As well as a thrill ride of battles and excitement, Avengers: Endgame was also a whirlwind of callbacks and references celebrating the events of the Infinity Saga, with cameos from numerous characters previously featured in the franchise. For instance, Thor’s journey as part of the Time Heist brought back Jane Foster and Loki and allowed him a proper goodbye with his mother Frigga. Not only that, but it’s now been revealed that his original enemies the Frost Giants were initially going to return as well.
Jerad S Marantz is a concept artist and creature designer who’s worked on multiple high-profile productions and whose Instagram is awash with the artwork he created for them. In posting his imagining of a Jotun warrior, he tells us that he envisioned them using their powers to grow spiked armor made of magical ice and states the plan was for them to reappear in the final battle of Endgame.
It was evidently decided though that the climactic fight, involving all the heroes of the past decade uniting with an army of Wakandans, sorcerers, Ravagers and Asgardians to fight Thanos, the Black Order and countless Outriders, Chitauri and Sakaarans, was packed enough and that adding another CGI-heavy element would have been overkill and needlessly further complicated an already complex sequence.
Marantz doesn’t state on which side of the melee the ice warriors would have stood though, as he presumably wasn’t told since it wouldn’t have been pertinent at the time. While the Frost Giants were portrayed as antagonists in Thor, arbitrary villainy is not a practical reason for them to have joined Thanos, as they had as much to lose from his victory as everyone else.
It’s far more likely then that they would’ve been on the side of the heroes in Avengers: Endgame, and with their actions being retrospectively put in a new light after Thor: Ragnarok revealed that Asgard was built on conquest and plunder rather than peace and prosperity, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that a truce could have been forged through necessity. Additionally, seeing the Jotun march into battle alongside their mortal enemies would have emphasized how much the collected might of the universe was banding against Thanos and his short-sighted mission of destruction.
Unfortunately, there aren’t currently any stated plans for the giants to return to the MCU, but with Phase 4 likely to push things ever further into new and surprising developments, there’s no reason that they can’t be utilized in a different and more interesting manner in the future.
