Why The Ghost Was Chosen As Ant-Man And The Wasp’s Villain

After a few years of often being criticized for its lackluster villains, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come a long way in that arena over the last handful of movies. Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther and Spider-Man: Homecoming all recently brought us memorable, layered antagonists to match the popular heroes, and fans are hoping that this winning streak will last into Ant-Man and the Wasp.

In the upcoming sequel, the job falls to the Ghost, a mysterious thief with phasing abilities played by Ready Player One’s Hannah John-Kamen. Not much has been revealed about her in the marketing for the film, though it’s clear that she has a cool costume and an interesting power set. Not only that, but Marvel chief Kevin Feige has now teased that the Ghost will be another “unique” baddie for the MCU.

While on the red carpet for the premiere of Ant-Man 2, Feige explained why she was chosen as the villain for the movie. He put the decision at the production team’s door and favorably compared her to Thanos and Killmonger, stating that he believes people will take to the Ghost as much as those two acclaimed antagonists.

“It was our producer Stephen Broussard and Peyton Reed and our writers who are looking for a different kind of villain, a different, unique villain. We knew this film will be coming off of Thanos, will be coming off of Killmonger, how do we find a villain that is very different and very unique? And when people see the movie, I think they’ll see that we found it in Ghost.”

Even more so than usual, the Ghost has been very loosely adapted from the comics. For one, the villain’s male on the page. Aside from that, though, another new element that’s been added is a familiar connection to another character.

Laurence Fishburne’s accidentally revealed that – spoilers incoming – the Ghost is Bill Foster’s daughter. As the child of Hank Pym’s former pal and the superhero Goliath, that likely means the she’ll have some other dimensions to her. At the very least, we hope she’ll make more of an impression than the first film’s Yellowjacket when Ant-Man and the Wasp crawls into theaters this Friday.