Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is already juggling multiple not-so-positive reviews from critics and the fandom. Whether it is accusations of lazy writing or debuting a powerful villain like Kang in the most underwhelming way possible, the film can’t seem to catch a break. But apparently, the sins of the Ant-Man sequel go even further back, as eagle-eyed fans are calling out the film for completely forgetting the powers acquired by a crucial character — Janet van Dyne.
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ava Starr aka Ghost tries to forcibly take Quantum Energy from Janet van Dyne. This pushes Hope, Hank, and Scott to take strong measures to stop her as they believe the transfer of power between Janet and Ghost will kill the former. But when Janet comes out of the Quantum Realm, she voluntarily transfers some of her energy to Ava in order to stabilize her temporarily.
But, for some unknown reason, Quantumania simply ditches this new improvement in the Pym family as we see a Janet who seems to have forgotten that she possesses the powerful Quantum Energy and is helpless unless she has her suit. Though the messy plot left many reeling from its aftereffects, an MCU fan has finally questioned this anomaly on Reddit.
Seeing that either MCU will take forever to explain this or will simply not bother solving this misstep, those in the comments have taken it upon themselves to unravel this mystery.
One pointed out that at the end of Ant-Man 2, Scott went into the Quantum Realm to get more of the “healing particles,” which implies Janet transferred all she had to Ghost, who needed more to retain her stable state.
But this is something that was never confirmed, and many assumed Janet shared as much energy as she could without risking her life, which means she still has her healing powers. So why weren’t they on display in Quantumania? Well, the answer might hide in MCU’s future slate of projects.
It is possible that MCU doesn’t want to attract much attention to Ghost as she would be getting a proper superhero debut in Thunderbolts — unless the swirling rumors about the character are true — and thus, they sidelined Janet’s powers for now.
Of course, the current debate once again kicked open a can of worms that Quantumania has added to the MCU, with the major inconsistency being the fact that the fear of Kang didn’t govern Janet when she first returned to Earth.
There are a great many things that don’t make sense about Quantumania and, unfortunately, a number of similarities that it shares with yet another disappointing MCU film. So, until the studio deems this Janet-plot-hole worthy of being addressed, we can add it to the long list of griefs we already have with the Ant-Man sequel.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters.