidity or water. Under temperate conditions, the Icicle could thus form ice sheets on the ground - provided there had been rainfall recently - but not in the air. He often relied on jets of waters from fountains and the ubiquitous fire hydrants to freeze to form bridges, ramps and the like. Somehow, the water would always form just the right arc.

Still, this early form of the weapon was powerful enough to counter rays from Green Lantern (Alan Scott)’s ring, and could easily paralyse human beings by freezing them. As usual in comics, people could be harmlessly thawed after having been frozen despite the medical impossibilities this presents. The DCH stats include some Suspension to help represent this.

Further applications soon appeared - triggering a snowstorm in a tropical country, freezing low clouds to have masses of ice (or even spears of ice) fall upon his foes, and freezing millions of tonnes of water to form icebergs. The weapon seemed to have a line-of-sight range, and having masses of ice fall onto an unwary opponent usually qualifies as a Blindside Attack.

By the 1960s, the cold ray handgun behaved more like Iceman (Robert Drake), creating volumes of ice out of proportion with available humidity. Icicle’s gun could encase people in thick blocks of ice (though they could still breathe, did not die of hypothermia, etc.), project barrages of ice spears with great force, create slippery surfaces to immobilise most foes, create ice ramps from ambient humidity, etc.

Some flashbacks depict the Mk2 gun being used in the 1940s, for instance to form ice ramp. However, in this entry we’ve stuck with the abilities as they appeared historically.

Ice ice baby

Even when taking into account post-Crisis changes, the Icicle aged curiously. He was likely born in the 1910s, but there was little apparent ageing until 1984 or so, at which point a large chunk his chronological age suddenly caught up with him.

This is not an uncommon thing, so it can be ignored, explained by an external framework (such as our Leòn Genetic Sequence article) — or one can assume that Icicle invented a process to freeze his ageing for decades but not prolong his lifespan.

History

Dr. Makent was a Norwegian physics genius. During the 1940s he invented a “cold ray” technology, which made him famous. In 1947 the celebrated physicist sailed to the US on the ocean liner Atlantania to bring his discovery to the new world. As he travelled to the US Dr. Makent was assigned a Secret Service agent, Lorna Dawn, for security - since the “cold ray” could easily become a devastating weapon.

The physicist felt poverty-stricken, but wanted to be rich, glamorous, feared and admired. He had big plans for his when he would reach the US - not mere lectures, but becoming a super-villain.

As the Atlantania reached the harbour, notorious racketeer Lanky Leeds broke into the doctor’s cabin pistol in hand, demanding the cold gun. He and Makent struggled, and the cold gun went off, stunning Leeds, Dawn and Makent. The cold explosion in the cabin had frozen much of the Atlantania solid, in full view of crowds in New York City.

Recovering quickly, Makent murdered Leeds, switched clothing with him and put an “ice mask” on the racketeer’s face to make him look like him. It had all been plotted beforehand - Leeds was but a catspaw. The Norwegian was wearing hidden protection to withstand the prepared frost explosion, had sculpted the mask days before and already had a hideout, accomplices and costumes to become Icicle.

(From what Makent later said, it is possible that Leeds intended to double-cross Makent but underestimated the physicist, who realised Leeds’s plan and murdered him.)

Pretending to be Leeds and wielding his handgun, Makent was ordering Dawn to collaborate when Green Lantern (Alan Scott) came in to investigate.

The coldest criminal in history

Makent forced Dawn to knock Green Lantern out by surprise, then left with the agent while dragging Leeds’ corpse. He rendezvoused with criminal henchmen in a bad part of town, and threw Dawn into a convenient quicksand trap in the basement. Unbeknownst to him, though, the agent had slipped a message to Green Lantern after knocking him out.

Using the prepared costumes and the cold ray, Makent soon struck as Icicle and his gang. Green Lantern tried to prevent them from robbing a gems expo, but the masked Icicle stunned the emerald-clad avenger and fled with his men.

Investigating Dawn’s note, Green Lantern found and took down the thugs, but the Icicle paralysed him with his cold ray and threw him into the same quicksand pit as her. Scott and Dawn escaped and Green Lantern confronted the Icicle anew. Tricking him into thinking that he had been paralysed by the cold, Green Lantern defeated and unmasked his foe. However, Makent then made an incredible leap off the twenty-story building they were fighting on and into the river. Green Lantern assumed that the fall and freezing water had killed the Icicle.

Icicle’s insulated costume allowed him to survive, and he was reportedly helped out of the water by the demonic Johnny Sorrow, who sensed that the Icicle or one of his descendants would be useful to him decades later.

A warmer clime

Within weeks the Icicle resurfaced in Latin America, where he had been hired to support a coup attempt. The cold-blooded Makent fully expected to be double-crossed by the rebels, and his actual plan was to steal the national gold reserve.

