Warning: Spoilers for Ant-Man and The Wasp.
Ant-Man and The Wasp is Marvel Studios’ latest film in their cinematic universe, and like all of Marvel’s movies, it has two post-credits scenes. Typically, a credit scene will be a quick tease of an upcoming film or a callback joke to the movie itself, but in the case of this sequel, both credit scenes are more closely tied to the events of Marvel’s previous film, Avengers: Infinity War.
Infinity War drastically altered the landscape of the MCU, with every Marvel film to follow sure to be affected by those dramatic events. However, with Ant-Man and The Wasp, the fallout from Avengers: Infinity War isn’t felt until after the film’s main story concludes. This is because Ant-Man 2 is set before Avengers 3.
Related: Ant-Man Still Has Marvel’s Worst End-Credits Scene
So when it comes to the film’s credit scenes, it only makes sense that these are the moments which bring Scott Lang, Hope van Dyne, and Hank Pym up to the same point chronologically as where we last left off with the rest of The Avengers in Infinity War.
- This Page: The Mid-Credits Scene: Thanos’ Kills Our Heroes
- Page 2: The End-Credits Scene: The Wider Effect Of Thanos’ Attack
Mid-Credits Scene: Hank, Janet, and Hope Are Killed By Thanos
![Ant-Man & The Wasp’s Post-Credits Scenes Explained](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Hank-Pym-and-Janet-Van-Dyne-in-Ant-Man-and-the-Wasp.jpg)
Avengers: Infinity War ends with Thanos collecting all six Infinity Stones and using the Infinity Gauntlet to indiscriminately kill half the universe’s population with a snap of his fingers. It’s a bleak ending, with the surviving Avengers (and audience) watching on in horror as one by one, characters disintegrate into dust and crumble away. The characters of Ant-Man and The Wasp are not immune to this cruel fate, and in the film’s mid-credit scene, we learn exactly what happens to Scott, Hope, Hank, and the recently-rescued Janet van Dyne right after Thanos’ now infamous finger snap.
The scene opens with Hope, Hank, and Janet getting everything set for Scott to travel back into the Quantum Realm and collect more of the quantum energy needed to continue healing Ava (AKA Ghost). They’re on the top floor of a parking garage and the quantum tunnel is now shrunk to fit in the back of Luis’ van. With all three of the Pym/Van Dyne family working the controls, visiting the Quantum Realm isn’t as dangerous as it used to be, but the trip still has risks. Scott will need to signal when he’s ready to be pulled back from the Quantum Realm, and to lighten the mood, Scott pretends he can’t hear them once he’s gone subatomic. No one finds his joke all that funny.
But then, when Scott does signal for them to pull him back out, he gets no response. Thinking that either Hope or Hank are getting him back by playing their own prank, Scott laughs it off and signals again, but still there’s no response. The scene cuts back to that parking garage roof where we see the remains of three figures crumbling to dust: when Thanos snaps his fingers and enacts his genocide, Hope, Hank, and Janet are among the unlucky half of the universe who perish in an instant.
Scott Is Trapped In The Quantum Realm Ahead Of Avengers 4
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Scott survives the snap – possibly because he’s not technically in our universe – but his fate isn’t all that much better. With Hope, Hank, and Janet all gone, there’s no one operating the controls to bring Scott back from of the Quantum Realm. Scott is essentially trapped and there’s no one left alive who knows where he is or how to pull him out. In Ant-Man, Scott managed to grow from being subatomic to full-sized on his own with the help of his suit’s regulator, but Ant-Man and The Wasp repeatedly illustrated his regulator hasn’t been working properly, meaning it’s no longer an option; Scott can’t pull himself out of the Quantum Realm and there’s no one left to do it for him. Being there may have saved Ant-Man from Thanos, but it’s also left him in serious danger.
Related: How Ant-Man & The Wasp Sets Up Avengers 4
Ant-Man’s fate likely won’t be revealed until either Captain Marvel or the still-untitled Avengers 4. Both films are releasing in 2019 (one in March, the other in May) and, despite being set decades apart – Captain Marvel is set in the 1990s while Avengers 4 picks up events immediately following Infinity War – they will both set the stage for the future of the MCU. Captain Marvel is said to also involve the Quantum Realm, so it’s possible she may be involved with rescuing Scott; perhaps even in one of Captain Marvel‘s credit scenes, filling in more of the timeline before the start of Avengers 4.
