Everything's personal in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
The small-scale superhero movie is a light and summery story with no real villains, just
characters trying to get things done and get home, sometimes at odds with each other.
But while the Ant-Man sequel's stakes may be small, the characters themselves have long
histories that stretch back decades, and we're not just talking about the two with their
names in the title.
There's more going on with some of these supporting characters than you may have noticed, and
they may affect the future of the entire MCU.
When it comes to Ant-Man and the Wasp, these are the characters that deserve your extra
attention.
Cassie Lang
Scott Lang's daughter Cassie is Ant-Man and the Wasp's secret MVP.
In one of the movie's most adorable moments, the 10-year-old makes it clear to her dad
that she wants to be his superhero sidekick.
It's a suggestion that Scott brushes off, at least, for now.
In the comics, Cassie does get in on the superhero game, working both on her own and with the
Young Avengers under the names of Stature and Stinger.
Like her dad, she has size-changing abilities, gaining the power to do so without the help
of any technology through her lifetime exposure to Pym particles.
So why does Cassie's comic book history matter to the MCU?
Well, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has openly discussed how the company is "planting
seeds" for the Young Avengers' potential arrival in the movies, saying,
"That's why we wanted Cassie [...] inspired by her father."
You may see that inspiration pay off sooner than you think, as Marvel has reportedly cast
an older actress to play Cassie in the fourth Avengers movie.
Is this aspiring heroine about to get her time in the spotlight?
It certainly seems that way.
Elihas Starr
Elihas Starr only appears in flashback in the Ant-Man sequel, being the bald man who
gets blown up in a quantum experiment as part of Ghost's origin story.
But while he may be a sympathetic figure in the movie, his comic book namesake is anything
but.
Introduced in a 1962 issue of Tales to Astonish, Elihas is a brainiac villain appropriately
known as Egghead, a super genius who becomes obsessed with defeating Ant-Man and the Avengers.
You don't really get any of that in the movie, though.
Instead, Elihas' animosity toward Pym is transferred to his daughter Ava, aka Ghost, who has a
reflexive distaste for Pym due to what she sees as his part in her parents' deaths.
That fatherly aspect to Egghead is entirely an invention of the MCU; in the comics, Ava
doesn't exist.
Speaking of which…
Ghost
Ghost, is one of the more mysterious characters in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
With no time for chit-chat, she's got an understandable focus on staying alive and finding a cure
for her uncontrollable phasing condition before it tears her apart.
Motivated by survival, Ava's the most sympathetic villain the MCU has seen yet.
By the time the credits roll and Ghost is cured, Scott's casually referring to Ava as
the team's "new Ghost friend", making her story feel less like a villain's tale and
more like a backdoor pilot for a whole new hero.
In MCU territory, they call that move "the Bucky Barnes."
In the comics, Ghost is not named Ava, nor is she a she.
The comic book Ghost, a man whose real name we never learn, was introduced as a villain
in a 1987 issue of Iron Man.
Eventually, the character joins the Thunderbolts, a team of bad guys gone good.
Since Ghost survives Ant-Man and the Wasp, fans are chattering about the possibility
of the anti-hero eventually joining a movie version of the Thunderbolts.
While we don't know for sure if that's happening, some of the pieces are in place.
In the comics, the team was originally led by Baron Zemo, a character who appeared in
- and survived - Captain America: Civil War.
Jimmy Woo
Would you believe that FBI Special Agent James "Jimmy" Woo is the Ant-Man and the Wasp character
with the longest comic book history?
With the character first introduced in 1956, it might also explain why he's such an unabashed
square.
Woo is such an old-fashioned character that he predates Marvel Comics as a company, first
appearing in an Atlas Comics series about a Chinese supervillain named "The Yellow Claw."
A name which aged very poorly!
"Hey!
It's complicated."
"It is?"
"It's complicated."
When Atlas turned into Marvel, Woo eventually ended up repackaged as a S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent.
But Marvel never forgot his Atlas Comics roots, eventually making him the center of a new
team called the Agents of Atlas in 2006, a squad composed of retro heroes from the '40s
and '50s.
Woo's quaint style in Ant-Man and the Wasp seems like a reference to his origins in another
era.
Being a stickler for the rules makes him a natural heel in a world where Scott Lang - technically
a criminal! - can be among the ranks of the world's mightiest heroes.
Whale Boat Captain Daniel Gooobler
The whale boat captain played by comedian Tim Heidecker is not a comic book character,
but rather a manifestation of a real-life inside joke.
It all goes back to the satirical movie review series On Cinema at the Cinema, starring Heidecker
and comedian Gregg Turkington - a show on which Ant-Man director Peyton Reed once appeared.
Ever since Turkington cameoed in the first Ant-Man as Scott's Baskin-Robbins manager,
the two co-hosts have been locked in a rivalry over which of them can appear in more Marvel
movies - a competition Tim tied in 2015 by appearing in Fox's Fantastic Four reboot.
"I completely understand why you would want to be involved in it, why you would pay the
$15,000 to cameo in the movie."
"No.
No."
Now that Tim's lunged into the lead with this appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp, the tables
have turned on Turkington.
The appearance makes for one of the movie's most amusing gags, provided you know about
the long-running inside joke.
Bill Foster
Laurence Fishburne's Bill Foster serves as an Ant-Man and the Wasp antagonist for about
five minutes, with any villainy on his part coming down to a difference in perspectives.
The professor is introduced as a former partner of Pym's who worked alongside him on a project
called Goliath.
But what's never made too clear is that Goliath is a former superhero alter-ego of Hank's,
and that - for a while - Foster was Goliath.
After parting ways with Pym, Foster gained the power to grow to great heights himself
through his tinkering with Pym particles.
He then started a blaxploitation-era crime-fighting career as the hero Black Goliath in a 1975
issue of Power-Man.
Later, after using the name Giant-Man for a while, Foster would just take the name Goliath.
While Foster never goes gigantic in the Ant-Man sequel, he definitely has the ability to,
which may come in handy in the future.
This is assuming Bill survived the movie's credit scene.
With one Ant-Man and two Wasps snapped out of existence, the remaining heroes probably
need all the help they can get.
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