Freddy Krueger (demonic dream murderer)

FREDDY KRUEGER

Real Name: Frederick Krueger

Identity/Class: Demon;
formerly human (post-World War II era to modern era)

Occupation: Murderer

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Formerly Sister Mary Helena (Amanda Krueger), Mrs. Strunk, Paul Strunk

Enemies: Walter Fingle, Allison Hayes, Dr. Juliann Quinn, Isabel Tront, the parents and children of Springwood, Ohio

Known Relatives: Amanda Krueger (Sister Mary Helena, mother, deceased), unidentified father (presumably deceased), Paul Strunk (adoptive father, deceased), Mrs. Strunk (adoptive mother, deceased)

Aliases: "Fred," "Ol' Fred," the Springwood Slasher

Base of Operations: Presumably the Dream Dimension;
formerly Springwood, Ohio, USA

First Appearance: (historically) A Nightmare on Elm Street film (November 16, 1984);
(in a Marvel Comic) Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#1 (October, 1989)

Powers/Abilities: Freddy Krueger can completely manipulate and control the reality within the dreams of other beings, altering it at will to fit his torturous whims. Within the dreamscape, Freddy can also change his shape and appearance at will and, due to the nature of the dreamscape, Freddy can manipulate the physics of the dream reality, often coming up with scenarios so surreal and over-the-top that they couldn't possibly occur in the real waking world. Additionally, any physical harm he inflicts on others in their dreams happens to them in reality as well, usually causing the deaths of his victims.

Freddy can increase his powers by feeding off the terror he instills in others.

Prior to his demonic transformation and post-transformation, Freddy Krueger wears a single glove with razors attached to the fingers, having mastered the usage of razor-blades as weapons.

As a human, Freddy Krueger was skilled in the criminal arts of mugging, thievery, manipulation and murder.

Height: (pre-transformation) unrevealed (approximately 5'9 1/2"); (post-transformation) variable
Weight: (pre-transformation) unrevealed (approximately 160 lbs.); (post-transformation) variable
Eyes: Green
Hair: (pre-transformation) Unrevealed (see comments); (post-transformation) none

History:
(Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#1 (fb)) - Born to nun Sister Mary Helena (Amanda Krueger) in 1947 following an incident at Our Lady of Sorrows Mental Institution in which Sister Mary Helena was taken advantage of hundreds of times by the criminally insane patients, Frederick Krueger was immediately remanded to St. Dominic's Home for Orphans in Springwood, Ohio. Nine weeks later, Frederick was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Strunk. That night as the infant Frederick slept, burglars broke into the Strunk home and despite Paul shooting one of them, the other murdered Paul with a knife, and when Mrs. Strunk found her husband dead and screamed, the thieves chased Mrs. Strunk down and killed her as well at the door to Frederick's nursery. When Frederick awoke, crying, the thieves snatched up the baby with their loot and fled the scene.

The infant Frederick was then sold to small-time procurer Walter Fingle and his prostitute, Isabel Tront, who raised Frederick in their trade. By age six, Freddy was helping lead potential customers to his mother figure and he was regularly physically abused by Fingle, who often cut Freddy with a razor-blade. By his early teens, Freddy Krueger had mastered the use of a razor-blade, which he used to kill Fingle and Tront in their sleep. Living on the streets for several subsequent years, surviving by mugging and thievery, Freddy claimed to have developed the ability to control his own dreams, often dreaming of himself as master of life and death with his fingers transformed into the very razor-blades used by Fingle. Freddy's sense of reality eventually began slipping and he began indulging his murderous fantasies by kidnapping and killing the children of Springwood in the boiler room of an old abandoned power plant. After being arrested as the Springwood Slasher, Freddy was given a psychiatric evaluation by Dr. Naughton, who listened to Freddy's life story and determined him to be mentally fit to stand trial for his crimes.

(Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#1 (fb) - BTS) - During trial, Freddy Krueger was allowed to go free due to a judge ruling that the criminal evidence was improperly obtained but Freddy was ultimately tracked down and burned alive by a mob of angry Springwood parents, including the parents of Juliann Quinn. Following his physical death, Freddy Krueger's spirit degenerated into a demon of the dream world and he returned for revenge by massacring the children of the parents who had killed him via their dreams. As part of his plan for revenge, Freddy began haunting the dreams of Juliann Quinn, who had become a research doctor in therapy in New York. Unaware of who Freddy Krueger was and that he had been slaughtering her childhood friends, Dr. Quinn suffered through the nightmares and, in an effort to rid herself of them, she took a job that sent her back to Springwood, Ohio.

(Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#2 (fb)) - One night while dreaming, teenager Allison Hayes experienced an especially vivid dream with a road sign leading four different directions and she chose the one labeled "Grossness." Following the trail, she wound up in a sleazy neighborhood and visited the Hideosity Bar and Grill, where Freddy Krueger was relaxing alongside several twisted and gross people. When Allison attempted to leave, Freddy stopped her but Allison ran, only to find Freddy already outside waiting on her. Freddy then tried to slash Allison but when his claw passed harmlessly through her, a confused Freddy demanded to know who she was and who sent her there. A gruesome figure explained to Freddy that Allison had wandered there by mistake and Allison immediately found herself back at the fork in the road with the "Grossness" sign gone as if it was never there.

(Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#2 (fb) - BTS) - Months later, Freddy Krueger reappeared in Allison Hayes' nightmares in an attempt to get her.

(Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Freddy began regularly attacking Allison in her dreams, relentlessly torturing her and causing real injuries to appear from attacks suffered within her dreams. After cutting Allison all over and burning her feet, Allison's parents overheard the commotion in Allison's room and rushed to her room, only to find the door locked from the inside. Roger forced his way into the room and found his severely injured daughter, quickly calling an ambulance.

(Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#1) - While the ambulance rushed the barely alive Allison to Springwood Medical Center, Freddy Krueger stalked the sleeping Dr. Juliann Quinn, who was preparing to move back to Springwood from New York, affecting her dreams to horrify her with visions of burned children. When Dr. Quinn ran (still within her dream), Freddy appeared in the doorway of a house she ran to and asked if Dr. Quinn wanted to meet her perfect match as he projected a wave of flames towards her. Feeling the heat of the dream fires, Dr. Quinn jumped awake and looked down to realize she had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette in her mouth. Getting up, Dr. Quinn noted to herself that she wouldn't need to worry about Freddy Krueger if she flambeed her own self by falling asleep with a lit cigarette. Once Dr. Quinn had awakened, Freddy resumed his torture of Allison Hayes after she was put under anesthesia for surgery related to injuries earlier suffered at Freddy Krueger's hands. Appearing within Allison's dreams as a surgical doctor, Freddy ripped open her midsection and began strangling Allison with her own intestines, warning that she wouldn't be lucky enough to escape him this time. Determined not to let Freddy kill her, Allison began fighting back, eventually smashing Freddy's bladed hand into one of the medical machines within her dream, sending electrical shocks through the killer. Defeated but not stopped, Freddy promised he would return and, in reality, doctors were able to stabilize Allison.

The next day, on her flight back to Springwood, Dr. Quinn read over a letter from nun Sister Dorothea detailing the later life of her fellow nun Amanda Krueger, who had been taken advantage of hundreds of times over the Christmas holiday in 1946 by the criminally insane patients at Our Lady of Sorrows Mental Institution in Springwood. While reading the letter, Dr. Quinn dozed off and Freddy took advantage of her sleep to terrify Dr. Quinn by extending his clawed hand up through the empty airplane seat next to her. Shocked awake by the airline attendant, Dr. Quinn decided to read over a psychiatric evaluation file she had on Freddy Krueger from the Superior Court of Springwood, learning Freddy's back story. Upon arrival in Springwood and checking into the Springwood Inn, Dr. Quinn fell asleep and experienced a dream involving Allison Hayes speaking about how she wished Freddy would leave her alone. As if on cue, Freddy Krueger erupted from Allison's body and jumped onto Dr. Quinn, pulling into her own bed, leaving a fountain of blood spraying from the bed in her wake. Insisting that it was her dream to control, not Freddy's, Dr. Quinn manifested angelic wings to slow her seemingly endless fall and she flew back up into her bedroom, where Freddy changed the dream's surroundings to resemble the boiler room he used to kill in. He then began dragging his clawed glove along the boiler room's pipes and taunted Dr. Quinn about seeing her more often before Dr. Quinn was startled awake by a phone call from her new boss, Dr. Marlin.

