Captain America

Like most comic book universes, Marvel’s isn’t exactly based in reality, what with all the gods and people not dying of radiation poisoning when exposed.  But where possible, it’s always nice when certain elements have at least some basis in actual hard science.  One of the things fans have just accepted at face value is the fact that Captain America was frozen at the end of World War II only to be thawed out in the present day.  It’s pretty easy to simply chalk his survival up to his Super Soldier Serum and move on.  But it seems that this phenomenon actually does have a basis in actual biology, as detailed at the Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. exhibition at the Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas.

Physical examination of Capt. Rogers revealed that while thickened, his blood’s water was not frozen. Blood tests revealed that his blood contained excessive amounts of glucose as a result of his liver processing his glycogen stores, thus lowering the freezing temperature of blood-borne water and creating a ‘cryoprotectant’. This process is similar to that of Water-Bears (Tardigrades) and hibernating Wood Frogs who metabolize glycogen in their liver to circulate copious amounts through their body to reduce the osmotic shrinkage of cells and stop from freezing. This, however, has never been seen before in humans.

You don’t say.

But at any rate, if someone was hung up on the fact that Cap survived in cryo-stasis rather than dying, there is the explanation.  (Although it doesn’t explain how he lived without breathing.  I’d think that would be the harder part to explain… which is probably why they didn’t.)

At any rate, thankfully he survived as Cap is the moral backbone of the Marvel Universe (except for that time when he turned out to be a Nazi).

Does this explanation work for you?  Are there any other unexplained events in the Marvel Universe that you’d like answers to?

Source: Cinema Blend