We’d be lying if we said we didn’t have big expectations for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The movie to kick off Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is finally here and after plenty of blows and whistles from Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige about how this movie will finally provide some continuity in the MCU – because let’s be real, Phase 4 was a bit of a mess – we can’t say for sure that we left the movie without some questions ourselves.
This movie takes us back into the sacred Quantum Realm, debuts the MCU’s big bad Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), sees Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) finally reunited with her family only to go back to the place she tried so hard to escape, and introduces a bunch of different characters along the way. There’s so much going on, we don’t really know what to start but here goes nothing: Here are 10 questions we have after watching Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Oh, and of course, spoilers ahead.
#1 Just how similar or different are variants in terms of physical appearance?
Variants are effectively the same character but from a different reality, so their life experiences are not the same. As seen on Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, variants do look the same. But in Spider-Man: Now Way Home and Disney+‘s Loki, it is shown that variants can also look nothing alike. We can probably excuse the doppelgängers in Spider-Man because they had different actors over the years return to play the same role, but how do you explain Sylvie, Kid Loki, Old Loki and all the different ones?
So we have variants with different looks and various actors playing the character, but somehow, Majors is playing all the variants of Kang as well? Why the inconsistency?
Is this a distraction meant to trick audiences? Can there be another different-looking Kang variant living among the MCU heroes, pretending to be someone else, when actually, the person is Kang from another reality, except he/she doesn’t look like Jonathan Majors ala Sylvie/Hiddleston?
Come to think of it… the elder Cassie Lang in this movie looks very different from the Cassie we saw in Avengers: Endgame (we know – both were played by different actresses), but maybe that’s because she is not who we think she is. Hmmmmm
#2 How random is the passing of time in the Quantum Realm?
The Quantum Realm exists outside of time and space. It’s unpredictable and just like our heroes, we’re only learning more and more about it but we are confused at how time works in that realm. In earlier films, Lang spent a few hours in the Quantum Realm but that was equivalent to five years in real life. Janet was in the Quantum Realm for three decades and yet that translated to the same 30 years in real life. When the Langs and Pyms return back to the real world after defeating Kang, it looked like not much time had passed either. Everything seemed to have happened in real-time. So how does time exactly work in the Quantum Realm then? What are the rules?
#3 Why didn’t the ants shrink?
When the Langs and Pyms went into the Quantum Realm, they were shrunked. But that wasn’t the same case for the ants. Instead of shrinking to be even smaller, they got bigger. In fact, they were huge and were even bigger than the human characters. Huh?
#4 Is Kang really dead?
Throughout the movie, Kang exhibits amazing abilities, including stopping Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) in her tracks. Is this a manipulation of time, or something else? He also says that he’s fought and defeated many Avengers, so this is not the first time he has faced one. He also knows that his presence is being monitored by those who imprisoned him in the Quantum Realm, which he is trying to escape from.
Yet, he passed on many opportunities to escape the Quantum Realm via the opened portal, and instead chose to physically fight Scott Lang rather than use his many abilities to take on one tiny man. Sure, his costume is damaged, but he had a chance to escape earlier, so what if Kang knew that even if he escaped, those who imprisoned him could easily catch him and send him back to the Quantum Realm?
What if his end goal was to fake his own death, and lead everyone to believe that he died, instead of escaping?
#5 Who’s bad? If all Kangs are villains, why would the Council of Kang imprison Kang in the Quantum Realm? Does it mean the Council is good, or are both evil?
Kang was imprisoned in the Quantum Realm by the Council of Kang as a means to stop him from well, conquering all the timelines, and while that seemed like a good thing, we also know that all Kangs are evil to some degree. Kang himself even warned Lang about the other hims that will come. Is Kang truly the big bad evil and the Council is doing the world a favour by trapping him? Or is Kang the lesser evil with much bigger and more destructive plans?
#6 Kang has defeated Avengers from various realities, but somehow, he has yet to discover how to make Pym Particles?