The following morning, Dr. Quinn was assigned Allison Hayes as her patient and when she visited Springwood Medical Center, Allison was refusing any type of tranquilizers to help her sleep and, knowing about Freddy Krueger herself, Dr. Quinn calmed Allison, revealing Freddy's name and promising to tell Allison everything she knew about Freddy Krueger if Allison would calm down. Dr. Quinn then explained how Freddy had once been killed by the parents of Springwood and how Freddy had returned to avenge his death by killing the children of those who burned him alive. Further explaining Freddy's status as a dream demon, Dr. Quinn informed Allison how Freddy seemed to gain power from the terror he caused and when Allison asked if there was a way to beat Freddy, Dr. Quinn suggested an experimental technique called true dreaming in which one maintains intense control of their dreaming state throughout their sleep. Drawing a picture of a desert that Freddy Krueger could not hide from them in, Dr. Quinn then guided Allison on how to use the true dreaming technique and they both allowed themselves to fall asleep, arriving shortly after in the dream world within the very desert drawn in Dr. Quinn's picture. Freddy quickly made himself known by transforming the desert into a wrestling ring that opened up into a surreal landscape made up of Freddy's own brains. Forcing Allison and Dr. Quinn to sink into his brain matter, Freddy remarked that he didn't want them to die without seeing his intellectual side, noting that he was a very deep thinker.

(Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street I#2) - Freddy Krueger generated a river of slime that separated Allison from Dr. Quinn and Freddy focused first on Dr. Quinn, taunting her first with more visions of burned children before removing the stairs beneath her. Saving herself by manipulating her own dream to create a chain to swing on, Dr. Quinn soon fell into Freddy's clutches when Freddy transformed the chain into a snake. Before Freddy could hurt Dr. Quinn, however, a scream emanating for Freddy to leave Dr. Quinn alone and a massive fireball erupted from Freddy's boiler room to hit the murderer and knock him back. Allison then appeared in a fiery form and Dr. Quinn expressed intrigue with how Allison was able to generate a fireball but suggested they wake up from the nightmare caused by Freddy. When they awoke, they found a note from Freddy written in Dr. Quinn's notebook promising to hold a place for them in Hell. After doing some research into Allison's supposed dream abilities, Dr. Quinn returned to visit Allison at Springwood Medical and had her recount the first time she had encountered Freddy Krueger in her dreams. Learning from Allison's story that Freddy had not found her but rather, she had found him using her Dreamstalking powers, Dr. Quinn informed Allison that Freddy had been unable to harm her during their first encounter due to Allison's mastery of her own dream and deduced that Freddy had been relentlessly attacking Allison in an attempt to wear her down out of fear she might be able to destroy him. Later, following Dr. Marlin's refusal to allow Allison to remain on the dream suppressant Hypnocil that Dr. Quinn had prescribed, Dr. Quinn dozed off in her apartment and soon found herself facing Freddy Krueger in a presidential office. Dr. Quinn ran but Freddy jumped out of the George Washington presidential painting to fatally impale Dr. Quinn on his clawed glove.

