Ant-Man and the Wasp is just a few days away from arriving in cinemas and the initial reception certainly indicates that it won’t disappoint fans of Scott Lang’s 2015 debut. But aside from the fun of seeing something a little more upbeat from Marvel Studios in the wake of Avengers: Infinity War, one thing to look forward to from the upcoming flick is the fulfillment of a plot point once hinted at long ago in a time when the MCU was a mere three films big.
Cast your mind back to 2010’s Iron Man 2, when a pre-Avengers Tony Stark’s health was declining due to blood poisoning caused by the arc reactor in his chest. Shortly after finding a solution to this problem by way of a new element, Stark gives the following instruction to JARVIS: “Get me everything from projects Pegasus, Exodus, and Goliath.”
For the casual viewer, it may have been easy to dismiss this moment as a disposable bit of technobabble. Nonetheless, fast-forward to Ant-Man and the Wasp and you’ll find Laurence Fishburne in the role of Bill Foster, a man who once worked with Hank Pym on “a project named Goliath,” which, as the name would indicate, was a project essentially concerned with making people very big.
Of course, this isn’t the only seed for future projects that Iron Man 2 planted. Aside from the obvious nods to later Phase 1 films, the movie also included a sly reference to Wakanda, another Easter Egg that Marvel would take eight years to truly develop. It’s enough to make you wonder what subtle moments in the latest run of MCU releases will look extremely prescient several years from now.
Ant-Man and the Wasp is finally releasing on July 6th, while Tony Stark, on the other hand, will be returning in Avengers 4 on May 3rd, and he’s probably nostalgic for the days when blood poisoning and an evil Mickey Rourke were the biggest of his worries.
