Characters / MCU: Scott Lang

aka: MCU Ant Man

Main Character Index > Heroic Organizations > Avengers > Tony Stark | Steve Rogers | Thor Odinson | Bruce Banner | Natasha Romanoff | Clint Barton | James Rhodes | Bucky Barnes | Sam Wilson | Wanda Maximoff | Pietro Maximoff | Vision | Scott Lang | Peter Parker (Peter Parker Variants) | Carol Danvers | Allies (Michelle Jones) | Families (Yelena Belova | Hank Pym | Hope van Dyne)

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Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.

Scott Lang / Ant-Man II / Giant-Man

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

^{Click here to see him as Ant-Man}
"Hi! I'm Scott."

Birth Name: Scott Edward Harris Lang

Known Aliases: Ant-Man, Giant-Man

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Vistacorp (formerly), Baskin-Robbins (formerly), X-Con Security Consultants, Pym Technologies, Avengers

Portrayed By: Paul Rudd, Bazlo & Loen LeClair (baby), Jackson Dunn (age 12), Lee Moore (age 93)^{Foreign voice actors}Sergio Bonilla, Álvaro Salarich (age 12), Miguel Ángel Sanromán (age 93) (Latin-American Spanish dub), Claudio Serrano (European Spanish dub), Hidenobu Kiuchi (Japanese dub), Damien Boisseau (European French dub), Patrice Dubois (Canadian French dub), Márcio Araújo (Brazilian Portuguese dub), Anton Eldarov (Russian dub)

Appearances: Ant-Man | Captain America: Civil War | Spider-Man: Homecoming^note In a video recording | Ant-Man and the Wasp | Avengers: Endgame | Spider-Man: Far From Home^note Archive photography | Loki^note Archive footage from Avengers: Endgame | Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

"I do some dumb things and the people that I love the most pay the price."

