As Marvel Studios dives further into Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, various franchises are embarking on their third solo movies and giving important characters their well-deserved epic adventures. The next of these threequel's will be this month's Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the last confirmed one, for the time being, will come in July 2023 with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
More than a year and a half before its theatrical debut, the third solo Ant-Man movie has completed filming with Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne set to take on their most intense journey to date. While plot details are being kept under wraps for the foreseeable future, Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror recently showed up in promotional art that teases some potentially deadly repercussions.
The Ant-Man vs Kang fight is something that already has fans geared up due to the mystery surrounding it, and after first appearing in Loki, Majors is set to unleash his true power as Kang in Ant-Man 3.
That power is already teased in the same promo art from the set, and it also teases an interesting trend continuing through another MCU threequel.
Ant-Man 3 Set to Break MCU Hero?
A recently leaked image of an Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania stunt crew shirt featured a badly damaged Ant-Man mask with a gaping hole on its right side. Down the middle of the mask shows a reflection of Kang the Conqueror in a comic-accurate outfit.
While the Kang reflection is notable, the image suggests that Ant-Man's mask will become similarly damaged during Quantumania. This would continue the trend of MCU heroes losing or damaging their signature weapon/equipment in each of their respective third solo movies.
The third solo Iron Man movie featured action that ended with Tony Stark's Iron Man mask with a huge crack down the middle. The end of that movie also sees Tony destroying his entire collection of suits after the final battle (although that's rectified in future MCU projects), and he throws his arc reactor into the Pacific Ocean after having it surgically removed.
Then came Captain America's shield, which Chris Evans' Steve Rogers gave up possession of at the end of Captain America: Civil War. After Steve defeated Tony and saved Bucky Barnes in the Siberian climactic battle, Tony exclaimed, “That shield doesn't belong to you. You don't deserve it. My father made that shield.”
Steve Rogers, who was given the shield by Tony's father, Howard, during World War II, obliged Tony's emotional demand and dropped it, feeling disconnected to the Captain America moniker that he once proudly displayed.
In Thor's third MCU movie, Thor: Ragnarok, Chris Hemsworth's hero saw his mighty hammer Mjolnir destroyed by his own sister. During the film's first act, Hela catches the hammer and crushes it in her bare hands, although it returns thanks to time travel antics in Avengers: Endgame. The weapon is also set to appear again in 2022's Thor: Love and Thunder.
The MCU's next theatrical threequel, Spider-Man: No Way Home will also see its lead hero lose the equipment that assists their superheroics. As shown in the movie's trailer, Doc Ock will steal the nanotech from Peter Parker's Iron Spider suit. While Peter will use other suits later in the film, he joins the Avengers' big three in losing an important item that was relied upon for battle in past movies.
Pym Tech In for a Rough Run in Ant-Man 3?
The MCU isn't a franchise that holds back on giving its heroes everything they can handle, and that trend doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon in Phase 4.
While the highlight of that image is clearly Kang the Conqueror in his return after Loki Episode 6, the image also teases that Ant-Man will be in for his toughest physical battle in any of his solo movies to date. The details of that fight are still a mystery, but Kang's presence alone means that the MCU's smallest hero won't have an easy go of things.
The trend featuring the MCU's heroes losing or giving up their weapons is an interesting one considering it goes back to 2013's Iron Man 3, a movie that put Tony through the wringer physically as he dealt with his nightmares post-Battle of New York. Scott will likely have plenty of his own demons to face after coming back to an unknown world in Avengers: Endgame, although his physical challenges won't be anything to sneeze at either.
The big question now is if Quantumania is setting Scott up to lose the Ant-Man suit by the end of his fight with Kang due to the broken mask in the promo image. It doesn't seem likely that this threequel will be Paul Rudd's last appearance as the miniature hero, but the chance that he will lose the Ant-Man suit is now firmly on the radar.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will debut in theaters on July 28, 2023.