Following Dr. Quinn's death, Allison attempted to slowly train herself in the techniques Dr. Quinn had begun to teach her about and several weeks later, she accidentally dozed off while looking at drawings she had made about the progress she had made. Immediately finding herself on a flying mattress heading for a boiling hot tub that housed Freddy Krueger, Allison transformed herself into the form of a street-fighting version of herself she had drawn to confront Freddy. Surprised at the progress Allison had made, a sarcastic Freddy began to swim away from Allison but she stabbed him with a bladed gauntlet, only to watch Freddy transform the blade into a snake. Allison responded by biting the snake but Freddy then transformed the snake into Allison's own severed finger. Allison quickly regained control of her dream self and restored her finger, prompting Freddy to take advantage of her moment of panic to psychologically torture her by summoning forth the dream form of Dr. Quinn. The dream Quinn transformed into a snake that wrapped around Allison but Allison used her dream powers to escape, falling back into her own bed. Knowing she was still dreaming, Allison transformed herself into a female version of Freddy Krueger himself to confront the murderer. The two then fiercely battled one another with Allison impaling Freddy with a version of his own clawed glove. When she rushed in to destroy Freddy, however, she snapped back to reality and found herself attacking Dr. Watley, who had assumed her case following Dr. Quinn's death. Thinking Allison was suffering a delusional psychiatric episode, Dr. Watley ordered Allison to be taken to the secure ward of Westin Hills and sedated. As a begging and screaming Allison was taken off to the ward, Freddy's hat remained in Allison's room and a faint, dreamlike chant of a nursery rhyme lingered in the air before dissipating.

Comments: Created by Wes Craven. Adapted into Marvel Comics by Steve Gerber, Rich Buckler, Tony DeZuniga and Alfredo Alcala.

    For those not around (or not paying attention) during the 1980s-1990s, Freddy Krueger was villain/star of the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror movies by New Line Cinema. He has nine (as of 10/29/2024) films and a TV series, not to mention random public appearances & guest appearances on other shows, under his belt and became huge throughout the 1980s. This profile focuses only on Freddy's Marvel appearances (though the comics do reference some events seen in the films, especially in regards to the first and third films) but if you're interested in learning more about the character & his series, he's the star of the following films:
    A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
    A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
    A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
    A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
    Freddy's Nightmares TV series (1988-1990)
    A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
    Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
    Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
    Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
    A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) (a remake/reimagining)
    I also recommend the 4-hour documentary on the series, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010), which provides in-depth interviews with all of the major people involved in the franchise.

Five issues of Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street were solicited but the series was canceled after two issues. As the story goes per Steve Gerber in a 1990 interview, Marvel decided to cancel the book due to a then-recent article regarding the rising level in violence in comic books and news stories about picketing that had occurred during the opening weekend of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. Even though the series was specifically labeled as being intended for mature readers, these news stories and the violence within the magazine was enough for Marvel to pull the plug on it despite having already solicited the aforementioned five issues. In fact, artist Joe Jusko had already completed the artwork intended for the cover of the never produced third issue, which you can see above as the last color piece of artwork. Rumor has it that scripts were also already written for the three unproduced issues by Buzz Dixon and Peter David...

Freddy Krueger is shown to have had hair prior to his physical death and transformation into a dream demon. Unfortunately, because the magazine's contents were in black-and-white, the color of that was impossible to determine. If it matches the films, then his hair would have been blonde or very light brown.

This profile was originally posted on Halloween night in the year of the original Nightmare on Elm Street film's 40th anniversary! Happy Birthday, Freddy!

Profile by Proto-Man.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Freddy Krueger should be distinguished from:

Krueger, Gustav - better known as the criminal Rattler--Captain America I#310
Krueger, Harlan - better known as the criminal Hangman--Werewolf by Night I#11
Krueger, Stefan Ulrich - mutant, commands army of deformed humans, duped into selling captive X-Men to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants--X-Men: The Hidden Years I#8
or any other "Freddy" or "Krueger" characters

Walter Fingle

Walter Fingle was a small-time procurer who lived with prostitute Isabel Tront. At some point, the two purchased the infant Frederick Krueger from a pair of thieves that had murdered Krueger's adoptive parents. Raising the infant, Walter Fingle was an abusive disciplinarian who often punished Freddy by cutting him with a razor-blade. By the time he was in his early teens, Freddy had mastered the use of a razor-blade and he used a razor to murder both Fingle and Tront.