‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ is Basically an ‘Infinity War’ Prequel

After seeing Ant-Man and the Wasp with young kids, parents are going to have some tough questions to answer about Marvel movie canon. Specifically, because this movie came out after the epic downer Avengers: Infinity War, does that mean Ant-Man and the Wasp happens after that movie? The short answer is no, Ant-Man and the Wasp takes place right before Infinity War, kind of. Here’s the long answer.

Mild spoilers for the specifics of the plot of Ant-Man and the Wasp ahead, but if you don’t want to know about the post-credits scene, stop reading now!

In order to understand how Ant-Man and the Wasp fits with Infinity War, the first question that has to be answered is: what was Scott Lang AKA Ant-Man doing after Captain America: Civil War? Ant-Man and the Wasp totally answers this question when it’s revealed that Lang has been under house arrest for exactly two years. And that’s because Civil War took place in 2016 and both Ant-Man and the Wasp and Infinity War takes place in 2018.

FBI agent Jimmy Woo explains this to Scott’s daughter Cassie really early in the film when he mentions that Scott violated Sokovia Accords by teaming up with Captain America. So, the reason why Ant-Man is out of the game in Infinity War is that he’s still under house arrest.

This fact actually helps to place Ant-Man and the Wasp in the Marvel timeline pretty easily. At the beginning of the movie, Scott is just a few days away from getting released from house arrest, which conveniently puts the movie just a few days before the ending of Infinity War. Without spoilers, that’s’ all you need to know.

And now, here come the spoilers: the notion that the events of the movie take place right before Infinity War is confirmed by the first post-credits scene when Ant-Man enters the quantum realm and suddenly Janet, Hope, and Hank are turned to ash by Thanos’s finger-snap in Infinity War. Everything before that moment probably happens roughly at the same time or just days before Thanos’s goons show up in NYC to get the Time Stone from Doctor Strange.

So, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a prequel to Avengers: Infinity War, but only by a couple of days, and by the time the post-credits scene happens, it’s totally caught up with the events of that movie.

The final letters on the screen after the final post-credits scene say “Ant-Man and the Wasp Will Return,” but then that becomes “Ant-Man and the Wasp Will Return?” Will they come back?

According to an interview with Evangeline Lilly published in The Hollywood Reporter, her return as the Wasp all depends on how the new film does at the box office. “If everyone gets out and watches it then I would assume we’ll have another one. I hope we’ll have another one because I really want to do it again.”

-Ant-Man and the Wasp is out in wide release this weekend on July 6.-