Warning: This article contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
There is more to Janet Van Dyne and Kang the Conqueror‘s relationship than what was shown in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. According to Marvel writers, the two humans might have been “more than friends” during their time in the Quantum Realm.
Ant-Man 3‘s writer Jeff Loveness, has shared more information about Janet and Kang’s tense relationship that might not have made it to the screen. In the film, Janet finds the exiled one crashing into the Quantum Realm and the two formed a strong bond before Janet learns who Kang truly is. In an interview with IGN, Loveness hinted that our two trapped humans might have a sexual relationship.
Lovness said that he tried to keep the two’s relationship “vague” and implied that they were really good friends. However, he knows there will be people out there who want to analyze every single detail of the two’s interactions. He later explained how enjoyed books with “sexually repressed” themes and how it somewhat played a role when writing about Janet and Kang’s relationship in the film and hinted that the two might had sex during their time in the Quantum realm.
He also believed that it was their sexual relationship was one of the reasons why Janet didn’t want to mention Kang to her family or anyone, claiming that bad and dangerous consequences might have happened if uttered, alongside Kang’s murderous tendencies.
“I intentionally left it a little vague, but clearly – let’s say they’re very good friends [laughs]. And I think sometimes we’re in kind of this YouTube reaction video world where everyone wants every little detail explained…
“I love Jane Austen novels or English novels [that] are very sexually repressed. I’m sexually repressed. But I think there’s a lot of strength in those types of relationships that could go either way. And maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Maybe that’s a reason she didn’t want to tell her family about it. That’s part of it. And maybe she didn’t want to tell the family or the Avengers about it, because if they went down there, he would fuckin’ kill them. Or he would get their Pym Particles and get out…
“But yeah, maybe they had sex. Who knows?”
While it’s up to fans to speculate if what Loveness said was true and that the two did have a sexual relationship, the film didn’t shy away from Hank and Janet finding other partners during their time apart. Janet mentions that she and Krylar were once lovers in the Quantum Realm, which shocked both Hope and Hank. Meanwhile, Hank admitted that he’s found other lovers while she was gone but it didn’t last because “it wasn’t her.”
If Janet and Kang really did have a sexual relationship, it could explain why she resented Kang immediately after she found out about his true nature. He was hiding things from her, and she trusted him in so many ways. In the end, she was heartbroken. And perhaps the exiled Kang still had feelings for Janet, even after her escape. Knowing this, it kinda changes the context of how we watch Janet and Kang interact.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now showing in theaters.
