As everyone who has ever been to a Marvel movie knows, you've got to stick around through the credits. Many Marvel movies feature two scenes after the movie concludes: There's the mid-credits scene, usually setting up a future Marvel movie (like The Avengers ' famous Thanos reveal), and then theres a post-credits scene, which is often a joke (think The Avengers silently eating shawarma after battling aliens). Avengers: Age of Ultron recently bucked this trend by only offering a mid-credits scene, but Ant-Man signifies a return to form by again featuring two scenes. In Ant-Man, it's the lengthier of the two, the famed mid-credits scene, that has some big implications for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Here's what happens in the first Ant-Man post-credits scene (spoilers ahead, of course).
I'll start from the top. In the scene, Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man and the inventor of the suit, is with his daughter, Hope van Dyne. The two have had a rocky relationship because of the mysterious death of Hope's mother, Janet, and because Hope also felt some resentment over the fact that Scott Lang was given the Ant-Man suit over her (and her anger is deserved, IMHO — she's much more suited to superhero life than he is).
Hank leads Janet into a secret vault containing a super-powered suit, but it's not for Ant-Man. This suit belongs to the Wasp, Marvel's other famous shrinking hero. It's already been established earlier in the film that Janet van Dyne, Hope's mom, was the original Wasp, and the suit's abilities caused her death while on a mission with Hank. This is the reason why Hank never wanted his daughter to follow in her mother's heroic footsteps.
But now Hank has changed his mind. He tells Hope that he and Janet had been working on this new Wasp suit together, with the intention of Janet using it. But now, years after Janet's death, he's giving the suit to Hope, who, it appears, will finally fulfill her destiny by becoming the new wasp.
So what does it all mean? The scene obviously has some big implications for the MCU. Wasp was a founding Avenger in the comics along with Ant-Man, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk (she even named the team in the comics) so her inclusion in the Marvel Universe is both long-overdue and extremely welcome. I don't know when we'll see Hope in action as the Wasp—there's no Ant-Man 2 scheduled as of yet (although the movie's last lines of "Ant-Man will return" certainly hint at the character coming back), and she's not scheduled to appear in Captain America: Civil War. Still, there's just no way Marvel would tease fans with a Wasp reveal and then never show the character again.
So, until next time, Wasp! May you fly onto our screens and into our hearts in the near future.
Images: Walt Disney Studios; Giphy (4)
