It’s been obvious since the ending of 2015’s Ant-Man proved that returning from the Quantum Realm was possible that the upcoming sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp would feature Janet Van Dyne’s debut in the MCU. Sure enough, the part of Hank Pym’s wife is set to be played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Despite this being announced, however, Marvel has been careful to keep glimpses of Janet to a minimum. In fact, we only just got our first look at her via a recently released poster.
If you study the new trailer for the film, though, you can spot the original Wasp hidden in there. Specifically, at the 1:33 timestamp (see above), you can make out Ant-Man and the Wasp battling with some goon. At first, this doesn’t seem to be of note, until you realize that Wasp isn’t wearing the desaturated yellow suit sported by Evangeline Lilly’s Hope.
The Wasp seen in this moment is instead in the grey and red costume that Janet was wearing in the flashback featured in Ant-Man, which depicted how she went sub-atomic during a mission to deactivate a nuclear bomb and disappeared into the Quantum Realm. What we can conclude, then, is that this is likely another flashback featuring a younger Janet on a different mission with her husband, rather than Scott Lang’s Ant-Man.
It’s also interesting to note that Janet seems pretty fierce in a fight here, as it’s her that pummels the duo’s target into the ground. The Wasp trailers so far have done a great job of promising that Hope’s going to be a lot more capable and adept at action than Scott is, so it seems that she’s inherited that from her mother.
We don’t yet know for sure if there are plans for more of Janet in future MCU movies beyond this one – she is a hugely important member of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the comics, though – but we’d like to think there is. After all, Sebastian Stan has already let slip that we can probably expect to see her appear in Avengers 4.
Ant-Man and the Wasp glides into cinemas on July 6th (or August 3rd, if you’re in the UK).
