BLIZZARD

Real Name: Professor Gregor Shapanka

Identity/Class: Human technology user, citizen of the United States

Occupation: Professional criminal, former Stark Industries research scientist

Group Membership: Justin Hammer's lieutenants (Beetle/Abner Jenkins, Constrictor/Frank Schlichting, Discus/Timothy Stuart, Leapfrog/Vincent Patillo, Man-Killer/Katharina Luisa van Horn, Melter/Bruno Horgan, Porcupine/Alexander Gentry, Spymaster, Stiletto/Tom Stuart, Water Wizard/Peter van Zante, Whiplash/Mark Scarlotti)

Affiliations: Electro (Max Dillon), Justin Hammer, Pepper Hogan-Potts, Krona, Zarrko the Tomorrow Man (Artur Zarrko)

Enemies: Avengers, Barney Bushkin, Bethany Cabe, Daredevil (Matt Murdock), Hulk (Bruce Banner), Happy Hogan, Iron Man (Tony Stark), Iron Man 2020 (Arno Stark), J, Jonah Jameson, JLA, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Spider-Man (Peter Parker)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Jack Frost, "Mr. Frosty" (nickname used by Spider-Man)

Base of Operations: formerly mobile;
    formerly his hidden Rocky Mountains sanctuary;
    formerly Justin Hammer's floating island sanctuary;
    formerly his Long Island lab;
    formerly Stark Industries, Long Island

First Appearance: (As Jack Frost) Tales of Suspense I#45 (September, 1963); (as Blizzard) Iron Man I#86 (May, 1976)

Powers/Abilities: Blizzard wore an insulated battle suit with micro-cryostats of his own design that caused his body to be enveloped by subzero temperatures. This gave him the power to condense moisture in his direct environment. Blizzard's cold generator is strong enough to encase half a dozen people in ice with a single blast. He can generate sufficient cold to shatter solid titanium steel within seconds. The suit gives him precise control over the condensation process, granting him the ability to shoot razor sharp ice daggers he calls his 'Blizzard's sting' that can cut through metal or hailstones the size of bricks. Shapanka can create ice slides for personal transportation. Shapanka's body chemistry differs from regular people: the intense cold have slowed his pulse and heartbeat to levels that would be fatal to most. As Jack Frost, he used an ice-maker that could cover his body in ice.

Height: 5'8"
Weight: 165 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown

History:

(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#2) - Gregor Shapanka was born in Szombathely, Hungary. A brilliant scientist, he fled to the United States where his genius put him on the fast track to become a naturalized citizen. He found employ at Stark Industries on Long Island.

(Tales of Suspense I#45 (fb) - BTS) - Professor Gregor Shapanka became one of Tony Stark's most valued researchers.

(Iron Man I#87 (fb) - BTS) - While in Stark's employ, Shapanka came up with several invaluable inventions including the anti-particle safe and the climatron, a device capable of controlling the world's weather.

(Tales of Suspense I#45 (fb) - BTS) - Shapanka grew obsessed with finding a way to live forever. He had several theories, but lacked the funds to develop them. That's why he decided to steal the plans for the miniature transistors that powered Iron Man's armor.

(Tales of Suspense I#45) - Shapanka was caught by Iron Man when he tried to break into the vault. Instead of calling the police and having him arrested, Stark decided to simply let the brilliant professor go.

(Iron Man: The Iron Age I#2 (fb) - BTS) - Stark's new bodyguard Happy Hogan could not understand his boss' decision to let Shapanka go without pressing charges. He felt Stark's approach to handling matters was different and potentially dangerous.

(Tales of Suspense I#45) - Shapanka pressed his luck by asking the wealthy industrialist for severance pay, prompting Stark to give him a brilliant idea because he mentioned getting cold feet about releasing him. For the next several weeks Shapanka worked in his cellar lab op a freeze ray that could encase living beings in life preserving ice. After successfully testing his device on a neighborhood cat, he dreamed up designs for a special freezing suit that would encase him in ice and allow him to freeze whatever was around him.

(Tales of Suspense I#45 - BTS) - After a week of preparation Shapanka was ready to meet the world.

(Tales of Suspense I#45) - Shapanka embarked on a crime spree on Long Island, robbing banks and taking whatever he wanted. Newspapers called the unknown icy menace Jack Frost, a name he decided to adopt. He then focused his attention on getting revenge on his former employer and his bodyguard Iron Man by walking into Stark Industries and destroying it. Before Tony Stark could arrive as Iron Man, Jack Frost faced Happy Hogan who he left trapped in a block of ice. Iron Man made short work of the villain by trapping him in the underground labyrinth of his plant. He fought off the villain's intense cold blasts long enough to activate a miniature blast furnace that melted his ice. Now powerless, Shapanka was forced to surrender to the police.

