[Spoilers] Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania [Analysis & Easter Eggs]
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opened on Friday 17 February 2023, and this one is nothing but spoilers! A rundown of the film plus a guide to the Kang variants, MODOK, the key points, the analysis, the Easter eggs and predictions for what comes next.
Quick notes on what stood out on a first viewing and the Easter eggs, and then the analysis.
Spoilers ahead
Episode-by-episode reviews of the shows that aired earlier are behind the images below — click through!
Contents
Recent hobby
Started shooting all sorts of things for fun lately. The camera is an α7 IV, shooting RAW and editing in Lightroom.
Easter eggs, trivia and analysis
Kang the Conqueror
Kang the Conqueror, a variant of “He Who Remains” from the Loki series, is outrageously strong and has this mysterious charisma to him! Here’s his background in the comics.
Kang the Conqueror, in the comics, is a man who came from the future, and a famous villain who clashes with the Avengers over and over the way Thanos does. He’s also a descendant of Reed Richards, the stretchy one from the Fantastic Four.
His great strength is summoning versions of himself out of all sorts of time periods and fighting alongside them lol
And on top of that, he is deeply involved in the birth of the X-Men. In the comics Kang time-travels to ancient Egypt, and there he creates a monster called Apocalypse. Apocalypse is in fact the progenitor of the mutants, which means you could call Kang the root cause of mutants existing at all. Endgame established that changing the past has no effect on the future, though, so who knows how that plays out… For more on Kang, have a look at this Wikipedia page lol
There are all sorts of Kangs, and getting the most mainstream one of them all, Kang the Conqueror, put on screen is hugely satisfying. The beams he fires, his whole philosophy — personally I thought all of it was ridiculously cool lol
Here he shows the makings of a big bad on Thanos’ level — that sharp mind, the telekinesis that comes out of future technology, hand-to-hand fighting that leans on no science at all!
He dies in the multiverse engine at the end, but it would be great to get other Kang the Conquerors turning up!
Last thing — a summary of why Kang the Conqueror conquers everything in sight. Left alone, the multiverses collide with one another and an incursion happens, so the way I understood it he is pruning various multiverses to stop that. The other Kangs presumably share that same thinking at root, so a war between the multiverses after this is a certainty!
End credits: the other Kangs
The end credits had every Kang variant in there, though three of them stood out as the major ones! Here they are!
Two of them are surely Immortus and Rama-Tut, but the third is either Scarlet Centurion or Iron Lad, so all four get a mention here!
Will these four turn up in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty? Cannot wait! And Kang has history with Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four as well, so that’s extra exciting!
Immortus
The one acting the most self-important of the three is Immortus! He looks like the Kang who went chasing immortality!
Rama-Tut
The pharaoh-looking one is Rama-Tut! And he is, of all things, the man who created Apocalypse, progenitor of the X-Men and every other mutant!
Scarlet Centurion
Not too well up on this one, but it’s the form Rama-Tut takes after losing to the Fantastic Four, meeting Doctor Doom and changing outfits.
Past that, no real idea….
Iron Lad
One of them looked mechanical, so I figured that one was Iron Lad. In the comics he is a rare thing among the Kang variants — a young man who is actually good. He joins the Young Avengers as well, or rather he is the one who put them together. Looks like he could show up in the MCU as the key to bringing Kang down! And he’ll probably form the Young Avengers in the MCU too!
The Microverse / the Quantum Realm
The Microverse is finally here! All sorts of creatures, and a culture that feels like Star Wars — really rather liked it! Want to go back there!
Apparently there’s a layer sitting just before that quantum realm, and the quantum world from Ant-Man 1 and 2 was that one! Time ran differently from reality between Scott entering the quantum realm at the end of Ant-Man 2 and coming back in Endgame, so time must run slowly in that layer alone!
Post-credits: Loki
Loki and Mobius have found a Kang who calls himself Victor Timely!
Victor was apparently a Kang variant in the comics as well.
Is Loki season 2 going to have the Kang variants as its theme?? Cannot wait!!
Victor Timely is the name Kang used when he time-travelled to 1901. He built a town in the US state of Wisconsin and became its mayor. Victor Timely ran a factory and brought the foundations of robotics to that era. Later on, Timely Industries would go on to influence the machines superheroes use as well.
https://virtualgorillaplus.com/movie/antman-and-wasp-quantmania-post-credit/#index-4
MODOK
MODOK finally appears!!! MODOK stands for “Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing”, which translated literally is “a mobile organism designed only for killing”!
That wildly unrealistic look from the comics blends in perfectly, maybe because there’s a quantum realm to excuse it!
His true identity is Darren after all, and just as Ant-Man 1 said, brain damage is what left him looking like that. They even got his backside on screen, which was funny lol
He starts out as an enemy, but Cassie talks him round and he dies as a good man in the end… Sad that MODOK is over just like that, and the reason he turns good is so plucky that I cried…
Agent Woo
Scott being friends with Agent Woo was funny
Lord Krylar
Bill Murray, the man famous for Ghostbusters and the rest of it, plays Lord Krylar, but he exits without much of anything happening lol
Pure fan service
Homages to Captain America and Iron Man
That broken helmet looked just like Iron Man’s broken helmet from the start of Endgame!
Standing up to an overwhelming enemy without giving an inch is like Captain America in that hopeless spot late in Endgame too, and the sense of that will being handed on was lovely!
The main characters
Was worried someone was going to die in this one, and Darren took it on himself. I cried.
Also wondered whether Scott and Hope might get left behind in the quantum realm, but Cassie opens the door for them easily and thank goodness for that! This film moves briskly through every key beat and is very easy to watch!
The scene where all the different Scotts help the original Scott shrink the multiverse engine has that spirit of self-sacrifice in it — the spirit of a hero — and it’s an absolute favourite.
Thought there was hardly any ant in this Ant-Man, and then the setup pays off beautifully in the final stretch! Want to keep seeing this family from here on~ There was no “Ant-Man will return” card, so what happens now? Looking forward to it!
Predictions
- Rama-Tut appears and the X-Men officially join. Or Doctor Doom appears
- Iron Lad forms the Young Avengers and steals the show in The Kang Dynasty
- Loki season 2 digs deeper into Kang
Those are the sorts of things you can imagine!
