Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania theories and questions

Quantumania by Ant-Man & the Wasp sets up the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 5 and 6 stories, largely by introducing the deeply weird multiverse villain Kang and his infinite counterparts as a threat to everyone in the MCU. Marvel leaves many questions unanswered at the conclusion of the movie, but teases bits of future stories. However, Quantumania’s frantic pace and choppy editing left us with other questions, thanks to gaps in the story that didn’t seem entirely deliberate. The Polygon crew who saw the movie put our heads together after the film to talk about things we’d wondered during or after the movie, from the slight and silly to the serious and confusing. Here’s what we’re wondering at this point.

[Ed. note: Significant spoilers ahead for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as well as Loki season 1.]

Kang Conqueror, why was he exiled from his homeland?

Photo: Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios

This one actually seems important to the movie’s story. There is an infinite number of Kangs, but the one booted down into the Quantum Realm by the Council of Kangs apparently did something so unconscionable that the rest of them couldn’t handle it, and QuantumaniaThis idea is so obvious that he barely even considers it. It’s implied that he wanted to handle an upcoming crisis — almost certainly the threat of Incursions (see below) — differently than they did. And he suggests that if the heroes kill him, “everyone will die” as a result. However, his allusions are intentionally vague and superficial.

What do the Council of Kangs really want?

Image: Walter Simonson, John Buscema/Marvel Comics

We’ll learn more about this in subsequent movies, but for the moment, what we have is what Loki learned in season 1 of LokiFrom He Who Remains: The version Kang that was supposed to freeze the whole timeline into one arc before Loki’s variant kills it. “Someone is coming,” Loki tells Time Variance Authority boss Mobius (Owen Wilson) immediately after that Kang dies. “Countless different versions of a very dangerous person. And they’re all set on war. We need to prepare.”

What exactly does “set on war” mean? According to He Who Remains, many of the infinite variants of himself are combative, with “each variant fighting to preserve their universe and annihilate the others.” We’re likely to see some of that in the MCU’s future, but the Council of Kangs seems to be a different thing altogether. It suggests that at least some of the variants — possibly united under Immortus, the tall, bearded, very old Kang seen in the movie’s first post-credits scene — want to work together instead, to respond to a series of Incursions into the timeline. So what is that?

What’s causing the Incursions?

Image: Marvel Studios

Comme nous l’avons appris dans Doctor Strange, in the Multiverse of MadnessWhen two universes are at risk of colliding, called Incursions. As alternate-universe Reed Richards (John Krasinski) explains it, “An Incursion occurs when the boundary between two universes erodes, and they collide. Destroying one, or both, entirely.”

What is one of those things? Reed says that the main cause is arrogant, lazy dipshits such as Stephen Strange, who cross boundaries between universes. It’s possible that the Incursions the Kangs are responding to in Ant-Man 3’s post-credits scene are caused by something we haven’t seen yet, coming up in a future MCU story. But it’s also possible that they’re responding to previous, recent MCU events — like Doctor Strange and America Chavez skipping willy-nilly between timelines and multiverses in Multiverse of MadnessAfter Wanda Maximoff’s break with morality, she fled Wanda Maximoff and began chasing her and/or fleeing. WandaVision.

Is Kang the Conqueror able to do anything?

Photo: Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios

What really are Kang the Conqueror’s superpowers? In his initial arrival to the Quantum Realm, seen when Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) flashes back to her 30 years there, he just looks like an ordinary man who’s lost, sweaty, hurting, and confused. Kang, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), and his Ant-Man family arrive at the microverse and Kang already has telekinesis. He also has hand-lasers, force field, and many other abilities.

If the MCU is following the Marvel Comics it’s adapting, Kang doesn’t have powers, apart from the super-genius brain that lets him gear himself up in a variety of ways in a variety of multiverses. He does all of the things we see in Quantumania would be technological, and probably tied to that fancy suit he’s wearing, with the face shield that makes his eyes glow blue. The movie does seem to carry that out — in QuantumaniaJanet Van Dyne claims that he was able to get his suit back by briefly charging up the ship’s damaged energy core with which they had repaired it together. It seems safe to assume so far that this Kang doesn’t have inherent superpowers — but that the MCU can pretty much give Kang any powers that fit a story, and attribute them to far-future super-tech.