An electrical engineer-turned-thief who seeks to make amends for his crime. He is eventually hired by the original Ant-Man, Dr. Hank Pym, to steal Hank's Applied Phlebotinum technology from the very company Hank founded, to prevent the firm's new owners from abusing it. The Ant-Man suit Hank gives Lang as a result allows Scott to shrink and grow in size, alter his mass in normally impossible ways to greatly enhance his strength, and communicate with insects.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: In Captain America: Civil War, right after things become a little tight for Team Cap, Scott reveals he's also able to grow in size now. This superpower allows him to distract Iron Man's team, giving Steve and Bucky the opportunity to flee.
• Abnormal Ammo: Ant-Man carries around a bunch of metal discs the size of coins that he throws around like shuriken. However, they're not here to hurt. The discs contain Pym Particles that can apply a shrinking or growing effect on any object, allowing Scott to take advantage of surrounding things in unexpected ways.
• Action Dad: He has a daughter, Cassie Lang, and he wants to be a hero for her.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In-Universe in Hawkeye he appears in a stage musical based on the events of The Avengers and Hawkeye complains that he wasn't there at the time.^note He technically was there in secret thanks to time travel in Avengers: Endgame but people wouldn't know that.
• Adaptational Heroism: As far as his origin is concerned, he's given a much more sympathetic backstory than his comic book counterpart ever had. Originally, he was a thief that stole for his own enjoyment, in spite of having a well-paying job, and he didn't become a hero until he needed to save his daughter. In the movies, however, his stealing days were aimed solely at taking ill-gained money from a corrupt corporation and giving it back to the people that were being screwed over, making Scott much more selfless.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Lang has red hair and blue eyes in the comics, but black hair and green eyes in the movie.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the comics, Scott spent much of his time as a supporting character for Tony Stark and assisted him in and out of the Avengers, as basically Stark's sidekick. Here, he doesn't even meet Stark until Civil War, which put them on opposing sides no less, and, ironically, Stark doesn't even know who he is. He only gets to act like Tony's sidekick in Endgame during the Time Heist, when the two are tasked with retrieving the Tesseract.
• Adapted Out:
  • Inverted in Civil War. Scott didn't take part in the conflict in the comics by the account of having been dead at the time^note killed off in 2004's Avengers Disassembled, didn't come back until 2012's Avengers: The Children's Crusade, and instead, it was his daughter Stature who took part in the war. Because he's very much not dead during the MCU version, he took part in the conflict.
  • His relationship with Jessica Jones is completely absent, due to Jessica being relegated to the largely-disconnected Netflix seriesinvoked. In the comics, he was Jessica's other love interest and rival with Luke Cage for her affection.
  • Scott is never recruited into Stark Industries, unlike the comics, meaning he's never a supporting character for Iron Man. This leads to a rather funny situation where Tony has no idea who Scott is, while Scott—out of loyalty to Hank Pym and his general dislike for corrupt businesses—considers Tony to be something of an arch-enemy here.
  • Likewise, he's not a supporting character to the Fantastic Four, which was his status during the '90s, as they weren't available at the time due to Fox holding the movie rights until their buyout by Disney in 2019.
  • Scott's hatred of the Taskmaster is completely absent in the MCU, as Scott is held in the Raft during the events of Black Widow (2021), which is where Taskmaster makes her first appearance.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • By Civil War, Falcon has taken to calling him "Tic-Tac." It could be considered an Insult of Endearment but it never has any real bite to it.
  • Luis often calls him "Scotty".
• Alternate Self: A variant of Scott Lang exists in a universe where he was reduced to being a Brain in a Jar after becoming a zombie.
• Amicable Exes: While he's initially on thin ice with his ex-wife due to his criminal past, they're on much friendlier terms after his heroic actions... along with her cop husband Paxton, who has come to be a "big brother" to Scott whom he regularly hugs and is protective of.
  Maggie: Next time I see you will be on the outside! [big hug]
  Scott: All right.
  Paxton: Ohhh! Get on the inside of this! [joins big hug] Hey, three days, seriously. Proud of you, bud. You know what? Gimme another one. [big hug]
• And I Must Scream: In The Stinger of Ant-Man and the Wasp, he travels into the Quantum Realm to collect particles that would help stabilize Ghost's condition. But before he can be brought out, Thanos unleashes his finger-snap that destroys half of all life in the universe, taking the lives of Hank, Janet, and Hope, and leaving him stuck there until a rat fiddles with the control pad five years later in Avengers: Endgame — although, for him, it was only a five-hour wait.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: His superhero persona is based on the ant although his powers only superficially reflect this. His shrinking ability comes from revolutionary technology and his ability to control ants comes from his helmet, which stimulates olfactory nerve centers in ants to elicit specific responses from the insects.
• Anti-Hero: He is a former thief trying to go straight by helping Hank Pym. This, of course, turns out to involve committing another heist, albeit one that will save lives. Although he has his record, several people admire him for robbing a company that robbed others, including Hank.
• Apologetic Attacker: He repeatedly tells Falcon that he's a fan even while dismantling his suit from the inside. Given Scott's nature this is common in most of his fights. The only exceptions are when Darren Cross threatens Cassie or when he has to help the Avengers deal with Thanos who had not only killed half the universe including Hank, Janet, and Hope but upon learning that those deaths had been undone tried to destroy and remake the entire universe instead.
• Applied Phlebotinum: His costume works through the use of Pym Particles.
• The Apprentice: Hank is the one who took Scott in and trained him to be the next Ant-Man, and while the two can trade insults a lot, they ultimately have respect for each other.
• Ascended Extra: Outside of having his house arrest mentioned in Infinity War, Ant-Man was totally irrelevant to the first three Avengers movies. In Avengers: Endgame, he's one of the most pivotal characters in the entire story and it was ultimately his idea on how to save the universe—albeit with some inspiration from pop culture—that sets the heroes' plan in motion.
