Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania’s writer, Jeff Loveness, revealed to fans that Michelle Pfeiffer's Janet van Dyne once had more superpowers in the third size-changing adventure.
Janet didn’t have much to do in her first official outing—though she did show off some vague healing powers.
Thankfully, despite the many flaws that audiences see in the latest Ant-Man project, the third outing gave the original Wasp a much greater purpose in the story.
A key part of that story involved Jonathan Majors’ terrifying Kang the Conqueror. The two had a close bond at one point (in fact, they might have even done the dirty) until she learned just who exactly he was.
Based on a new interview, it seems there was a lot more to Janet’s story that never made it into the final film.
Janet Once Had Superpowers In Quantumania
In a new interview with Backstory Magazine, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness revealed that Michelle Pfeiffer's Janet van Dyne once kept her superpowers in the third outing.
Fans might recall Janet using her newfound healing properties to help heal Ghost in the second movie. According to Loveness, those were something that played a role in the heroes' clash with Kang the Conqueror.
Sadly, it ended up "confusing the viewers in [their] test screenings:"
“Janet’s got obviously those healing properties, but I looked it as more of like, less healing, and more of like, ‘Oh, she’s got a bit of that inter-dimensionality phasing as well, and she was able to almost like stabilize Ava.’ We wrote that. It was in there, and I think it just it was just confusing the viewers in our test screenings like, ’Wait, she has phasing powers?’”
The conversation then uprooted some new information. According to Loveness, Janet once had a version of Ghost's phasing abilities, which would have come from the Multiversal core after her clash with Kang in the past:
“A little bit. That was kind of it. And it came from the core, actually, when she touches it, and steals it from Kang, and they’re in that big fight scene. When she blows the core, and she’s like grabbing for it, that almost like gave her those powers, almost in the Captain Marvel way, like getting that raw energy kind of destabilized her hands. And then when Scott [Lang] going down there into the eye of the storm kind of destabilized him, and split him off into all those variations…
Loveness brought attention to a screen earlier in the movie that, thanks to "clever editing," sneakily showed Janet using her phasing abilities to keep Hank and her hidden:
"We had Janet with a bit more superpowers and I think it was a bit too much shoe leather to explain. And if you watch closely, if you go back to watch the movie, there’s a part where like they just landed the jungle and Janet pushes him against the tree and says like do not move, and the light goes over them, I think it’s clever editing, but in the script, that was like, she phases them out of sequence, and so the scanner misses them, because she phases them both out, and it really hurts Hope and Hank. And Janet’s in a lot of pain."
The writer considered those powers "almost tied into her traumas," which led to something she "[couldn't] really control:"
"And that was like, ‘Oh wait, you can still do that? What is going on down here?’ That was almost tied into her traumas like she can’t really control these powers well, being in the quantum realm makes her more unstable, and it was a part of that Kang core of like, she made that sacrifice of almost like touching a hot stove, and running away with it, and it really messed her up.”
Will Janet Ever Be Super Again?
Given the relationship between Janet and Kang that Quantumania set up, it’s a safe bet to assume that Pieffier’s hero will factor into Avengers: The Kang Dynasty a lot more than one might think.
It would be the perfect place to see this older Wasp back in action, this time with some handy-dandy Quantum Realm-based abilities.
Hopefully, this older Wasp will be able to use that time to explore the full potential of what she could be. Though, there’s always the chance that getting on that road will also lead to an untimely grave.
Her co-star Michael Douglas seems to think his character is in a good place to be killed off if another Ant-Man movie were to be made. Perhaps those two lovebirds aren’t fated for a happy extended life.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is now playing in theaters worldwide.