(Iron Man I#87 (fb)) - In prison, the vengeful Shapanka spent years modifying his original ice-maker into a cold-generator that was part of a micro-circuited bodysuit making him 'a million times more powerful' than his old Jack Frost persona. Thanks to the internal insulation, he could comfortably withstand subzero temperatures. Now calling himself Blizzard, he used his newfound abilities to break out of prison by subjecting the molecules of the concrete and steel walls to sub-zero temperatures which made the structure brittle.

(Iron Man I#86) - Blizzard used his powers to gain access to the Long Island branch of Stark International, casually freezing the guards and announcing he had come for the climatron. He breached the anti-particle safe with his sub-zero bombardments but was confronted by Iron Man before he could take the device. Unaware who his opponent was, Iron Man had a hard time dealing with Blizzard whose ice blasts cut his armor open. Iron Man tried to beat the cold by moving the fight to the dynamo room, but his armor was insufficiently isolated and he began to freeze inside of it. Moments before Blizzard could move in for the kill, they were interrupted by the arrival of Stark's executive assistant Pepper Potts.

(Iron Man I#87) - Pepper and Shapanka recognized each other, which was enough of a distraction for the villain to return to his original plan: to retrieve the climatron. He left Potts to care for the near-death Iron Man while he went and left with the device. Thanks to Pepper's quick thinking, Iron Man was thawed out and gave chase, catching up with Blizzard who was escaping across the water on ice floats. Blizzard tried to distract the hero by sinking a nearby sailing boat, but not before Iron Man destroyed the climatron with a well-aimed ice-ball.

(Fantastic Four I#405) - Zarrko the Tomorrow Man used his control over time to yank the unwitting Blizzard forward to his present where he briefly fought the Fantastic Four and their allies. Blizzard tried to take down Namor the Sub-Mariner who didn't seem fazed by his cold blasts.

(Fantastic Four I#405 - BTS) - Blizzard was quietly returned to his own era by Zarrko, with no knowledge of the future events he had witnessed.

(Iron Man I#87) - Iron Man outwitted Blizzard long enough to overload and short-circuit his suit's refrigeration units. Now barely able to move in the combat suit that was rapidly filling with water, Shapanka begged his enemy for help. Iron Man fished him out of the water and handed him over to the police who were waiting for them at the shore.

(Marvel Team-Up I#56 (fb)) - Once again taken to prison, Shapanka eventually gathered enough parts from the machine shop to rebuild his cold-pack. He lacked a sufficient power source, but in a freak coincidence Electro happened to be in the cell next to him. The villain tried to escape by blasting the walls, accidentally hitting Shapanka's suit. Now fully energized, the cold pack fused to his body, Blizzard joined forces with his unwitting rescuer.

(Marvel Team-Up I#56 (fb) - BTS) - Blizzard and Electro hired some underlings and came up with a convoluted racketeering scheme involving the Daily Bugle. They figured they could black mail J. Jonah Jameson to pay them off monthly or else they'd come and tear up the place. Jameson decided to put a coded message in the headline of the Bugle to get the word out. Blizzard realized what was going on and went out to destroy all the copies of the paper he could find.

(Marvel Team-Up I#56) - Blizzard ran into Daredevil while out destroying Bugle delivery trucks. He fought off the urban hero who marveled at the fact he could detect no pulse or heartrate on the ice cold enemy. Eventually outwitting Daredevil by exploding a fire hydrant, Blizzard went to the Bugle offices where he and Electro proceeded to strongarm both J. Jonah Jameson and the Bugle's competitor Barney Bushkin. Their scheme was interrupted by Daredevil and Spider-Man who chased the villains through the Bugle offices, down into the printing press where Blizzard was ultimately defeated when one of Electro's stray blasts vaporized his ice blast. The resulting steam flash froze the villain in place

(JLA/Avengers#4) - Blizzard was among the villains pulled forth from time and space by Krona to guard his stronghold from an onslaught by the Avengers and the JLA.

(Iron Man I#123 (fb) - BTS) - Blizzard entered the employ of businessman Justin Hammer who had gotten into the habit of bankrolling supervillains to do his bidding.

(Iron Man I#123) - Acting on Hammer's orders, Blizzard, Melter and Whiplash went to Atlantic City to rob a casino. They made short work of the guards and easily broke open the titanium steel vault, but accidentally tripped an alarm that not only alerted a large contingent of guards but also Tony Stark who happened to be at the casino as well. Blizzard soon faced his old enemy again and found the armored Avenger was now immune to his 'Blizzard's sting'. However, when Blizzard combined his cold beam with the Melter's blasts, they brought their opponent to his knees.