More probable, however, it may not be until Avengers 4 that Scott returns to the macro-universe. Per the leaked Avengers 4 art, Ant-Man is a key part of that team-up, so it would make sense for his escape to coincide with him remeeting Captain America and co. It may be that his time in there is even how the team discover time travel, believed to be a key part of Avengers 4‘s plot. However Scott comes back into the fray, he will eventually reunite with the Pyms; Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer are all also returning (although probably not until all the other deaths have also been reversed).
Whichever movie it occurs in, though, it’s safe to say Scott isn’t returning without someone’s help.
Page 2 of 2: Ant-Man & The Wasp’s After-Credits Scene
![An ant plays drums in Ant-Man and the Wasp](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ant-Man-and-the-Wasp-Drums.jpg)
End-Credits: The Big Ant Survived
Along with the mid-credit scene and its distressing connection to Avengers: Infinity War, there’s another scene that follows Ant-Man and The Wasp’s credits. And, while this post-credit scene may not at first appear to be as important as the mid-credit scene – it being more of a gag than vitally important new information – there are still key details within the scene.
Ant-Man and The Wasp‘s end-credit is set in Scott’s apartment, presumably not very long after the mid-credit scene wraps up on the parking garage roof. As the camera moves from the living room to the kitchen and turns into the hallway, it stops on the large ant who Hope earlier created to mimic Scott’s house-arrest routine. The ant is playing the drums, a hobby first glimpsed in the movie’s trailer and shown earlier in the film, although neither of those cases prepared us for the emotional poignancy here.
Read More: Is Thanos In Ant-Man 2’s Post-Credits Scene?
More than just a joke, this could be linked to Scott’s Quantum Realm predicament. The film explains that this ant isn’t just any of Hank Pym’s giant worker ants, but one who’s been given Scott’s behavior pattern from his months of house arrest. More or less, the ant lounges around the house, occasionally taking breaks from watching TV to practice the drums or visit the bathroom (for an inordinate amount of time). Now, whether this is meant to suggest there’s some kind of existing link between Scott and the ant isn’t exactly clear, but it’s certainly possible. With that in mind, as the ant is still wearing the ankle monitor, it isn’t all that outrageous to speculate that some super smart character (Stark? Banner? Shuri?) could somehow use its frequency and the ant to locate Scott. It’s either that, or Scott at least has himself a six-legged house sitter for while he’s lost in the Quantum Realm.
A Real-World Impact of Thanos’ Snap
![Avengers Infinity War Thanos Finger Snap](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Avengers-Infinity-War-Thanos-Finger-Snap-1.jpg)
There can be speculation over whether or not there’s any real significance to that giant ant, but what’s most obvious about Ant-Man and The Wasp‘s post-credit scene is the impact Thanos’ finger snap has had on the world at large. While the camera moves throughout Scott’s apartment, an emergency broadcast can be heard coming from the television. Even without any more details, it’s evident that this is representative of the world post-finger snap. Avengers: Infinity War‘s post-credit scene may have depicted the chaos during those moments when half of Earth’s population was vanishing, but here we see the eeriness that follows.
An emergency broadcast may not be the most revelatory thing for Ant-Man and The Wasp‘s end-credit scene to include, but it does help to set the mood of the MCU ahead of Avengers 4. The chaos seen in the post-credit scene is growing into panic and fear. In the face of possible annihilation, the world is paralyzed. The sounds of an emergency broadcast playing to an empty room (not including the ant) is a haunting scene to end on, and not until Captain Marvel‘s post-credit scenes or Avengers 4 will there be any hint of just how the Avengers plan to fix it.
Next: 20 Things You Completely Missed In Ant-Man & The Wasp
Key Release Dates
Ant-Man 2
Release Date:2018-07-06Captain Marvel
Release Date:2019-03-08The Avengers 4
Release Date:2019-04-26spider-man homecoming 2
Release Date:2019-07-02