(The country was fictional Penumbria, chiefly populated by clichés. Those preferring an actual country for their own version of the DCU can note that the story was probably inspired by the then-recent civil war in Paraguay.)

Icicle’s employer wanted him to cause chaos so his troops could march freely on the capital. The criminal physicist disrupted the weather system above the capital and kidnapped radio engineer Alan Scott in the US to force him to jam communications in the country. When Green Lantern intervened, the Icicle knocked him out and let him tied onto the rim of a volcano that was about to erupt. However, the green gladiator was saved by his friends Doiby Dickles and Lorna Dawn.

By this point, Icicle’s employers had turned against him — only to be frozen solid by the prepared Makent. Icicle then attacked the gold reserve from a plane - freezing the river under the building, which formed an iceberg that burst through the ground with the reserve trapped on top. However, Green Lantern deflected the volcanic eruption, then stopped Icicle as he was flying away with the gold.

Patriotic crimes

Six months later, Icicle was a member of the Injustice Society of the World - the 1948 roster led by the Wizard, who presumably rescued him from prison. The Wizard had the members - Sportsmaster (“Crusher” Crock), Huntress (Paula Brooks), Fiddler (Isaac Bowin), Harlequin (Molly Mayne) and himself - compete by committing grandiose crimes to steal national symbols of the United States, and hypnotised the Justice Society of America to prevent them from interfering.

As the competition was being set up, Society members realised that Harlequin was a double agent, and Icicle found and captured her and the Black Canary. Makent then stole the Super Ram-Jet Engine from the US military - a sort of heavy-duty dirigible - flew it to Washington, caught the Monument in steel cables and simply flew off with it. Green Lantern intercepted him and defeated him, but the Icicle used a post-hypnotic suggestion implanted by the Wizard, forcing Green Lantern to obey his commands. The Washington Monument had successfully been stolen.

The Icicle then used his new airship to steal an entire stadium - the Injustice Society needed a large public to vote for the most impressive crime. However, during the vote, the JSA and the public broke free and took down the Injustice Society. Makent’s gun was destroyed by the Flash (Jay Garrick).

Icicle is known to have then been active in Opal City (clashing with Starman) and at least once in Metropolis, where he fought his old foe Green Lantern. Little is known about these incidents.

Crisis on Earth-One ! Crisis on Earth-Two !

The Injustice Society was sporadically active during the following decades, with the Icicle as a member. Whether Makent was active outside of that team is unknown. The 1950s and 1960s saw but one appearance of the Icicle and the Society (not counting flashbacks), and later comments imply that the villains spent much of that time in jail.

In 1954 Icicle, the Gambler and the Fiddler attempted to eliminate Starman (Ted Knight) in Opal City to have free rein. They challenged him to a fight, but it was rigged - there were five snipers on rooftops. The plan would presumably have worked, but Starman received unexpected help - the Jester fought at his side and two criminals (Jake “Bobo” Benetti and the Shade), who had objected to the plot, took out the snipers in the nick of time.

In 1961, Silver Age super-hero the Flash (Barry Allen) discovered the existence of a parallel Earth - where the Golden Age of DC Comics had taken place. Due to different rates of temporal flow, all the 1940s heroes and villains were still active and thriving there. This parallel reality was called Earth-2, with Allen’s native Earth being Earth-1. The heroes of two Earths established cordial contacts, leading to traditions such as shared cases between the Justice League of Earth-1 and the Justice Society of Earth-2.

However, villains of both Earths also started occasionally collaborating. In 1963, the Fiddler escaped from prison along with the Wizard and Icicle, and accidentally discovered how to play super-speed vibrations allowing him and his accomplices to shift to Earth-1. Meeting a trio of Earth-1 villains - Chronos (David Clinton), Felix Faust and Doctor Alchemy (Albert Desmond) - they forged an alliance across two realities, called the Crime Champions.

Building dimensional transporters based on Fiddler’s discoveries, the Crime Champions used their technology to elude pursuit at will (by vanishing from Earth-1 to Earth-2 or the other way around) and to spend their loot without fear of getting caught, since the Earth-2 villains were complete unknowns on Earth-1 and vice versa. They even succeeded in capturing the Flashes of both Earths, since they were the only heroes who could cross over. The Crime Champions also built a small base in the vibrational void between the two Earths. Among other exploits the Icicle repelled Hourman (Rex Tyler) and Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson) and left with a fortune, vanishing to the other Earth.

However, the Earth-2 trio couldn’t resist the easy pickings available in Earth-1. They decided to rob Las Vegas by disguising themselves as the three Earth-1 Crime Champions. They challenged the JLA, planning to catch them completely by surprise through deceit and extensive magical preparation by the Wizard. It worked, and the JLA was forever locked into their own headquarters.

