Hawkeye and Ant-Man. They’re the two heroes who’ve unfortunately been left out of nearly all the marketing we’ve seen for Avengers: Infinity War so far. And though we don’t take that to mean they won’t factor into the film very much, it still is a bit odd. But so are the circumstances surrounding their current situation – that being that they’re out of prison and under house arrest.
Or at least, we know that Scott Lang’s under house arrest. As for Clint Barton, we haven’t explicitly been told what’s going on with him just yet, but the Infinity War prelude comic showed us that he was home with his family, and we presume he’s been given a similar punishment as Lang. After all, the two of them escaped from The Raft, one of the world’s most secure prisons. Obviously, that wasn’t going to go unnoticed, but it makes you wonder, why weren’t they sent back there?
It’s a question that’s troubled many fans for a while but now, we may have an answer thanks to Jessica Jones. The folks at Screen Rant have put together the pieces here and as they point out, we learn in the Netflix series that “enhanced” people in the MCU “don’t have any rights. Dangerous “enhanced” individuals can be arrested without trial, and can actually be sent to the Raft without trial, too.”
But the problem is, Ant-Man and Hawkeye aren’t “enhanced” humans and thus, should have never been in the Raft in the first place. They also can’t be governed under the Sokovia Accords, as they technically aren’t Avengers. At least, not officially. So, seeing as they never should have been in that particular prison, it causes a problem. They wrongfully had their rights stripped and were put behind bars without trial.
As such, sending them back there, or even making public the fact that they were there at all, could turn into a bit of a diplomatic nightmare, complicating things greatly for the UN. After all, it wouldn’t take much for Scott and Clint to, as Screen Rant puts it, “become symbols, proving that this new system allowed human rights violations on a global scale.” With that in mind, house arrest seems to be the compromise, as like we said, there still needs to be some kind of punishment for breaking out of The Raft.
Now, whether any of this will be cleared up or explicitly explained in Avengers: Infinity War or not remains to be seen, but at least thanks to Jessica Jones, we can now begin to put some of the missing pieces back into place and get a clearer picture of what exactly’s going on with Hawkeye and Ant-Man ahead of the film’s release.