The trailer also teases a deal being made between the two. Scott wants time with his daughter back after missing out for the five-year time jump between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Kang wants to get out of the Quantum Realm altogether, and it seems like the two might be able to help one another out before the deal goes sour, but in the grand tradition of the Marvel Cinematic Universe trailers, everything might not be what it seems. It’s entirely possible that Scott and Kang have already met, but that Scott isn’t aware of that fact.
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Scott Doesn’t Remember His Time In The Quantum Realm
Every Ant-Man movie has given the audience glimpses of the Quantum Realm. Ant-Man and the Wasp gave the audience a pretty good look as Scott and Hope searched for the latter’s mother. The first movie, however, saw both Scott Lang and Darren Cross sucked into the realm. While Cross, as Yellowjacket, didn’t return, Scott did. Scott had no memory of how he was able to return from the Quantum Realm though, and really, seemed very fuzzy on the details of what he even saw in his brief time there.
Now, that can be explained away with Scott not knowing what to expect and not understanding it. But he also was in the Quantum Realm following the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp and during Avengers: Infinity War, stuck there during the time jump. Even then, the details from him are sparse, though that’s because Scott is then focused on helping the Avengers to stop Thanos.
What the audience knows about his original trip to the Quantum Realm though is that it occurred when Ant-Man and Yellowjacket battled. Scott decided to forgo the inhibitor on his Ant-Man suit to shrink himself and Darren Cross down so small that he would be able to get his enemy away from his daughter. While Scott returned from the Quantum Realm with little memories of his time there, Darren was lost.
Darren Cross Is Returning, But Not As Yellowjacket
While it’s been rumored that Corey Stoll would be returning to the role of Darren Cross for some time, the latest trailer does show the actor in action again. The trailer, however, does not show the actor in costume as Yellowjacket.
Instead, it’s his face behind the mask of the Marvel character MODOK. That’s led to some fan speculation that MODOK is working for, or has at the very least been experimented on by, Kang. In Marvel Comics, the original MODOK was an employee of an arms manufacturer and distributor who was experimented on to increase his intelligence. While he became a genius with a violent streak, he also essentially became a giant head that needed the aid of a hover chair to get around.
That could mean that Kang, Scott, and Darren all met during the events of the first Ant-Man movie, but Scott was the only one to return to his normal life from the Quantum Realm, while Darren wound up as the subject of an experiment in the Quantum Realm.
Other fans will point out that it’s entirely possible that Stoll is playing a new character completely and that Darren Cross hasn’t gone from Yellowjacket to MODOK. While it is true that there are many actors who have played multiple roles in the MCU (Gemma Chan as Minn-erva in Captain Marvel and Sersi in the Eternals, for example), those actors haven’t played different roles within the same character’s set of films. It’s unlikely that Stoll would be playing a brand-new character in an Ant-Man movie when he was introduced to the MCU in an Ant-Man movie. David Dastmalchian, who appeared in the previous two Ant-Man movies, is playing a different character for Quantumania as well, and it’s unclear how that will be addressed, as well.
Have Scott And Kang Already Made A Deal?
If Scott and Kang have already met in the Quantum Realm, it does beg the question of just how much Scott knows about the MCU’s next big villain. If Kang, at the time, had the ability to turn back the clock at all, as he is someone proficient in time travel technology in the comics, Scott might not actually remember their original meeting. Scott may have only escaped the Quantum Realm at all by making a deal with Kang and Kang allowing him to leave in the first place.
That could be why Kang is so quick to make a deal with Scott and not one of the other characters seen in the trailers. After all, if Kang needs access to the technology employed by the Ant-Man suit, Hope van Dyne, her parents, and Cassie Lang all have access to the same technology. Kang, however, more easily appeals to Scott’s grief at having lost so much time with his daughter. Despite wondering aloud in the trailer, “you’re an Avenger, have I killed you before,” Kang appears to know exactly how to target Scott, suggesting a familiarity with him that the audience wouldn’t expect him to have.
Scott wouldn’t need to remember the deal with Kang in order for Kang to consider the hero beholden to him either. Kang has likely been in the Quantum Realm for a very long time since Janet van Dyne seems familiar with him and how dangerous he is. He’s likely used to having to employ a large amount of patience while dealing with people in multiple timelines.
Of course, the version of Scott the audience knows might not have been the one to make the deal at all. The MCU has introduced the idea of variants with the Disney Plus series Loki and with the multiple realities in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (with America Chavez being the only known MCU character with no variant).
Kang Could Have Dealt With Multiple Scott Variants As Well
Another fan theory suggests that the trailer is employing a massive misdirect for fans. When Scott and Kang battle in the trailer, with Scott proclaiming they both have to lose, it appears that the scene would be from the climax of the movie, the big battle in the end that might mean Scott sacrificing his own happiness, or even his life, to make sure Kang doesn’t get what he wants. That might not be the case.
That scene could appear in the first act of the movie as a variant of Scott battles Kang. It could even be a flashback sequence later in the movie. The possibilities are endless now - especially since the trailer hasn’t hidden that there will be multiple versions of Scott Lang in the movie. Scott even meets a version of himself at one point in the preview, and there is a mass number of Scotts, not unlike the mass of ants that he can usually get to help him in a fight.
Whether the Scott Lang in the main timeline has dealt with Kang before - or whether the Scott Lang in the main timeline is a variant of himself - will finally be revealed when fans get to see the movie on the big screen.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania lands in theaters February 17, 2023.
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