Warning: This Post Contains SPOILERS!
Even though Ant-Man and the Wasp is overwhelmingly a standalone story, it does inevitably have to weave some new threads, which setup the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe saga.
Most Marvel fans know how the Ant-Man and the Wasp post-credits scenes connect back to Avengers: Infinity War and possibly setup Avengers 4, but looking deeper into the recent revelations of Ant-Man and the Wasp, it’s clear that the Quantum Realm could have a much more important role in the larger future of the MCU.
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lily) realize that Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) venture into the Quantum Realm – and then back again – meant that Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfieffer) could very likely still be alive down there. Over the course of the film, Hank, Hope, and Scott fight to get their expedition into the Quantum Realm off the ground, while forces like the desperate Ghost or the shady Sonny Burch try to stop them.
The climax of Ant-Man and the Wasp sees Hank venture into the Quantum Realm and save Janet, but Mrs. Pym comes back very much changed from her decades lost in the QR. Janet can now manipulate quantum energy in some kind of way, and uses it to help stabilize Ghost’s quantum phase shifting. In the post-credits scene, Janet stages an expedition for Scott to retrieve more quantum energy inside the realm; unfortunately, the expedition takes place at the exact moment that Thanos erases half of all life in the universe – including Janet, Hank, and Hope. Scott is left stranded in the Quantum Realm, with no apparent way out.
The Ant-Man franchise has made a point to inform us that space and time work very differently in the Quantum Realm. Ant-Man and the Wasp takes things a bit further, by implying that The Quantum Realm could actually function like something of a junction point between all points in the space/time continuum. The biggest hint we get of this is during the post-credits scene, where Janet warns Scott that if he’s not careful while in the Quantum Realm, he could be sucked into a time vortex that could deposit him who knows where in time (which Avengers 4 set photos suggest he indeed does). If the Quantum Realm is the crossroads of all physical space and time in all realities, then it can easily serve as the…
