[This story contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp.]
The Ant-Man arm of the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t exactly known for its Earth shattering revelations or massive stakes — especially in the wake of Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, where issues like institutional racism and universal genocide are standing front and center. But, that doesn’t mean Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his band of plucky size-shifting compatriots don’t have something to say about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s immediate future — from Avengers 4 to the possible Ant-Man 3.
One of the critical components of the Ant-Man duology is the Quantum Realm or the “Microverse,” as it’s known in Marvel Comics. First introduced back in the original Ant-Man film, the Quantum Realm is a place so small that it exists free of concepts like time or space; smaller than atoms or molecules, smaller than the smallest known measurements of energy. It was here that original Wasp Jan Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) was lost years ago and believed dead. However, nearly all of these assumptions were proved false when Scott managed to enter the Quantum Realm and return in one piece during his confrontation with Yellow Jacket.
Naturally, as with most of the Pym Particle related shrinking/growing science in the MCU, the Quantum Realm is a place governed by a specific brand of sci-fi logic and joyfully batty pseudoscience, so it’s difficult to really spell out in any certain terms exactly what it can or can’t do. We see in Ant-Man and The Wasp that Janet has indeed been living there for the past thirty-some years, that it exists as a sort of surrealistic mind trip capable of tapping into memories and causing hallucinations, and that it is able to imbue the people who enter with some sort of quantum-based abilities. Upon her return, Janet is able to essentially project some sort of “quantum radiation” (for lack of a better term) and help repair Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), who is struggling with a body that continues to phase in and out of reality. Later, we see Scott being sent to harvest more of that energy directly from the realm itself.
All of this is to say that the Quantum Realm has officially been fleshed out just…