• Ascended Fanboy: He quite clearly has the time of his life working with Cap and the other Avengers. Scott clearly wants to be a superhero and live out the fantasies many have, and is all-too-happy to do it.
• Asleep for Days: After his Emergency Transformation into Giant-Man in Civil War, the strain was such that he apparently had to sleep for three days afterwards to recover.
• The Atoner: He wants to give up his life of crime, and sees becoming Ant-Man as an avenue for that opportunity.
• Atrocious Alias: What he thinks of the name "Ant-Man" in the trailers.
  Scott: One question... Is it too late to change the name?
  Scott: I'm Ant-Man. [Beat] I know, wasn't my idea.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: As Giant-Man. He first (successfully) takes this form in Captain America: Civil War to provide distraction while Cap and Bucky run to the Quinjet. As Giant-Man, Scott acquires Super-Strength and Super-Toughness—enough to casually lift a gangway to fling it at War Machine—although the growing is very taxing on his body. According to his second movie, his personal best is 65 feet but later, he manages to increase it to 80. Come Endgame he's pushing past 100, and Quantumania has him rivaling skyscrapers—while the latter is relative to the sub-atomic Quantum Realm, it is noted to be just as physically taxing.
• Audience Surrogate:
  • In the first Ant-Man film, he talks and reacts much like how a casual viewer would, particularly during his fight with Falcon and Hope and Hank's reconciliation. It's even complete with amazingly self-aware lines about how he ruined the moment.
  • In Endgame, he's the one who discovers what has happened and how the world has changed in the face of the Decimation. He's also unaware of the Infinity Stones, requiring the Avengers to spell everything out for him. His shock and disbelief at seeing the world change after five years is pretty in sync with what the audience is thinking at that moment.
  • He and Spider-Man are also the ones in the team-up movie that react how the audience would do in front of their superheroes: He's especially enthusiastic to meet Captain America and fight by his side in Civil War. He's also the only one in the team not having gone to space by the time of Endgame
• Awesome, but Impractical: His Giant-Man form is not as useful as it looks. True, he's got far more brute strength and destructive power in this form, but he's reduced to a lumbering speed which means that although he has greater toughness, he can't really dodge an attack that would threaten him. The suit itself isn't actually designed to grow that much and he mentions that just doing it risks tearing him apart. The Square-Cube Law also means that he exerts an enormous amount of energy simply to maintain the form, and just a few minutes is enough to exhaust him to the point where he can't even stand. His more up-to-date suit in Ant-Man and the Wasp makes this ability more practical because it's been updated to do it safely, allowing the growth ability to be used in short bursts so he doesn't exhaust himself. Or at least it would be if the suit had been fully tested and worked properly.
  • Towards the end of Avengers: Endgame, Scott reverts to his Giant-Man form in order to save Bruce, Rocket, and Rhodey from being crushed by rubble. He is then shown charging into battle in this form, but shrinks back to his normal size later and doesn't seem any worse for wear. Granted, this may be because of the adrenaline, but it's still a massive improvement over the Scott in Ant-Man and the Wasp who keeled over into the ocean after only a few minutes.
• Awesome by Analysis: He is able to dissemble advanced security systems extremely quickly with MacGyvered tools. In the deleted scenes, Hank notes that during the Vistacorp job, he was able to guess a password that was changed every minute by picking up the greater pattern from which it was generated.
• Badass Bookworm: Scott can be such a goofball that you'd be forgiven for forgetting that he was an electrical engineer before being sent to prison, and emerged from it as a somewhat skilled fighter.
• Badass Normal: Having no superpowers, Scott's abilities come from his electrical engineer and fighting skills mentioned above, and his use of Hank Pym's Ant-Man suits. In spite of his limited devices, Scott proves to be tough enough to stand up to Black Widow for a short time, which is no easy feat even for goons with military training.
• Badass on Paper: Scott frequently accomplishes some legitimately impressive things, despite not being nearly as tough or skilled as other heroes in the MCU.
  • In the first Ant-Man film, he manages to fight and defeat the Falcon despite having only a few weeks to learn how to properly fight and use his suit, and still manages to grab the equipment he needs in the process. Sam himself is so embarrassed about his failure to beat Scott that he tells the person on his comlink that he doesn't ever want Steve to find out about it.
  • When brought into the fray in Civil War, Scott manages to hold his own against Black Widow despite not being nearly as trained in combat as Nat is. Later, he transforms into Giant-Man, and manages to give the Pro-Reg team some legitimate difficulty in fighting him, despite having very little experience with the form.
  • In Endgame, Scott holds his own against Thanos's army as Giant-Man despite having never fought aliens before, being able to punch Levathians out of the sky and stomp Cull Obsidian to death with the help of Spider-Man shortly after.
• Bash Siblings: With his teammates in the Avengers.
• Battle Couple: With Hope van Dyne, the second Wasp, as of the sequel.
• The Beastmaster: As Ant-Man, Scott has the ability to command and communicate with every ant species there is.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's right up there with Steve Rogers himself as one of the biggest Nice Guys in the MCU. And like Steve, he's more than capable of proving his Avengers credentials in battle, especially when he transforms into Giant Man.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Scott Lang is treated as comic relief in the presence of the other Avengers, yet in Civil War, he ends up being the most formidable opponent for the Pro-Registration heroes as Giant-Man, providing the critical distraction to allow Steve and Bucky to escape. In Endgame, he's the lynchpin for the entire plot and his Giant-Man form is extremely useful in the final battle, where he punches Leviathans out of the sky and crushes Cull Obsidian (the strongest of Thanos's children in the previous movie) underfoot as if he were nothing.
  • Scott tends to hold back more than the other Avengers, opting to stun instead of kill if he can avoid it, but his first film proves he has no qualms about sabotaging an opponent's gear, especially if his daughter's life is at stake. Just ask Darren Cross.
