~Matt Key
If you haven’t seen Marvel’s latest film, Ant-Man, just stop reading this post right now as it’s entirely based on a spoiler that happens in the film.
If you have seen it, then please, continue.
Just know, there be spoilers ahead.
If you’re still here, than presumably you’ve seen the film. And if you’ve seen the film, then you know that when Ant-Man shrinks down “between the atoms” and enters the quantum realm where time and space become irrelevant, that there’s some freaky weird stuff to see there. In particular, towards the beginning of that sequence, there’s a very brief flash of a figure. More like the outline of a figure, who flashes by so quickly it’s pretty impossible to tell exactly who it is.
As director Peyton Reed puts it,
“I don’t know if you caught any of the imagery as Scott is going down into the quantum realm, you might be able, on repeat viewing and definitely when you get the Blu-ray, there’s something the audience can see down there that Scott doesn’t see, that, may play a larger role.”
We’ll all just have to wait until the Blu-Ray hits or someone from the studio slips up and tells us.
In the mean time, it’s fun to speculate on exactly who or what that flash was.
SCOTT LANG
Let’s start with the obvious. It’s just some cool effect giving us some weird “echo” of Scott Lang. If time and space are irrelevant at that size, in that dimension, then it’s possible that its just Lang existing in two places at once, something we theorize happens on the quantum scale giving him a sort of infinite reflection.
JANET VAN DYNE
The moment we heard Hank Pym talk about his wife, The Wasp, going between the molecules and disappearing into the quantum realm, we were all hoping Scott Lang would find her there. We all knew he’d have to go between the molecules at some point, so why not enter that dimension and find her there, find a way to bring her back.
This actually happened in the comics. Janet Van Dyne was killed while defending the Earth against the Skrulls during Secret Invasion. However, at the end of Bendis’s run on The Avengers, he had the team disappear into what’s called the Microverse, which is basically the comics equivalent to the MCU’s Quantum Realm, where they discovered Janet had been living amongst the minuscule citizens of that dimension — between the molecules.
Some audience members have sworn to have seen wings on the figure, so maybe it is her.
DOCTOR STRANGE
The Sorcerer Supreme is a prime candidate as well, especially given all the attention Feige has given the Quantum Realm in talking about Ant-Man the last few weeks. We also know Doctor Strange has been one of Feige’s pet projects since he was first brought onto the Marvel Studios team. In a press screening a few weeks ago, Feige had this to say about the Quantum Realm in Ant-Man and how it relates to Doctor Strange, which is out next November.
“If you look up the study of quantum mechanics, when you get down that small, as Hank Pym says, space time is meaningless, and there’s a lot of that stuff that applies to Doctor Strange. So this is sort of an appetizer for, ‘If you think this is weird…’”
It would make sense that maybe, just maybe, in a realm of infinite possibilities all happening at once, that Doctor Strange would witness the first actual micronaut venturing into the Microverse of the Quantum Realm. If this is the case, maybe one day we’ll get to watch the super serious bravado of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange played against the impossibly boyish charm of Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man.
ETERNITY
Finally, there’s Eternity. Eternity was first introduced in the pages of a Doctor Strange comic (Strange Tales #138 to be exact), as the living embodiment of all reality and time. Eternity knows all and sees all and is an all-powerful, godlike being who’s been instrumental in helping take down some of Marvel’s biggest bad guys, including Thanos during the crisis of the Infinity Gauntlet.
With Eternity existing in all places at all times, it’s entirely possible he saw Ant-Man visit the Quantum Realm.
It’s also within the realm of possibility, with Marvel getting this weird and out there, that they will start to include such abstract characters as Eternity. We’ve already had Scott Derrickson hint that Death may appear in Doctor Strange and we’ve already seen the Celestials in Guardians of the Galaxy, so Eternity is not outside the realm of possibility.
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He has two cats and knows all things about Doctor Strange but little else.
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