Don’t call the Wasp a sidekick.
On Tuesday, a day after the world premiere of Black Panther, Marvel dropped the first trailer for Ant-Man and The Wasp, the sequel to the surprise 2015 hit Ant-Man. (Though at this point, is the success of any Marvel superhero movie really a “surprise”?) The trailer reveals that the sequel will focus, at least in part, on Ant-Man, a.k.a. Scott Lang (played by Paul Rudd), dealing with the fallout over his actions in Captain America: Civil War.
In 2016’s Civil War, Ant-Man joined up with Cap’s side to face off against Tony Stark’s Iron Man and others to oppose government regulation of the Avengers. He, along with the rest of Cap’s team, was eventually captured and then promptly broken out of the superhero holding facility by Captain America.
In other words: Ex-con Scott Lang is once again a wanted (ant) man.
But the trailer makes it clear that Lang’s actions as Ant-Man don’t just affect him. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) have had to go on the run too, since they supplied Lang with the Ant-Man technology. It’s Lang’s daughter Cassie, in a voiceover mulling what to do next, who proposes the solution that kicks the trailer into high gear and delivers on the promise of the film’s dual-named title: a partner.
The Ant-Man and The Wasp trailer makes it clear that Hope Van Dyne’s the Wasp is just as good, if not better, at this superhero stuff than Ant-Man, at least if flying, taking down bad guys with martial arts, and using blasters are the signs of great superhero-ing (they are). Here are three moments from the trailer that reveal how Ant-Man’s associates will help up the ante in the new film.
1) The Wasp running on a knife blade
What made Ant-Man so great was how it played with size and speed to change up the standard Marvel fight scene. The Ant-Man and The Wasp trailer shows that Marvel isn’t afraid to return to that well, in a scene featuring the Wasp evading knives thrown at her by a random bad guy. Dodging the projectiles by performing a shrinking twisting flip would be cool enough, but then she takes it to the next level by running down the side of the thrown blade to rebound and give the knife-thrower a stinging response.
2) Hank Pym shrinks a building
Thanks to their association with Lang, Hope and Hank are now fugitives (or rather, super-powered individuals whom the government wants to keep tabs on) too. But their version of going on the run is a little different than most superheroes’. Thanks to Pym’s shrinking tech, packing up and hitting the road is a lot simpler — you just take the entire building with you
3) Giant Hello Kitty attack!
The trailer doesn’t really make clear who will be the movie’s main villain — this first look is really all about the Wasp. And what better introduction than having her turn a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser into an instrument of destruction? The Wasp shares Ant-Man’s ability to shrink and grow both themselves and objects as needed, which means they (and the movie) get to play with turning tiny everyday objects into dangerous, and sometimes adorable, weapons.
Ant-Man and The Wasp is scheduled to hit theaters on July 6, 2018.