Using magic to get advice from Flash (Barry Allen), the JLA contacted the JSA who broke the spells after magically crossing over. Meeting for the first time, the two teams went after the Crime Champions, and Doctor Fate located Icicle on Earth-1. Icicle used his gun to trigger a downpour, then caught Fate into a huge mass of frozen rain - but Fate melted the ice and Icicle was swept by the massive rush of water and knocked unconscious.

The Crime Champions almost regained the upper hand thanks to a contingency spell that was activated when the two Green Lanterns (Alan Scott and Hal Jordan) attempted to save the two Flashes — but were eventually defeated by the combined forces of the JLA and JSA.

Winter inside

Makent continued his scientific work in jail, and developed a technology for super-conductors that he called “warm ice”. It is presumably in the early 1970s that he founded a company to commercialise those.

Makent Enterprise became big - or rather huge, since it seems that it was the equivalent of Intel for the DC Universe. It quickly developed into a key company, and made Dr. Makent far richer than he ever was as a criminal.

Makent also married one Marie MacDonald - possibly during the 1960s. He had two sons - Donald Makent, who’d have children of his own, and Cameron Makent. Donald seemed older than Cameron by at least ten years - which would mean that Donald was born in the late 1950s and Cameron in the early 1970s. Whether the two men were born of Marie Makent is unknown.

The birth of Cameron Makent killed his mother through hypothermia. Dr. Makent quickly determined that repeated exposure to his cold ray technology has had an effect on his son (and possibly Cameron’s mother) and resulted in a mutated offspring who developed powers over cold during birth. Dr. Makent soon deserted his second son, leaving the pale-skinned and white-haired boy to drift from home to home in a miserable existence. Father and son would forever remain estranged, though Cameron adopted the Icicle identity when his father died.

The 1970s

In 1975, the Injustice Society (with a roster identical to the 1948 one) was briefly spotted during a plot by Cary Bates, a writer from Earth-Prime transported to the DC Universe and gone evil and super-powered. Whether this episode occurred post-Crisis is unknown, but if it did it presumably was quite different.

By the next year, the Icicle was the chairman of the Injustice Society - his roster being the Wizard, the Fiddler, Solomon Grundy, the Thinker and Brain Wave. After making a deal with Ayrn the Underlord’s subterranean civilisation, Makent observed the Justice Society for weeks until a weak point appeared. Hourman (Rex Tyler) had just come out of retirement and rejoined, and ended up minding the HQ when the rest of the team went on a time-travel mission. Tyler had not been briefed about the security systems yet, allowing the Icicle to ambush him.

The Society was thus ready when the JSA returned from their adventures. They took Hourman and Wildcat hostage to challenge the JSA to battle and lure them close to their subterranean allies. Though this plan generally worked, the Injustice Society had underestimate the might of Power Girl, who flattened the powerful Ayrn and thus put an end to the plot. Still, Hourman took weeks to recover from Icicle’s cold ray, and Wildcat was left with minor brain damage.

The 1980s

In 1980, Icicle decided to re-assemble what he could of the Injustice Society. He contacted the Fiddler, freed the Shade from prison, and they committed a few large thefts to fund their activities. The trio did not appear to be sustainable, as all three men saw themselves as the leader.

The mini-Society was assaulted and forced into servitude by the spectre of Darkseid - who had been destroyed during a clash with Orion. The three men proved to be excellent agents — they kidnapped the gods of New Genesis and deported them to Apokolips, then directed the construction of a giant machine at the North Pole of Apolokolips, which was powered by the Fiddler. The giant machine successfully resurrected Darkseid, though Icicle was defeated by Orion and Power Girl as heroes responded to the New Genesis mass disappearance.

Once the villains had served their purpose, Darkseid summarily subjected them to the Omega Effect - though he teleported them into an Apokolips prison rather than kill them outright. Apparently, Icicle and the rest fled mere hours later when heroes from Earth freed the New Genesis inhabitants.

The Crime Champions returned in 1983. However they disagreed about who should lead, and it was decided to have a competition inspired by the 1948 “patriotic crimes” contest. Chronos and the Fiddler worked to steal the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, the Wizard and Felix Faust to steal Stonehenge - and Dr. Alchemy and Icicle to steal the Great Pyramid. Their last member, the evil Johnny Thunder of Earth-1, took control of the Thunderbolt of his Earth-2 counterpart and captured most members of the JSA and JLA.

The heroes were thus left with an insufficient roster to stop the competition, and Icicle and Alchemy defeated the Red Tornado and the Huntress (Helena Wayne). However, the whole plan was derailed by Johnny Thunder of Earth-2, who regained control of the Thunderbolt, and the Crime Champions came undone.