• Big Damn Heroes: After 2014 Thanos blows up the Avengers Compound, Hulk, Rhodey and Rocket are trapped under rubble which is rapidly filling with water. Scott, having shrunk to avoid the brunt of the assault, hears Rhodey's pleas for help over his comms, and rescues his three comrades by turning giant and bursting out of the ruins, carrying them in one hand.
• The Big Guy:
  • His Giant-Man form is (of course) this for Cap's team during the airport battle, managing to engage and delay almost the entirety of Tony’s team and basically swat aside any hits like they were flies.
  • When he pulls out his later version of the form in Endgame he manages to rescue Hulk, stomp Cull Obsidian to death with one step, and manhandle Leviathans with relative ease—a feat that even all six of the original team put together had trouble with in their first film. For a while, he’s this for the entire The Alliance the Avengers form.
• Boxed Crook: Hank Pym basically entraps him into robbing his house as an audition for a replacement Ant-Man who can prevent the weaponization and (legal, albeit morally questionable) sale of his Pym Particles.
• Brainy Brunette: In the MCU, Scott has dark hair and graduated college with a Masters in electrical engineering—a course that requires no small amount of talent with numbers plus an extensive knowledge of electrical design and power efficiency. Because of this, he's able to add a few tricks of his own to his suit in the first Ant-Man film.
• Breakout Character:
  • Scott Lang in the comics was a rather minor character in the established universe. He was created mainly to fill the role of Ant-Man after Hank Pym abandoned it, ensuring it remained in use, as Pym is known for his many identities. Pym remained an extremely important figure in the Marvel mythos as a founding Avenger and a brilliant scientist, while Scott was relegated to supporting others. Throughout the '80s and '90s, Scott was a supporting character for Iron Man (by extension, the Avengers) and the Fantastic Four, and then in the '00s became an Avenger himself, only to die unceremoniously to establish the threat in Avengers Disassembled, until he got better. In the MCU, Scott was made the starring Ant-Man of the universe, which has given him far greater exposure than he ever had before, and since then has become the face of the Ant-Man brand in general, with the comics and surrounding media following suit and making him a bigger deal anyone back then could imagine.
  • Within the MCU itself, he's still quite fittingly the smallest box office draw of the MCU heroes. While his movies aren't slouches, they tend to trail the MCU's biggest properties (Avengers: Age of Ultron for his first film and Avengers: Infinity War for the second) and can be considered smaller-scale affair. He missed the entirety of Infinity War, as the movie was already juggling a large cast of characters, because they didn't think he was important enough, and his role in Civil War was just to support Team Cap. This makes it somewhat surprising that he has a very important role in Endgame, where he ends up playing a major part in the plan to defeat Thanos.
• Butt-Monkey: Whether it's his suit malfunctioning and causing him to look the size of a four-year-old or the fact that he's not as "awesome" as the regular Avengers, Scott is the butt of many jokes regardless of the film. Unlike Tony and Banner who are geniuses, Scott is called out on believing stereotypes about time travel; he also has to be reminded that he's way less known as Ant-Man than even the Hulk, and his dorky demeanor is looked down upon and mocked by several other characters. It's especially prominent in Avengers: Endgame once everyone's all together. Other examples include:
  • Nebula ignoring him and warning Rhodey to be careful upon re-entry because "there's an idiot in the landing zone," despite having no reason to call him as such (though given that it's Nebula, it's pretty understandable).
  • Rocket mocking his confusion and excitement about going to outer space. He outright calls Scott a puppy at one point and pets his hair while the others crack up.
  • When teamed up with Cap and Iron Man, the two discuss a strategy together while completely ignoring Scott's questions and objections.
• The Cameo: In Spider-Man: Homecoming, he briefly appears as Giant-Man in Peter Parker's vlog of the airport battle.
• Cast from Calories: When he talks to Bill Foster about growing, he mentions that after the airport battle in Civil War he slept for three straight days. He also mentioned asking for orange slices immediately afterward.
• Celebrity Paradox: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy was referred to in an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — Paul Rudd played field reporter Brian Fantana in that film. Additionally, Scott and his pals discuss Leonardo DiCaprio early in the film despite DiCaprio and Rudd having starred in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet together.
• Celebrity Superhero: Post-Endgame, he seems to have become the celebrity superhero of the MCU following his role in the battle against Thanos: Ms. Marvel (2022) reveals he has his own podcast, he is featured prominently at AvengerCon, and has tributes honoring him worldwide, while Quantumania shows that he's now effectively retired from heroics and makes a living selling and reading his book, being highly recognizable. Also, he is included in the in-universe musical "Rogers: The Musical", set during the events of The Avengers (2012) even though he wasn't part of the team back than. He's even called out by his family for not doing any good anymore and instead just using his past accomplishments for his personal endeavors.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In regards to the MCU's overall Myth Arc, Scott doesn't seem all that important in the early scheme of things, as his adventures are self-contained, and his role in Captain America: Civil War was relatively minor. However, Scott ends up becoming a huge Spanner in the Works when it comes to the Decimation, as his five-hour/year experience in the Quantum Realm is what gives the Avengers the ability to pull of their Time Heist and stop Thanos once and for all.
• Clothes Make the Superman: As in the comics, Scott has no innate powers and his ability to shrink, grow, and control ants are derived entirely from his suit and Pym Particles.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: His red throwing discs can shrink anything they hit while his blue discs can enlarge them. Civil War, specifically, Giant-Man, indirectly confirms that this applies to Pym Particles in general — namely, red is shrinking, and blue is enlarging.
• Combat Pragmatist: He puts his shrinking powers to very inventive use to outmaneuver and outwit opponents, such as shrinking in the middle of combat to throw off Falcon and Black Widow. He's also more than willing to shrink enough to disable opponents' weaponry or gadgets.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Subverted with Giant-Man. The name was only mentioned during a news coverage in Ant-Man and the Wasp but Scott is almost never referred to by that name.
