Frozen 2 and its predecessor borrowed liberally from the fantasy and science-fiction genres, from the manipulation of the four natural elements as seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender and the discovery of a unifying fifth element as seen in The Fifth Element. Elsa was never called an Avatar, of course (and Disney’s already got a franchise by that name), but a new theory suggests that the Arendellian monarch may in fact be related to the mutants of Marvel’s X-Men.
Set in mid-1839, the Frozen films take place long before even James Howlett, AKA Wolverine, was born, at a time when members of the genetically divergent Homo superior subspecies were largely considered to be demonic spawn called witchbreed. Elsa’s natural powers of ice-manipulation certainly seem like magic, but the theory holds that they’re in fact the same abilities that are manifested by Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman.
Whether this suggests that she’s a direct ancestor of Drake’s or simply another mutant whose X-gene expressed itself similarly, Elsa is only the most obvious character with powers. Her sister, the eventual Queen Anna, also demonstrates super-strength while singing “The First Time in Forever,” during which she accidentally flings a life-sized stone bust as if it’s nothing more than a paperweight.
The theory also suggests, however, that Anna had her powers taken away by the Rock Trolls, which are the earliest representatives of the sentient island of Krakoa. Finally, the seemingly ordinary, if slightly eccentric, ice harvester Kristoff, who sings to and speaks for his reindeer companion Sven, is instead presented as a zoolingualist with the ability to actually communicate with animals, not unlike Doreen Allene Green, AKA Squirrel Girl.
Of course, even if they don’t occupy the same fictional universe (and beyond the precincts of Fanfiction.net and HISHE‘s YouTube channel, they don’t), the Frozen franchise certainly performs like Marvel movies do: the first film grossed $1.28 billion, while its successor grossed over $1.44 billion against the same budget. Whether Disney will actually produce a third Frozen film (and if they’ll take another seven years to do it) remains to be seen, but the fact that the first two grossed over $2.7 billion at a combined cost of only $300 million would seem to make the decision a foregone financial conclusion.
And who knows: perhaps the inevitable Frozen 3, besides giving Elsa the girlfriend that so many fans had hoped she’d get in the second film, will also introduce Ensign Eisenhardt of the Royal Prussian Army, ancestor of Magneto, and explicitly tie the Frozenverse to Marvel’s mainstream comics continuity. Or perhaps we’ll just learn that General Mattias is the great-grandfather of Lucius Best, AKA Frozone of The Incredibles and its sequel. Or maybe not.
Frozen 2 is available on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD from February 25th.
