Scott Lang (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Did You Know?

• In the mid-2000s, Kevin Feige realized Marvel Studios still owned the rights to the core members of the Avengers, including Ant-Man.
• Edgar Wright was originally set to direct Ant-Man but exited due to creative differences; Peyton Reed replaced him, with Adam McKay and Rudd rewriting the screenplay.
• Scott Lang / Ant-Man appears in the attraction Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle! at Hong Kong Disneyland, with Rudd reprising the role.

Characterization

Scott Lang first shows up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the 2015 film Ant-Man. In that movie, he is a small-time crook who ends up taking over the role of Ant-Man from Hank Pym. Pym lets Lang steal his old suit, which lets him shrink down while getting much stronger. Lang teams up with Pym and his daughter, Hope van Dyne, to reclaim Pym Technologies from Darren Cross. To prepare for the part, Paul Rudd worked with trainers and gave up alcohol, fried food, and carbs. He said he basically ate nothing for about a year, comparing his approach to Chris Pratt’s. Lang comes back in Captain America: Civil War (2016). Sam Wilson recruits him to fight on Steve Rogers’ side against Tony Stark’s team and the Sokovia Accords. In the airport fight, Lang reveals his suit can also make him grow bigger. Anthony Russo said this move fits Lang’s character arc from Ant-Man, since Lang is so impressed by Captain America that he’s willing to risk tearing himself apart to help. In that movie, Rudd’s suit is sleeker and more advanced than the one from the first film. Lang appears again in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). Director Peyton Reed confirmed Lang would use his Giant Man name once more. After the events of Civil War, Lang breaks out of the superhuman prison called the Raft and becomes an even bigger fugitive, stuck on house arrest. In the film, he works with Van Dyne, who has taken her mother Janet’s superhero name the Wasp, to help Hank rescue Janet from the Quantum Realm. Once they save Janet and Lang finishes his house arrest, a post-credits scene shows him trapped in the Quantum Realm after Janet, Hank, and Hope vanish because of the Blip.

Fictional character biography

Scott Lang earned an engineering degree from MIT but later turned to crime as a way to get back at a corporation he believed had cheated its customers. While serving time in prison, his wife Maggie divorced him and gained custody of their daughter, Cassie. After being released on parole in 2015, Scott moved in with Luis, a former cellmate. He showed up at Maggie’s home without warning to see Cassie, only to be scolded by Maggie and her fiancé, police detective Jim Paxton, for failing to pay child support. Because his criminal record made it impossible to find steady work, Scott agreed to join Luis and his friends Dave and Kurt in a burglary. Acting on a tip, Scott broke into a house, opened a safe, and found an old suit that looked like it belonged on a motorcycle. He took it, but when he put it on, he shrank to the size of an insect. Frightened, he returned the suit, but was arrested and later broken out of jail by the homeowner, Hank Pym. Hank explained that he had once been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent known as Ant-Man and had set up the burglary as a test. He wanted Scott to steal another suit from his former student, Darren Cross, who had managed to copy Hank’s technology. Hank and his daughter Hope van Dyne trained Scott in combat, how to use the Ant-Man suit, and how to command ants. Hank also warned that if Scott disabled the suit’s regulator, he might vanish into the subatomic Quantum Realm, just like Hope’s mother, Janet van Dyne, had done decades earlier while stopping a Soviet nuclear missile. Scott was then sent to the Avengers Compound to steal a device, where he had a brief fight with Sam Wilson. With help from Luis, Dave, and Kurt, Scott snuck into Pym Technologies during a ceremony where Cross was showing off his finished Yellowjacket suit. Scott and Hope stopped Hydra agents at the event and blew up the building. Cross later put on the Yellowjacket suit and took Cassie hostage at her home to force a confrontation. Scott disabled the regulator, shrank to a subatomic size, and entered Cross’s suit, seemingly defeating him. Scott himself ended up in the Quantum Realm but found a way back. Grateful that Scott had saved Cassie, Paxton covered for him so he wouldn’t return to prison, and Scott rebuilt his relationship with his family. Later, Luis told Scott that Sam Wilson was looking for him.

Alternate versions

Scott Lang has several alternate-reality counterparts across the Marvel Cinematic Universe multiverse, with Paul Rudd voicing them in the animated series What If...?. In one version of 2018, after Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne return from the Quantum Realm infected with a zombie quantum virus, they attack and turn Scott into a zombie. Vision later finds the zombified Scott, takes him to Camp Lehigh, and uses the Mind Stone to cure him, but can only preserve Scott's head in a jar. When survivors including Scott's friend Kurt arrive, Scott uses the Cloak of Levitation to escape with Peter Parker and T'Challa to Wakanda. There they find all of Wakanda infected by a zombie Thanos, and after Thor, Rocket, and Groot arrive to help, they are all wiped out. Following T'Challa's sacrifice, the Infinity Stones are destroyed, releasing a surge of energy. The remaining sorcerers of Kamar-Taj save Lang and Parker. They then welcome Shang-Chi, Katy, Kamala Khan, Blade Knight, and Valkyrie, and reveal that Hulk has become Infinity Hulk, containing the Stones' energy. Lang and the other heroes fall one by one while defending Hulk.

In an alternate 1602, Scott teams up with Bucky Barnes and Rogers Hood as a Merry Men-style group. After stopping a carriage carrying Loki, they meet Captain Peggy Carter. Scott is annoyed that the Royal Yellowjackets have stolen his shrinking techniques. They escape to a pub, which is attacked by Sir Harold "Happy" Hogan, the Royal Yellowjackets, and the Destroyer, all hunting Carter. Later, Scott, Rogers, and Barnes meet with Carter, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner to plan how to stop an incursion threatening the universe. Scott, Barnes, Rogers, and Carter disguise themselves and infiltrate King Thor's palace. When Stark arrives with his device and Carter grabs the Scepter containing the Time Stone, they discover that Rogers is the cause of the incursion. Carter uses the Stone to send Rogers back, which also sends Scott and the others back to their own universes.

In another universe, the Time Variance Authority prunes Scott Lang and sends him to the Void at the End of Time, where he dies in his giant form. Cassandra Nova and her forces later use his skeletal remains as a base.

Reception

The consensus of review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes for Ant-Man reads, Led by a charming performance from Paul Rudd, Ant-Man offers Marvel thrills on an appropriately smaller scale – albeit not as smoothly as its most successful predecessors. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter remarked that although the story dynamics are fundamentally silly and the family stuff is elemental button-pushing, a good cast led by a winning Paul Rudd puts the nonsense over in reasonably disarming fashion. For Ant-Man and the Wasp, the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads, A lighter, brighter superhero movie powered by the effortless charisma of Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, Ant-Man and The Wasp offers a much-needed MCU palate cleanser. Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com felt that the film managed to juggle its many subplots while giving Rudd's Scott some decent character development. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and praised Rudd and Lilly, as did Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, who praised Rudd and felt Lilly found her groove in the film. Stephanie Zachareck of Time thought the film had reasonably fun action and stand-out moments between Rudd and Abby Ryder Fortson as daughter Cassie, but felt the focus on Lilly as a better hero than Rudd was just checking off boxes in the name of gender equality. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times also praised the cast, especially Rudd and Fortson, while Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called the film instantly forgettable and criticized its plot, but still found it enjoyable, particularly praising Rudd along with the action and effects.