(Iron Man I#124) - Before Whiplash could finish off the weakened hero, Bethany McCabe stepped in by shooting the villain's electrowhip. Blizzard instantly froze her hand with the gun still in it, buying Iron Man enough time to free himself. He quickly knocked out Melter, which led Blizzard to encase himself in a suit of armor to take the fight to Iron Man who laughed off the attack before knocking him out with a punch and a repulsor blast.

(Iron Man I#124 - BTS) - Blizzard was arrested and taken to jail.

(Iron Man I#126 (fb) - BTS) - Justin Hammer had Blizzard, the Melter and Whiplash freed from Ryker's Island.

(Iron Man I#126) - Justin Hammer welcomed Blizzard and the other two villains to his floating island in the Mediterranean. Hammer had harsh words for his hirelings, telling them he was not in the habit of funding failures. Next time, he would not be so ready to bail them out. Blizzard joined Hammer's other super powered operatives when the captive Tony Stark set off an explosion on the island. When they rushed to the scene of the incident, they were met by Iron Man.

(Iron Man I#127) - Hammer ordered his small army of mercenaries to attack en masse, but they were no match for Iron Man. Blizzard and Melter tried to repeat the attack strategy they used on the golden Avenger in Atlantic City. Iron Man brushed off their blasts and took them out of the fight by banging their heads together. Blizzard recovered in time to jump off Hammer's floating villa before Iron Man caused it to sink.

(Incredible Hulk I#249 (fb) - BTS) - Thoroughly demoralized by his string of defeats as the supervillain Blizzard, Shapanka realized he now had the ability to generate cold without his suit. He decided to return to his original Jack Frost identity and then retreated to a cave system in the Rocky Mountains. Deep under the earth he used his powers to create a glacial palace full of beautiful, frozen statues. There, he had time and peace to himself.

(Incredible Hulk I#249) - Shapanka was shocked when the Hulk accidentally found his way into his frozen realm. Instead of reasoning with the volatile creature, he caused his ice statues to attack Hulk which led to a prolonged confrontation that caused the total destruction of Jack Frost's fragile, frozen realm. Realizing the error of his ways at the last possible moment, Shapanka decided to seemingly sacrifice himself by freezing the falling rocks long enough for Hulk to escape to the surface before getting buried himself.

(Amazing Spider-Man Annual I#20 (fb) - BTS) - Somehow surviving the destruction of his sanctuary, Shapanka returned a more conventional life of crime. Once again operating as Blizzard. he gathered a gang of thugs and started committing robberies in New York City.

(Amazing Spider-Man Annual I#20) - Blizzard and his gang were caught red handed during a bank robbery by Spider-Man who made short work of both the villain and the thugs. Blizzard was left webbed up at the scene of the crime for the police to find.

(Amazing Spider-Man Annual I#20 - BTS) - The police confiscated Shapanka's Blizzard costume and released him a day after his arrest. Eager for revenge on Spider-Man he gathered his gang and donned a new, experimental model of his suit that was even more powerful than the original. Shapanka and his gang shadowed Spider-Man through the city hoping to find the right moment to strike.

(Amazing Spider-Man Annual I#20) - When Blizzard spotted Spider-Man with young Bobby Saunders, he decided to kidnap the child to lure the wallcrawler into a trap. Blizzard had no idea of knowing Arno Stark, the future Iron Man of Earth-8410, was also looking for Saunders. Iron Man easily tore open Blizzard's fan and took off with the boy. Furious at this latest humiliation, Shapanka hit Iron Man 2020 in the back with a full force freeze ray. In response, the ruthless future version of his old opponent hit Blizzard with a fatal repulsor blast.

(Amazing Spider-Man I#319 - BTS) - Reviewing a list of his operatives for an upcoming mission, Justin Hammer had Blizzard listed as inactive.

(All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#2 - BTS) - Following Shapanka's demise, Justin Hammer procured the professor's latest model of the Blizzard suit. He eventually offered it to his operative Donald Gill who started to work him as the new Blizzard.

(Iron Man I#319 (fb) - BTS) - Lost in a contemplative mood, Tony Stark reminisced about the many different foes he fought in the past, including Shapanka when he was Jack Frost.

Comments: Created by Stan Lee and Robert Bernstein, Don Heck.

It's a little sad that a classic, underused Stan Lee villain like Blizzard managed to survive the Scourge only to get taken out a year later by an alternate future Iron Man who treated the killing like an afterthought. Blizzard's obsession with eternal life could have been the hook that elevated him from generic gimmick/mad scientist villain to interesting opponent.