• Compact Infiltrator: Already a highly skilled cat burglar, but when he gets hold of the Ant Man suit, he quickly becomes a master of sneaking into restricted areas through vents, drains, and even cracks in the floor. As such, his biggest challenge of his first film is to break into Darren Cross's building through layers of seemingly impenetrable security and steal the Yellowjacket tech. In the finale, Scott uses a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to shrink himself down to subatomic size so he can sneak into Darren Cross's Yellowjacket suit and sabotage it from the inside.
• Composite Character: Thanks to being the main Ant-Man of the MCU instead of Hank Pym who is Demoted to Extra in the movies' continuity, some elements associated with the Pym-version of Ant-Man from the comics are given to Scott:
  • In Captain America: Civil War, he becomes Giant-Man, one of Hank Pym's old aliases from the comics. However, in this setting, he's the first (and so far, only) character to become Giant-Man, as Hank only dealt with shrinking during his career as a superhero. This actually brings to mind Scott in Ultimate Marvel, surprisingly enough, where Scott inherited the Giant-Man identity from Pym, but he's never been Giant-Man in the 616 comics. Also, the giant superheroes joining Captain America's side in the comic book Civil War were actually Stature, Scott's daughter and Goliath, as comic book Scott was dead during the comic event.
  • The Ant-Man in Ant-Man And The Wasp as a Battle Couple usually refers to Hank Pym. Scott in the comics has no romantic relationship with any Wasp while the movie of the same name plays Scott and Hope van Dyne as the movie's titular couple.
  • In Endgame, Scott joins the Avengers and is a core part of the movie, reminiscent of Hank's role as a core Avenger in the comics.
• The Conscience: Pretends to be Tony Stark's after shrinking down to sabotage his armor in Civil War. Fitting, because one of Scott's ongoing conflicts is being torn between what's legal and what his conscience tells him is right. And also because he's the size of Jiminy Cricket at the time.
  Iron Man: Who's speaking?
  Ant-Man: It's... your conscience. We don't talk a lot these days.
• Contrived Coincidence: Through sheer coincidence, Scott's second visit to the Quantum Realm happens the same time Thanos' Snap kills off the Pym family, leaving him trapped. His escape is also by luck when a random rat activates the portal five years later.
• Cowardly Lion: Discussed. When Scott insists that what he did is a burglary and not a robbery because he is a cat burglar, Dave asks Scott if he's a pussy.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's introduced as a bumbling Manchild who has trouble holding down a job or paying child support for his daughter, but he was once an electrical engineer and demonstrates incredible intelligence when it comes to advanced security systems (see Awesome by Analysis). He's also a reasonably skilled hand-to-hand fighter and adapts quickly to Hope's training regimen.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
  • Going subatomic is something he's warned never to do because it's what lead to the "death" of Janet van Dyne. He ultimately has to do so to save Cassie from Cross. This is downplayed by Ant-Man and the Wasp where the tunnel developed by Hank and Hope allows people to safely enter the Quantum Realm as long as there's someone on the other end to pull them back to safety. Thanks to Thanos, he got stuck in place for five hours his time and five years in the outside world.
  • He hasn't fully mastered his "growing" powers yet, and mentions having passed out during his first time trying. He seems to be able to handle growing larger for a longer period of time in Ant-Man and the Wasp but he still passes out after using them. Averted by Endgame, as he has no problem being in his Giant-Man form for a prolonged period.
• Deadpan Snarker: He likes to snarkily hang a lampshade on all that surrounds him, like his Atrocious Alias or reaction to why Hank wants to hire him, and takes every opportunity to snark, whether deadpan or full-blown.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After he defeats Falcon, far from being upset (though definitely a little embarrassed), Wilson is impressed enough to bring him into the Avengers as part of Captain America's team during Civil War.
• Disappeared Dad: He is missing for most of his daughter's life, albeit not willingly. First, he spent three years in prison, then two years under house arrest (though he could still see his daughter from time to time), and then another five when he was trapped in the Quantum Realm.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: During the second time he breaks into the Pyms' house, the cops catch him and he tries to explain that he's not stealing anything; he's just returning something he'd previously stolen.
• Drunk with Power: Parodied. He gives a very exaggerated laugh after turning into Giant-Man.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • Scott suffers no small amount of frustration at having superpowers yet remaining an unknown to the public. The fact that his superheroics were discreet in nature or were never revealed to the public doesn't help though. In Civil War, during Tony's visit to the Raft where Scott is incarcerated yet again for his part in the airport battle in Berlin:
    Scott: Hank Pym always said, you never can trust a Stark.
    Tony: Who are you?
    Scott: ...Come on, man.
  • In Endgame, Scott also becomes frustrated when he sees that the Hulk, of all superheroes, has become a more well-liked figure than him.
• Emergency Transformation: Turning into Giant-Man is generally this, since it's so physically taxing. In the closing minutes of Ant-Man and The Wasp, the toll of being giant for much of the final act causes Scott to pass out in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, leaving Hope to follow him down to the seabed and shrink him down manually.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • His first scene is in prison, indicating a criminal past. Immediate scenes show his friendship with Luis and how he's willing to leave his past behind for the sake of his daughter.
  • His friendly goodbye to all his fellow inmates also establishes how much of a Nice Guy Scott is.
• The Everyman: In a world filled with geniuses, super soldiers, gods, spies, and aliens, Scott is the first MCU protagonist to just be a normal guy with a relatively normal life prior to obtaining the suit. It's all the more apparent when Hope and Hank come out of hiding to kidnap him in the second movie, meaning he's dressed in an Arthur Dent-esque flannel housecoat, undershirt, and boxers while he's being reintroduced to their world of espionage and super-science.
• Evil Laugh: Parodied when he becomes Giant-Man in Civil War, where he does purely for intimidation.

