Before Seeing ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,’ Here’s Everything You Need to Know From the Marvel Cinematic Universe

One of the great charms of the first two “Ant-Man” movies is how little they have to do with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang tussles with Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson in the 2015 original. And yeah, the introduction of the Quantum Realm in the 2018 sequel lays the groundwork for the time travel shenanigans in “Avengers: Endgame.” But generally speaking, audiences could take in Scott’s size-shifting adventures alongside scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Hank’s wife and Hope’s mother Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), without needing to be steeped within the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is a different beast entirely. Despite the assurances of Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige that every Marvel title can exist on its own terms, the third “Ant-Man” film is neck deep in series lore as it launches Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and the second act of the Multiverse Saga. Here’s everything you need to know before watching “Quantumania.”

“Ant-Man” (2015)

Ex-con Scott Lang, strapped to pay child support so he can have more contact with his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), agrees to break into a vault in a San Francisco home — only to discover the shrinking Ant-Man suit designed by Hank Pym. The suit runs on the Pym Particle, a technology that only Pym knows how to create — until Hank’s protégé, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), forces Hank out of his own company and reverse engineers Hank’s formula. Hank arranged for Scott to break into his home as a test to see if Scott could steal the new shrinking suit created by Darren, which Darren plans to sell to Hydra. 

Hank, meanwhile, finally confesses to Hope why her mother, Janet, disappeared when Hope was a child: While on a mission as the Wasp in 1987, Janet shrunk to sub-atomic size in order to diffuse a nuclear bomb that was about to detonate in the U.S. Hank believes that once a person goes subatomic, they irrevocably enter the Quantum Realm, a dimension that exists outside of our concepts of space and time.

In the film’s final act, Scott, Hank and Janet manage to stop Darren, but not before Darren — whose shrinking tech has driven him insane — breaks into Cassie’s bedroom and threatens the young girl’s life. To defeat him, Scott goes sub-atomic and short-circuits Darren’s shrinking suit. It malfunctions, and collapses Darren into nothingness. Scott, meanwhile, harnesses his fundamental need to get back to Cassie to reemerge from the Quantum Realm. Hank realizes there could be a way to find Janet and gives Hope access to the Wasp suit he and Janet had been designing together.

Oh, and Hope and Scott become a couple.

Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney+; digital rental or purchase.

“Captain America: Civil War” (2016)

Sam Wilson recruits Scott to help Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in his fight with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). For the first time, Scott uses the Ant-Man suit to grow into Giant Man, which makes him enormous but also tires him out after just a few minutes. 

Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney+; digital rental or purchase.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp” (2018)

Hank and Hope create a way to safely travel into the Quantum Realm using an invention called the Quantum tunnel. With Scott’s help, they successfully rescue Janet, who has been living in exile for 30 years. As Hank and Janet are leaving the Quantum Realm, there is a shot of what appears to be a giant city in the background.

Oh, and Hope and Scott become a couple again.

Weirdly, other details of Janet’s time within the Quantum Realm — namely, her ability to use Quantum “healing particles” to repair damage — don’t factor into “Quantumania.” But in the post-credits scene for “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” Scott uses a quantum tunnel that fits inside his van to enter the Quantum Realm to collect those particles. At that moment, Thanos snaps his fingers and uses the Infinity Stones to erase half of all life in the universe. Hank, Hope and Janet all disappear into ash, trapping Scott inside the Quantum Realm.

Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney+; digital rental or purchase.

“Avengers: Endgame” (2019)

Five years after the snap (and after Thanos uses the Infinity Stones to destroy the Infinity Stones), Scott reemerges from the Quantum Realm — having only experienced roughly five hours of time. He is devastated to learn that Hank, Hope and Janet are gone, but he discovers that Cassie survived the snap — and has aged into a teenager (although her exact age is hilariously hard to pin down).

Scott finds Steve and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and explains where he’s been; with Stark’s help, they devise a way to use the quantum tunnel to travel through time, recollect the Stones from the past and use them to bring everyone back. Without Scott, none of it would be possible.

Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney+; digital rental or purchase.

“Loki” (2021)

During the time-travel hijinks of “Endgame,” a variant of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from 2012’s “The Avengers” uses the tesseract to escape capture, which puts him in the sights of the the Time Variance Authority. The TVA exists outside of time and is tasked with maintaining a single, sacred timeline — pruning away all other possibilities as they form.

In the Season 1 finale of the Disney+ series, Loki and one of his variants, Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), meet the man who created the TVA: He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), a scientist from the 31st century who says he ended a cataclysmic multiversal war caused by an infinite army of variants of himself. The strong implication is that one of these variants is Kang the Conqueror, the main villain in “Quantumania,” also played by Majors.

Loki believes He Who Remains, but Sylvie doesn’t. She kicks Loki back to the TVA and then kills He Who Remains — forever fracturing the sacred timeline into the multiverse.

As he dies, He Who Remains laughs mordantly and says to Sylvie, “See you soon.”

Back at the TVA, a devastated Loki tries to find his friend and minder, Mobius (Owen Wilson), only to realize in horror that he’s been transported to a different timeline in which he and Mobius never met, and one of He Who Remains’ variants — possibly Kang the Conqueror, possibly a different variant altogether — reigns supreme.

Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney+.

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