The Avengers are quite literally Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and yet Kang has been able to defeat them in various realities. Even if he lost in Quantumania, somewhere out there Kang is beating Lang’s ass and winning too. This goes to show just how powerful and smart Kang is. Heck, he even managed to build a futuristic city – with armies and all! – in Quantumania with limited resources and materials. But how is it that despite all these realities and abilities, he has yet to discover to make Pym Particles? If Thanos and Ebony Maw could not only understand how it worked AND reversed engineered it in order to make their own Pym Particles to manipulate time, why can’t Kang?
#7 Is Kang Nathaniel Richards?
In the comics, Kang is a 31st-century scholar, Nathaniel Richards, and also a descendant of Reed Richards’ time-traveling father Nathaniel Richards. His real name isn’t referenced in the movie, but time-traveling shenanigans still allow for this possibility, especially since the Fantastic Four have yet to make their MCU debut. Is the MCU setting things up to link Kang with the introduction of Marvel’s First Family?
#8 Cassie Lang – is her future tied to Kang’s past?
So Casandra ‘Cassie’ Lang has her own suit, and has abilities similar to her father, Ant-Man, but does she become Stature? At no point in the film did she adopt her superhero monicker and in the comics, she is now known as Stinger, so which is she?
More importantly, she has one key scene with Kang where he almost kills her. In the comics though, a younger, more idealistic version of Kang traveled to the past, modeled himself after Iron Man, took on the role of Iron Lad and became a founding member of the Young Avengers. Iron Lad and Stature also formed a romantic relationship, so does this first meeting between the two make for a killer beginning?
#9 Will the real M.O.D.O.K please stand… er, hover up
In the comics, M.O.D.O.K, short for Mental/Mobile/Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing, is an egomanical supervillain with a really big head and a small, stunted body. He was created after experiments were made on A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) technician George Tarleton, to increase his intelligence.
The MCU version of Modok doesn’t factor in any of this, and instead creates a new origin based on another character, but using the same name. The end result is different and disappointing, much like how Trevor Slattery was first introduced as The Mandarin, before this was retconned in subsequent movies. We’re hoping Kevin Feige has similar plans.
#10 How do you travel in and out of the Quantum Realm?
In the first movie, it was revealed that Janet van Dyne shrunk down and got lost in the Quantum Realm after overriding her regulator. Later in the movie, Lang does the same and disappears into the Quantum Realm, but manages to reverse the effects. This means his suit has the ability to enter and leave the Quantum Realm because it makes sense to build a spare or stronger regulator into the suit, to prevent Janet’s accident from recurring.
But maybe he needs more than the suit and requires the use of Pym Discs, the small circular objects used by the Pyms and Langs to shrink and enlarge objects by throwing the discs at items. The discs effects vary on the type of disc so Red discs shrinks the target, while blue ones enlarge targets.
We see that when Janet first encountered Kang, she had some blue ones, which she used on Kang’s power source. But her regulator was broken so maybe she could not use them by themselves, to escape. But later on, Scott pulled out a bunch from his pocket, which means he had several, so couldn’t he leave the Quantum Realm and find a way to bring the others out, either with him, or return to find them later?
After all, Cassie did say that if she had built her device earlier, she could have found Scott when he was trapped in the Quantum Realm for five years, so he now knows that he has a device that can track subjects in the Quantum Realm – simply bring Cassie back to fix the machine, or allow her to return with his regulator, if her suit doesn’t have one, and then come back for them.
Bonus: Why doesn’t Hope van Dyne aka The Wasp have her own movie yet?
The Wasp is the first female hero to have her name in an MCU movie title, and while she doesn’t have her own movie, she needs one. She’s great in this ensemble piece, but one action stands out as to why we want to see more of her – she was the only one to suit up.
It was established early in the movie that Hope and Scott both wear their suits at all times, and can suit up easily. It was later established that Cassie has her own suit as well, though she wanted to hide it from her father. Yet, when the trio were first drawn or thrown into the Quantum Realm, Hope was the only one who recognised the danger and suited up while on her way down. Scott and Cassie didn’t and it just seemed odd since they could have benefited from the protection offered by the suit, but either didn’t think or cared for it.
This doesn’t say much about their priorities, but we want to see more of The Wasp.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, for behind all this makeup, is a geek just like you. To simply put it, superheroes, Star Wars, Harry Potter and all things gore and creepy makes this girly girl swoon.
Natalie
Trinity Sun