F-R

• Fastball Special:
  • As a reference to the iconic scene from Avengers #223, Ant-Man rides on one of Hawkeye's arrows in order to get inside Iron Man's suit in Civil War.
  • In Quantumania, Wasp throws a shrunken Ant-Man, who transforms into Giant-Man mid-flight, into Kang's forcefield. The impact not only destroys the shield but the resulting shockwave also damages the structures within it.
• Fate Worse than Death: Half the universe gets wiped out after Thanos' fingersnap. Him? He gets stranded in the Quantum Realm with no way out, and he's gonna wish he was dead if he ever manages to come out. Ultimately subverted in Avengers: Endgame; while everyone else had to wait five years for him to arrive, he only had to wait five hours due to the way Time Vortexes work in the Quantum Realm. On the other hand, him entering a world where almost everyone he knows is gone, save for his now-teenage daughter and Captain America, and missing out on five years with his daughter wasn't any better for him.
• Fighting Clown: During the airport battle in Civil War, most of his opponents don't take his abilities seriously during the fight... until he grows into Giant-Man. Then it takes the combined efforts of almost everyone on the pro-Accords side to take him down.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Paxton. The two initially hated each other, with Scott resenting Paxton for taking his wife and daughter while he was locked up and preventing him from spending time with Cassie, and Paxton hating Scott for being, well, a crook. Once Scott proves himself a hero and saves Cassie, and Paxton shows his willingness to give it all to save her as well, the two become good friends. By Ant-Man and the Wasp, Paxton has nothing but nice things to say about him, and almost all of his on-screen appearances has him wrapping Scott in a bear hug.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Scott was trapped in the Quantum Realm for five years and by the time he escaped, he has no idea what has happened to the world and was shocked to see a memorial built to those who died as a result of Thanos' Snap, his name included.
• Foil:
  • The Ant-Man movies are themed around fathers and father figures, with Scott the devoted father whose life is in shambles contrasting with Hank, the successful, rational man who is emotionally distant from his proteges. This becomes stronger in the sequel, which adds another father and (surrogate) daughter pair with Bill Foster and Ghost: by that point, Scott has grown to the point where his good nature makes Ghost takes a shine to him, and allows him to alleviate Hope's fears about her own parents.
  • In a sense, Scott is a foil to Thanos: both are fathers. Scott is paternal and Thanos is adoptive. While Scott genuinely loves his daughter, Cassie, Thanos uses his foster children to carry out his twisted crusade, punishing them unforgivingly should they fail. Thanos found a way to complete his crusade to “save” the universe with the Infinity Stones, wiping out half of all life with a snap of his fingers. Scott finds a way to ruin Thanos's plan by using the Quantum Realm to travel through time and take Infinity Stones from the past, undoing the Snap. It’s almost fitting that a flawed yet loving father undid the actions of a terrible father.
  • Scott is also one to Clint Barton. Both of them are Action Dads who care greatly for their families, but are complete opposite otherwise. Scott's size-changing abilities granted by the Pym Particle technology make him Unskilled, but Strong, while Clint is a Badass Normal whose marksman skills make him Weak, but Skilled. Scott enjoys the attention and adoration he gets for being an Avenger, while Clint is a Humble Hero who tries to avoid the spotlight. Scott struggles to keep his family and loved ones separate from his heroics, while Clint does everything in his power to keep his family safe from his enemies.
• "Friends" Rent Control: After the events of Civil War, Scott ends up getting confined to his new house, which is pretty large and luxurious by San Francisco standards. Given he had to room with the Wombats in a hotel for much of the first film, it's a big mystery how he has enough cash to afford it.
• Genocide Survivor: He survived the Snap, but still lost five whole years of his life like those who died from it as a result of spending five hours inside the Quantum Realm which was five years outside of it.
• Giant Foot of Stomping: In the climax of Endgame, he puts his giant form to good use by stomping Cull Obsidian from the past in his giant form, instantly taking him out.
• Godzilla Threshold: For his own safety, the suit's regulator limits his size-changing abilities. He can override it if the situation is serious enough to justify the risk.
  • Scott goes subatomic to finish off Cross when the guy is seconds away from murdering his daughter.
  • He grows into Giant-Man, risking tearing his whole body apart, to give Cap a shot at going for the Quinjet.
• Good Parents: In a setting rife with Daddy Issues and Disappeared Dads, Scott, alongside Tony, is, hands-down, the best father in the MCU with a universe-spanning disaster being the only thing that can keep him away—and even then, only temporarily. In every scene they have together, it's pretty obvious that Scott absolutely adores Cassie, tries to set a good example of behavior for her, enjoys playing with her to the point that he constructed a play-fort that spans his entire house, is always available when she needs him (even if he's been captured by a villain), and while he encourages her heroic desire to help others, he doesn't make her his partner or sidekick or anything like that because it would be far too dangerous for a ten-year-old.
• Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Played with. He probably would've been convicted of white-collar crimes if he hadn't broken into the house of his boss at Vistacorp and crashed the man's car into his pool, but the original theft was about blowing the whistle on Vistacorp's much larger crimes, which amounted to bilking their customers out of millions. Except the SCC couldn't find any proof, so Scott went to prison as a simple thief, came out unable to hold a job, and subsequently became a run-of-the-mill burglar just to make his child support payments.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • Scott's first film ends with him becoming the hero Cassie worships him as, regaining Maggie's respect, and gaining a new Friend on the Force in Paxton, resulting in him also getting fully pardoned for prior crimes. By the end of Captain America: Civil War, he's incarcerated once more due to not abiding by the Accords and assisting in Steve and Bucky's escape. As a result, he was still under house arrest at the beginning of Ant-Man and the Wasp.
  • Gets hit with it again in the first stinger scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp, where after getting Ghost a treatment for her condition and freeing Janet from the Quantum Realm while not getting caught for breaking house arrest (leaving him free to reunite with his daughter), he gets trapped in the Quantum Realm himself after Hank, Janet, and Hope get dusted by Thanos, leaving Scott adrift with no knowledge of what's going on in the larger world. At the very least, he was only stuck in there for five hours, although five years passed in the outside world.
  • Finally averted by Quantumania, which shows him enjoying the "Happy Ending" of Endgame, well-regarded hero, successful author, and adored boyfriend.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: He puts himself down quite a bit, saying that he manages to "screw up" the noble goal of being a hero.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Played with. Due to his criminal past, he initially has a hard time convincing others (except his daughter) that he is a good person and a hero. Even aside from being a superhero, it's just plain hard for an ex-con to find a job, to the point that he has to use an alias to get a job at a Baskin-Robbins. When Scott outs himself as a public superhero in Civil War, it's while he's assisting the fugitive Anti-Accords team, resulting in him being locked in the Raft, and later transferred to house arrest in San Francisco. Scott eventually begins to avert this after his contribution to the final battle in Avengers: Endgame, as Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel show that he has become just as celebrated as the original Avengers, with people cosplaying as Ant-Man, "Rogers: The Musical" depicting him as present during the Battle of New York, and Jersey City having street art of him with the tagline "You can start small and still be larger than life". The latter show also reveals that Scott has started up a podcast that is apparently quite popular in-universe.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He's a moderately good drummer and spends a lot of time bashing on an electronic kit when he's under house arrest. Since he can't go anywhere, he has a lot of time to get good at it.
  • He's also good at stage magic, impressing Jimmy Woo enough with card tricks that Jimmy opts to learn himself during the Time Skip.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Scott pulls a Robin Hood heist on his former company which had been scamming people of their money. This action leads him to be arrested, divorced, and his name tainted.
  • Despite receiving a happy ending in his debut movie, Scott decides to aid Captain America in his quest, violating the Sokovia Accords in the process despite having no other reason to sacrifice his happiness other than Captain America asking him for help. Though he seems guilty that it put the Pyms in trouble, his conversation with Hope suggests that he does not regret helping Captain America.
• Hope Bringer: The Avengers fail to reverse the effects of Thanos' Snap and every member falls into a state of despair during the next five years, trying to move on with their lives. Then out comes Scott, who was thought to have dusted away, and arrives with a solution. Steve and Natasha's faces turn from sorrow to hope when they see Scott is still alive.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Does not appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe until its seventh year.
• Idiot Hero: Downplayed. He's a dorky, bumbling goofball and is explicitly referred to as an idiot multiple times. Still, beneath his dorky exterior is a smart, savvy electrical engineer when he actually decides to get serious.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: The Ant-Man suit allows him to shrink to the size of an ant and even go subatomic. Although the shrinking itself isn't particularly impressive, it allows Scott to infiltrate many places, from secure vaults to pieces of technology (allowing him to sabotage fighters relying on tech). Against ordinary goons, his instant shrinking and regrowing allow him to be virtually untouchable, lets him apply Confusion Fu to martial artists that should get the best of him, while still retaining his punch strength with the added bonus that the punch is concentrated on a much smaller area, making it even more damaging. In the Training Montage of his first film, Hope even compares his hits to having the same effect as bullets.
  Hope: When you're small, energy's compressed, so you have the force of a 200-pound man behind a fist a hundredth of an inch wide. You're like a bullet. You punch too hard, you kill someone. Too soft, it's like a love tap.
