The trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has dropped, and we’ve finally gotten our first good look at the Quantum Realm. Aside from showing off the incredibly badass Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the trailer finally answers a question that I’m sure has been on every Ant-Man fan’s mind since 2018: where did Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) get the cool Star Wars-esque outfit she’s wearing at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp?
To recap: at the end of Ant-Man 2, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) travels to the Quantum Realm to rescue Janet after she’s been stranded there for 30 years. When Hank arrives, he finds himself in a hallucinogenic wasteland, and Janet is standing there in her Wasp suit with a cloak, fingerless gloves, and a spear attached to her back. She looks startlingly cool! She looks like she’s spent the last three decades fighting off monsters in the Quantum hinterlands and then roasting their flesh over campfires.
Except … where are those monsters? Where did the fabric for her cloak and the material for her spear come from? For that matter, if the Quantum Realm we see in the movie is just a kaleidoscopic infinity with no signs of life, how did she survive 30 years in the first place? Janet’s appearance in Ant-Man 2 is a big clue that there’s more to the Quantum Realm than we see on the screen.
That issue was overshadowed by the apocalyptic events of Avengers: Endgame, but now that Janet and the rest of the Ant crew is returning to the Quantum Realm, we’ll finally get some answers—and we get to see what the Quantum Realm really looks like.
The Quantum Realm, where people know how to dress
When Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie activates the signal to the Quantum Realm she’s invented, Janet clearly knows exactly what’s down there—and she doesn’t want to risk establishing any kind of connection to it. After Cassie’s invention sucks them all in, Janet explains that the Quantum Realm is “a secret universe beneath ours.”
And what a universe! The Quantum Realm is a feast for the eyes, a sci-fi lover’s dream. It’s got a hyper-futuristic city, strange plant life, and secret passages. It’s got at least one bar filled with weird aliens, which is a staple of any self-respecting sci-fi franchise. In Ant-Man 2, the Quantum Realm looks like a place you’d promptly want to claw your way out of. In Ant-Man 3, it looks like a place you could explore forever.
Plus, everyone there is so fashionable! In the trailer, Janet and the others promptly outfit themselves with some disguises that make them look super hardcore, because that’s just what you have to do when you find yourself in the Quantum Realm. Along with answering the question of how Janet was able to stay alive and clothed in the Quantum Realm for 30 years, Ant-Man 3 may also give us more information about what exactly she got up to down there.
What was Janet doing in the Quantum Realm?
After they’ve been sucked into the Quantum Realm, Hope asks Janet what she’s so afraid of. We see Janet hiding her face, and then admitting that “There’s something I never told you.” She clearly got involved in the goings-on in the Quantum Realm somehow. Did she have a run-in with Bill Murray’s villainous Krylar? Did she tousle with Kang himself? Or, more disturbingly, did she work with them? Whatever secret she’s keeping seems to be a painful memory for her.
Of course, Marvel loves to misdirect in its trailers, so the hints we’re getting of Janet’s backstory could be a red herring. Still, this trailer has got me excited to explore the Quantum Realm. I can’t wait to spend some time there—and maybe attend the Quantum version of Fashion Week.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania premieres February 17, 2023.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
Published: Oct 24, 2022 05:09 pm