Deadpool 2's Ice Box Prison Explained

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Deadpool 2, which debuted in theaters on Thursday night.

All throughout Deadpool 2, Wade Wilson and the other characters make countless references to notable comic books and superhero movies. Heck, even the opening credits alone reference James Bond, John Wick and Flashdance! So when Deadpool and Russell Collins (A.K.A. Firefist) both get sent to a special prison for super-powered beings called the Ice Box, you can better believe that it is an actual comic book reference.

Here's the thing, though -- it is such an obscure reference that it's referencing something that appeared in a single issue of a mostly-forgotten comic book from over two decades ago. Interestingly enough, however, it was first drawn by a current comic book superstar!

1997 was a weird time at Marvel Comics. With the publisher still in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings, Marvel's non-Spider-Man and non-X-Men superhero line was in rough shape. This is because in 1996, Marvel cut a deal with two of their former artists, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld, to produce new comic books starring the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, who were written out of the regular Marvel Universe following the events of the Onslaught crossover.

With Lee's Wildstorm studio and Liefeld's Extreme Studios now handling Captain America, the Avengers, Fantastic Four and Iron Man, Marvel tried to keep their non-Spider-Man and non-X-Men line of comics going by introducing a number of new series using the superheroes they were still left behind on Earth, including Heroes for Hire, Quicksilver and Thunderbolts.

Another one of these books was taking Maverick, a German mutant hero who had fought along side Wolverine's side in the past, from the pages of X-Men and Wolverine and giving him his own standard superhero series.

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Written by Jorge Gonzlaez, who had written a number of series for Valiant Comics in the early 1990s, and drawn by current superstar artist, Jimmy Cheung, who had been drawing Iron Man before that title had been canceled to make way for its relaunch via Wildstorm Studios, Maverick took the character out of the X-Universe and into the broader Marvel Universe.

The main relationship in the book was between Maverick and a young mutant named Chris Bradley, who had been introduced in a poignant issue of X-Men Unlimited showing the effects of the Legacy Virus on a young, non-famous, mutant. Maverick was also infected with the mutant-killing Legacy Virus, so the series was about Chris being mentored by Maverick while they both dealt with their illness.

The Ice Box was introduced in Maverick #8 (by Gonzalez, Cheung and inker Andrew Pepoy - it seems as though Leo Fernandez did some pencil work, as well, on the issue to help Cheung finish the book in time). Oddly enough, the Ice Box actually had nothing to do with Maverick himself, as he was in sunny Florida all throughout the issue. No, Ice Box was introduced as a special Canadian super maximum security prison designed to keep the baddest of the bad in place, due to the fact that it was stationed deep in the Canadian tundras, so that even if you escaped, you would soon die of exposure.

However, someone is still managing to break in! This is how the issue introduced a brand-new villain, the religious-themed mercenary/assassin known as the Confessor!

As it turned out, the Confessor was here for one specific prisoner, a Russian villain known as the Sickle...

So there ya go, that is the extent of the usage of the Ice Box in Marvel Comics history. The design of the prison was not even adapted into the film, really, and it seems like the only thing that translated over was the name itself. Perhaps due to Deadpool being Canadian, they thought that it would be cool to use the name of a Canadian super prison as the name of the super prison in the film?

We don't know the reason, but perhaps it also has to do with the fact that there are surprisingly not really all that many prisons in the Marvel Universe that specialize in housing specifically mutants. There are lots and lots of prisons for superhumans, with the two most famous being The Vault and The Raft, both of which were introduced as super-secure prisons right before they suffered major breakouts, but for mutants, the pickings are a bit slimmer. In fact, one of the most prominent prisons used for mutants in the comics was actually Alcatraz, which Norman Osborn re-activated for use as a mutant prison during the "Dark Reignh" storyline when Osborn took over S.H.I.E.L.D. and re-named it H.A.M.M.E.R. and then effectively declared war on the X-Men, who were living on an island off the coast of San Francisco at the time.

Since the Ice Box was compromised in Deadpool 2, time will tell if this is the last that we ever see of it in the films.