Is there really that many layers to the Quantum Realm?

Image: Marvel Studios

It’s mildly ridiculous that the Quantum Realm is radically different in every Ant-Man movie, whether it’s an endless, inescapable Void (in Ant-ManIn this article, we will discuss the ) a type of fluctuating and unstable energy source Ant-Man & the Wasp(or a Strange WorldStar Wars-heavy fantasy world in the Star Wars tradition (in Quantumania). Janet Van Dyne shrugs this off in a single, casual line about how the Quantum Realm has a lot of layers — this latest version is just what you get when you go past the Void and the energy field and all that — but it sure raises the question of how many more versions of the Quantum Realm we’re going to get before it’s all over. It’s kind of Schrödinger’s Plot Device — it can be whatever it needs to be for whatever story a given movie is telling.

Does Bill Murray die in Ant-Man 3?

Image: Marvel Studios

It seems like a waste of a perfectly good Bill Murray to introduce him in the MCU (as Janet’s old Quantum Realm flame Lord Krylar) and then immediately kill him off, but it sure seems like the movie did exactly that, by feeding him to a supersized, clearly pissed-off version of a creature that the locals consume in their cocktails. But the movie clearly doesn’t address whether he actually escapes or not. It may depend on Murray’s desire to appear in more MCU appearances. Krylar may be a funny character but has no purpose beyond his Quantum Realm. On the other hand, we’re in a multiverse situation with a billion trillion Kangs running around, so it’s always possible we’ll see an alt version of him someday, even if the original got munched.

Hank Pym did Hank Pym leave an enormous ant force to seize the Quantum Realm from him?

Photo: Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios

It really seems like there would be ethical issues with just dropping an entire “class 2 civilization” of immense, high-tech ants into an existing populated world. These ants are armed with a huge army, which dwarfs the humanoid population. They also have laser technology. As we see in the film, they’re capable of overrunning and smashing entire cities. Aren’t they going to make things a lot more uncomfortable for the Quantum Realm natives? Even if they do currently have a peaceful, socialist society, at least for whatever “socialism” means to Hank?

Where are Luis and the rest of Scott’s crew?

Photo: Marvel Studios

OK, Quantumania spends most of its run time in the Quantum Realm, so there isn’t a whole lot of time to check in with Scott’s old buddy Luis (Michael Peña) and his homeboys Dave (Tip “T.I.” Harris) and Kurt (David Dastmalchian). But the movie is bookended with scenes of Scott’s super-happy, fulfilling, got-everything-he-wants-and-feeling-good-about-it life on Earth. And he can’t make time to drop in on his old friends, or even mention them and what they’re up to? Is he too good for them, now that he’s a big-time memoir author and occasional world-saver?

Here are some bonus questions.

What is the Kang of Loki?

This one isn’t a question we had, because we pretty much all have to watch every Marvel thing to keep up on the story for work purposes. But judging from Google, a lot of people are confused about this, so we figured we’d bring it up. No, he isn’t. Kang is in Loki (played, like all Kangs so far, by Jonathan Majors) was He Who Remains, a variant of Kang who ruled over all the timelines to make sure all the other Kangs wouldn’t come into existence and start a giant war. When Loki’s variant from another timeline, Sylvie, killed He Who Remains, the multiverse splintered again, and all those other Kangs we see in Quantumania It was there, all the way back in history. That’s time-travel for you!

Does Kang die in Ant-Man 3?

Another question that Google users have asked is this one. Yes, Kang dies in Ant-Man 3. Definitively. It was confirmed by Director Peyton Reed to Polygon during an interview. Officially, Kang, Kang Conqueror (the one who defeated Ant-Man in the Quantum Realm) is dead. It is confirmed by the other Kangs in the after-credits scene. No, there isn’t a body, because he got sucked into a special effect. And no, Scott/Ant-Man isn’t really clear on what happened to him, whether he’s dead, and what it means. For our purposes, however, the one Kang is preferred over the original. LokiKang is both totally and utterly deceased.

Kang’s ability to change time and travel through the universe is what makes him a unique character. In comic-book style, there are no final endings, characters can never be dead and death pools can be invalided forever. You are now in the multiverse!