Ant-Man is loveable. Sure, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania didn’t connect with audiences the way that other MCU films have, but there’s no denying that Paul Rudd has brought a lot of comedic timing and charisma to a character that many felt would not work on the big screen.
Ant-Man is one of only a handful of MCU characters to have his own trilogy, and he’s also appeared in several Avengers crossovers, in addition to cameos and various guest spots. It can be a little confusing to follow, especially when you bring in concepts like time travel and the Quantum Realm. As a means of combating the confusion, we’ve broken down the timeline, so you know the proper order to watch his appearances and maximize the fun.
Because some of the MCU movies that Ant-Man appears in take place in the middle of his trilogy, we decided to break his appearances down by phases. Then at the end, we’ll recap and provide a straight bullet point list.
Phase Two
Phase Two is pretty straightforward, since Ant-Man is the character’s only appearance. We get introduced to Scott Lang (Rudd), who becomes the titular hero over the course of the film, as well as the former Ant-Man, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and his daughter, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), who eventually becomes the Wasp.
Ant-Man fleshes out the overall MCU timeline in the prologue, which takes place in 1989, and sees a young Pym resign from S.H.I.E.L.D. as a means of protesting the use of his technology. We also see a flashback detailing the “death” of Pym’s wife, Janet Van Dyne, but more on that later.
Phase Three
Ant-Man becomes a much bigger part of the MCU in Phase Three. He makes a crucial appearance in Captain America: Civil War, and despite being arrested, he gets broken out of prison by the end of the film. This is where things get tricky. Technically, Avengers: Infinity War was released before Ant-Man and the Wasp, but the latter takes place before (and during) the events of the former.
Ant-Man and the Wasp ends with the superhero getting sucked into the Quantum Realm. Ant-Man was supposed to get pulled out by Pym and Janet Van Dyke (Michelle Pfieffer), who turned out to be alive after all these years, but they get dusted in the Snap, effectively dooming him. This is why the character doesn’t appear in Infinity War. He does, however, appear in Endgame.
A freak accident brings Ant-Man back from the Quantum Realm, and in doing so, he’s able to figure out a way to reverse time. He enlists the help of Captain America (Chris Evans) and the surviving Avengers, and together they are able to defeat Thanos and reverse the snap that took out half of the galaxy. This means that Pym and both of the Van Dynes (Hope and Janet) come back to life.
Phase Five
The MCU has struggled to unify its phases post-Endgame. Ant-Man doesn’t appear in any of the Phase Four films, and his levity is sorely missed. He returned to kick off the fifth with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, though, and the villain he squared off against – Kang (Jonathan Majors) – has been touted as the character that the Avengers will team up against in the future (barring the legal troubles of Majors).
While it’s unclear where Ant-Man will appear next, it’s safe to assume he will pop up in the previously announced team-ups ,Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. Based on the fact that he tussled with a variant of Kang in his own sequel and won, we feel like he’d be a pretty huge asset heading into battle.
Recap
There are a few odds and ends appearances, like the Marvel web series WHiH Newsfront (2015) and the episode “What If…. Zombies!?” from the animated series What If… ? (2021), but the former is additional material for the first film, and the latter is a fun aside that takes place in a hypothetical timeline. We will include for the sake of completion, but they are not essential pieces of the Ant-Man puzzle.
Here’s the full Ant-Man viewing list, in chronological order:
- WHiH Newsfront, “Scott Lang Interview” (2015)
- Ant-Man (2015)
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
- What If… ?, “What If… Zombies!?” (2021)
