WE’RE GETTING to the point where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is so expansive, so huge, so constantly evolving that it’s almost hard to expect that anyone tuning into any given project has seen everything. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania marks the 31st film in the franchise, and perhaps more importantly, as the first film in Marvel’s Phase 5, a beginning of sorts to a new story.
Quantumania is the third standalone Ant-Man film and the fifth overall to feature Paul Rudd as Scott Lang. But Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige always loves to bring things together, whether that’s characters from one place showing up elsewhere, or plot threads from the past picking up somewhere unexpected.
The primary objective of Quantumania, ostensibly, is to introduce Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the MCU’s next Thanos-level, multi-project supervillain. And it’s successful in that, as just about everything in the film centers around Kang and his motivations.
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But to best understand that, it may be helpful to get a light refresher on everything we’ve seen in this story to this point. Below, we’ve got five vital MCU projects to check out before you head to the Quantum realm for Quantumania. We’ll spare you some of the minor easter eggs, like the reference in Ms. Marvel to Avengers superfan Kamala Khan listening to a podcast that Scott supposedly starred in (though Ms. Marvel remains one of the better Marvel series, and one that we strongly recommend for anyone looking for some light superhero fun.)
Without further ado: your Quantumania viewing guide.
Ant-Man (2015)
Scott Lang made his debut in 2015’s Ant-Man, where we first met him as a fresh-out-of-prison thief whose main goal is to take from the greedy and give back to the little guy who got ripped off (he was in jail for robbing an evil business conglomerate). In this movie, we follow Scott as he meets Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lily), getting the Ant-Man suit from and becoming a mentee of the former while becoming romantically involved with the latter. We also learn of the close relationship between Scott and his daughter, Cassie, and find Scott facing off with the villainous Darren Cross (Corey Stoll).
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
After a tussle with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in Ant-Man, Scott gets called off to an airport in Germany to fight alongside Captain America, Sam, and others in Captain America: Civil War. It’s super fun to see Rudd use his powers and interact with his fellow heroes for the first time.
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Scott’s second solo outing comes in Ant-Man and the Wasp, with him technically under house arrest (and the watchful eye of the always hilarious Randall Park as Jimmy Woo) after the events of Civil War. As the title indicates, Hope gains her own superheroic alter ego in this one, and the duo take on a superpowered antagonist named Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and a douchebag arms dealer (Walton Goggins).
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
While Scott sits out the events of Avengers: Infinity War, he plays a huge role in Avengers: Endgame. Scott’s knowledge of the Quantum realm—which he brings to Captain America, Bruce Banner, etc.—essentially proves to be what allows them to discover time travel and ultimately travel back in time to stop Thanos. Scott also realizes that he’s been stuck in the Quantum realm for five years, emerging to find his daughter, Cassie, significantly older than he last saw her.
Loki Season 1, Episode 6 “For All Time. Always.” (2021)
The entire first season of Loki is great, but it’s important to check in on the finale—titled “For All Time. Always.”—if you want to have the full picture of what’s going on with the villain in Quantumania. Essentially, here, we follow Loki and Sylvie who discover that “He Who Remains” (one of Kang the Conqueror’s many variants) has been running the Time Variance Authority from the shadows all along. Majors gives an exceptional debut performance in his single episode, and got us all excited to see the many forms of his supervillain surely to come. And that road begins with Quantumania.
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
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