When the Quantum Realm was first woven into the fabric of Marvel’s cinematic juggernaut, Hank Pym described that mysterious netherworld as a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant. So it’s a wonder Scott Lang was able to escape with his life intact.
Alas, Janet Van Dyne (AKA the original Wasp) wasn’t so lucky, and her absence forces Scott and his newfound allies to mount a rescue mission – a rescue mission that just so happens to form the spine of Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp.
She’s been stuck in the Quantum Realm for decades, so by the time Janet is rescued, she’s essentially a totally different person, as writer-director Peyton Reed tells Cinema Blend:
She’s evolved down there. I like the idea that maybe in Hope’s mind she’s going to learn how to fight and how to be a hero from her mom, but what her mom really is ultimately going to teach her is that there are other ways, right? We only sort of dispense a certain amount of information about what’s happened to Janet in the Quantum Realm by design, but maybe one of those things is, in terms of how she’s evolved, is a larger perspective on what it could mean to be a hero.
So it’s fair to say that, when it comes to Janet Van Dyne, Peyton Reed and his writing team wanted to stretch the superhero archetype over an extended period of time – 30 years, in this instance – and see how the original Wasp changed and evolved within one of the most inhospitable environments in the entire Marvel universe. Now comes the hard part of rescuing Scott Lang from the Quantum Realm…
With $168M already in the bank, Ant-Man and the Wasp now faces a crucial second weekend if it’s to muscle its way into the Marvel big leagues. It’s yet to open in the United Kingdom (we have the ongoing World Cup to blame for that one, it seems), though the sequel’s box office has already helped push the MCU past $17 billion worldwide.
