Tag Archives: Ant-Man

Why we should care about ‘Ant-Man’

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Disney announced today the Nov. 6, 2015 release of “Ant-Man,” directed by Edgar Wright and featuring the longtime Marvel Comics hero. No casting has yet been announced.

Why should we be excited about “Ant-Man?” He’s just a guy who shrinks, right?

Wrong. Here’s why we’re excited about “Ant-Man.”

Edgar Wright. This is the guy who directed cult classics like “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.” And he loves Ant-Man. He’ll bring an offbeat approach to a somewhat offbeat hero.

He’s important. Ant-Man, also known as Henry Pym, was a founding member of the Avengers. He’s been there since the beginning – in the comics, at least. He’s linked to the Wasp, his girlfriend/wife Janet Van Dyne, who in the comics gave the team its name.

He might be edgy. If they choose to go that way, “Ant-Man” as a solo movie or member of “The Avengers” paves the way for some domestic drama. In some versions of the character, Pym has anger control issues and even abuses his wife. It’s a character point not unlike Tony Stark’s alcoholism. It might not make its way into the movies, but a lot of people will be wondering and speculating, and that creates buzz.

Ant-Man is not Aquaman. I love Aquaman as much as anybody, but he’s (unfairly) received a reputation as the worst member of the Justice League. And to the outside observer, Ant-Man seems just as limited. He shrinks. Hmm. But in reality, Henry Pym has a lot of cool capabilities – apparently the Ant-Man test footage screened this summer at conventions demonstrated this – and they’re not all based around shrinking. Pym has also, at various times, adopted other personnas including Giant-Man (Guess what? He not only shrinks!) and Yellowjacket (Goes with Wasp, get it?). Plus he’s a genius, not unlike Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Getting Pym on the team will add a lot to the roster.

Most of all, Ant-Man’s existence in the Marvel movie universe paves the way for my favorite Avengers villain of all time, Ultron, an android created by Pym who becomes a recurring and deadly enemy for the supergroup. If the next “Avengers” movie – due out a few months before “Ant-Man” – revolves around Thanos – that guy glimpsed in the end credits of “The Avengers” – then Ultron would make a great bad guy for the third movie.

Excited yet?

Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy: Marvel movie universe-building

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Somebody asked me the other day if I planned to go see “The Amazing Spider-Man” next and I said, “Yeah, probably.” Right up until the time I saw Sam Raimi’s lackluster “Spider-Man 3” in 2007, my answer would have been much more emphatically positive about the cinematic adventures of the wall-crawling webslinger. The final Raimi film kind of burned me out on the character.

And the idea of rebooting “Spider-Man” yet again, with another origin story, no matter how overstuffed with a “mystery” about Peter Parker’s parents it might feature, makes me suddenly very, very tired.

So I have to say that while I’m sure I’ll see “The Amazing Spider-Man,” I’m not excited about it.

That’s also because I’ve been spoiled, frankly, by Marvel’s universe-building big-screen efforts.

The movie versions of “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men” are owned by Fox and “Spider-Man” is owned by Sony. That means that despite brief teases to the possibility of a cross-over like we heard earlier this year, those movie universes won’t mix with Marvel Films-owned and operated properties like “Iron Man,” “Thor,” “Captain America” and “The Avengers.”

So while I’m looking forward to “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” I’m more excited to see where Marvel goes next with its universe-building efforts.

Rumors circulated in the past couple of days that the long-rumored “Ant-Man” character might end up in “Iron Man 3,” which comes out next May. I’m not sure how some people are authoritatively saying this when so much time remains for last-minute changes, but … well, it would be quite cool to see one of the original Avengers – not to mention his partner, Wasp – finally make the big screen.

Today online sites were lit up with suggestions, primarily drawn from Latino Review, that Marvel is going to release a “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie in 2014. Despite the fact that the characters are little-known outside of comics fandom – they’re even more obscure than “Iron Man” was before 2008 – the diverse group of cosmic adventurers would make for a huge expansion for the Marvel universe.

And as many online sources noted, the “Guardians” also makes sense because one of their regular antagonists is cosmic bad guy Thanos, who appeared in the mid-credits teaser at the end of “The Avengers.”

While my lifelong appreciation of “The Avengers” doesn’t necessarily carry over to “Guardians of the Galaxy” – I’m just not as familiar with them – I would be happy to see Marvel’s movies continue to expand the Marvel cinematic universe.

And I’ll dream of the day when Spidey will bump into Captain America and Iron Man during battle in the streets of New York.