Soon after that, Icicle attempted to fight Starman in Opal City, though he ended up fighting the Star-Spangled Kid (Sylvester Pemberton) wielding Starman’s rod. From the dialogue, this job may have been a favour to Shade - perhaps Shade got Icicle out of prison in return for Dr. Makent challenging Opal City’s defender. During that fight Icicle was visibly older and slower, but still strong.

Redemption at the end of everything

It was presumably after this case that Joar Makent decided to reform. He “helped people” (his words) in an unrevealed manner, presumably by using his technology for benign (medical ?) purposes.

Some months later the sky became red, and Dr. Makent understood that a multiversal crisis that might destroy everything was taking place. He recorded a video will in case humanity made it through. Dr. Makent considered his descendants to be worthless crooks, and his wife’s side of the family to be even worse, and willed them as little as possible. To twist the knife and reaffirm that he was reformed, he willed the other half of his wealth to a super-hero - and chose the Flash, as he considered Jay Garrick to be a good man. Since he feared casualties during the looming Crisis, he specified that the money would go to whoever was wearing the Flash cowl.

During the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Icicle was part of the army of super-villains commanded by Lex Luthor of Earth-1 and Brainiac — one imagines that he served against his will and that nobody believed that he was reformed. Along with Captain Cold and Ocean Master, he defeated Aquaman and Mera ; however during a counter-attack Vixen defeated him.

The villainous forces recovered him, and Makent was part of the time-travelling task force led by Luthor, which went back ten billion years to stop Krona from performing his fateful experiment. Icicle was one of the three known attackers who reached Krona’s lab, along with Mirror Master and Maaldor. However, all three were killed by the security systems.

After life

Within months, Icicle was succeeded by his son Cameron, a bitter criminal who not only worn an identical costume and had a power over cold, but was first seen as a member of Injustice, Unlimited - a successor team of the Injustice Society once led by his father.

It seemed that Dr. Makent had been retconned out of existence, as he was one of the characters whom the Psycho-Pirate encountered during his delirium about the continuity reboot. However, soon after this glimpse, Makent was confirmed to have existed. He was trapped in a bleak afterlife, and joined forces with several other villains, looking for a way out and not telling them that he was no longer a killer and a thief.

The dead villains were led by the Iron Major, and included the Electrocutioner (the first Buchinsky brother), the Top (Roscoe Dillon), the second Clayface (Matt Hagen), and the original El Papagayo. They clashed with Dove, Hawk and the Titans West as they tried to escape through a portal accidentally opened on Earth. Still trying to prove that he was innocent, Icicle feigned collaborating but betrayed the villains. A powerful ghost, General Jeb Stuart of Haunted Tank fame, confirmed that Makent was sincere. Stuart forced local demons to led Makent go so he could walk toward a better afterlife, located among mountains far in the distance.

In 1991, Dr. Makent was declared legally dead and his will executed on. The man wearing the Flash cowl was by then Wally West, and the Icicle’s family was furious to learn of how the Makent fortune was to be distributed - a sentiment that did not improve as the elderly Dr. Makent mooned his descendants at the conclusion of his video testament.

Joar Makent’s assessment of his descendants wasn’t too far off. James Christie, who had been disowned by Donald Makent, took an old Icicle suit and gun and murdered his father, then used an ice mask to have Donald’s body look like James’s and mislead suspicions for a while. He also murdered Archibald Perry (Dr. Makent’s attorney) and nearly killed his own sister and the butler. James was stopped by his sister Doyle, who took the last spare costume and cold ray gun to help the Flash.

Doyle Christie established herself as a super-heroine of sorts, the third Icicle. Nothing is known about her career, though - which may have been short and/or low-key.

Description

See illustrations.

Personality

Dr. Makent was a ruthless criminal motivated by greed and a sense of superiority derived from his high intelligence. He was, fittingly for his theme, a cold-blooded murderer and took pleasure in outwitting authorities. During the Golden Age, aircrafts often featured in his plots - while he never demonstrated exceptional piloting skills, one suspects that he’s an aeronautics enthusiast. He was much later also described as a technophile.

The later appearances of the Icicle depict him as markedly less murderous, and his son Cameron noted that his father seldom killed anyone. There thus seems to have been two evolutions in Icicle’s demeanour. One was that he become increasingly less bloodthirsty and villainous, preferring not to kill since he could just freeze people up without any side effect. After decades of this he stopped being a villain.

Another aspect is that his Mercenary Motivation faded over time to become a Thrill one. At first Icicle demanded to have the money he felt entitled to, but it seems that he found it easy to profit from his crimes - and he eventually became rich thanks to his technology. With his Mercenary side becoming less relevant, he mostly wanted to be a dashing criminal clashing with famous heroes.

Writeup completed on the 23rd of January, 2012.