• Indy Ploy: He is an incredibly fast thinker, and it's one of the main qualities why Hank handpicked him to be his successor.
• Instant Costume Change: When breaking out of his detention cell, he suits up in under ten seconds.
• It's Personal: Ant-thony's death revved up Scott's motivation to bring down Cross, declaring that he would pay for doing so. Cross taking his daughter hostage just made things deeper.
• Irony:
  • In the first two Ant-Man movies and Civil War, Scott has to be coaxed into helping Hank Pym and Captain America respectively, despite being focused on his own personal matters. During the events of Endgame, Scott is the one who's trying to push the shell-shocked Avengers into trying to undo the Decimation via time travel, rather than do ineffective damage control in the present day.
  • While discussing where and when the Infinity Stones are for the Time Heist, Rocket Raccoon mockingly offers to take him to space. Scott ends up being the only Avenger who never ends up in space at all during the course of the movie.
• The Juggernaut: As Giant-Man. In Civil War, it takes the combined efforts of nearly everyone on Iron Man's team to take him down. Once he goes big in Endgame, nothing is shown stopping him, not even Leviathans or Cull Obsidian, the former of which he takes down in one solid punch, and the latter by just stepping on him. In Quantumania, he attacked Kang's citadel Kaiju-style and it took Kang's entire army to subdue him, and they barely even scratch him.
• Just Like Robin Hood: A self-proclaimed whistleblower, the robbery that Scott ended up doing time for was stealing back money from Vistacorp that they had been stealing for years, which he then actually funneled back to their customers.
• Justified Criminal: His burglary of the Pym house was out of desperation: as a felon, he couldn't hold down a job to pay child support, which was one of Maggie's requirements if he wanted to keep seeing Cassie.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!":
  • He's ecstatic when he meets the Falcon, and starts acting like an excited fan.
  • This happens again in Captain America: Civil War, when he's introduced to Steve Rogers, whose hand he can't stop shaking.
• Large Ham: He really hams it up during the big fight in Civil War. Among other things, dramatically shouting "I believe this is yours, Captain America!" when giving Cap his shield back from Spidey and laughing like a villain when his Giant-Man mode stands out.
• Last Episode, New Character: Debuted in the final Phase Two film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Legacy Character: He succeeds Hank Pym in becoming the Ant-Man. Interestingly, this is averted with regard to the Giant-Man persona, as he's the first one to use it in this continuity (as it required his experimentation with something that Hank Pym never tried).
• Locked Out of the Loop: Scott is the only surviving hero in Endgame to have no relationship to the Infinity Stones or even Thanos himself, both of which are major factors of the MCU's overall Myth Arc from Phases 1-3. This results in him needing to be brought up to speed as to what they are and what they do during the Avengers' brainstorming session for the Time Heist.
• Logical Weakness: His Giant-Man form makes him huge, but it also makes him a bigger target. It also requires more energy, meaning he can't hold it for too long or he'll a) faint, or b) his molecules would start breaking apart.
• Loveable Rogue: The crime that sent him to prison was merely Pay Evil unto Evil, to the point the Baskin-Robbins manager compliments his actions as "cool crimes" before a company-mandated sendoff.
• Loved by All: For the role he played in helping undo the Snap, Scott has become a very beloved hero. In the beginning of Quantumania, he can being happily greeted by people in San Francisco. He even gets seen as the one of the original Avengers.
• Manchild:
  • He's goofy, excitable, and carefree, and initially has trouble being a responsible parent to Cassie, holding down a steady job, or displaying emotional maturity despite being in his 40s. Even after his Character Development he still shows shades of this. It gets hilariously lampshaded when Hank jokingly talks down to Scott like he's four years old, asking him if he wants a juice box or string cheese. Scott asks in all seriousness if they actually have any of those.
    Hank: What are you, fifteen?
  • That said, this is played with in the sequel: while he still has immature interests and inclinations, his years of house arrest have made him into a very responsible and mature person, moreso, arguably, than the abrasive Hank himself — indeed, while Hank and Hope see them as boneheaded distractions, most of his issues then come not from foolishness but from him having to balance the many legitimately important things in his own life with the new problems they thrust upon him.
  • Basically he develops into a good, responsible dad, who just happens to be a big kid at heart.
• Meta Guy: He regularly lampshades the wilder or illogical events in the story, such as pointing out to Hank Pym that he might want to consider calling the Avengers, or in the sequel when he lampoons the franchise's Running Gag of heroes disguising themselves with nothing but sunglasses and baseball caps. He especially comes across as this in Avengers: Endgame when he points out how 2012 HYDRA are barely trying to disguise the fact that they're a villainous organization.
  Scott: Who are these guys?
  Tony: They're S.H.I.E.L.D.. Well, actually HYDRA, but we didn't know that yet.
  Scott: Seriously, you didn't? I mean, they look like bad guys!
• Mighty Glacier: As Giant-Man, he can tear planes apart, easily smack the likes of Iron Man and War Machine aside, knock out an entire Leviathan by himself with a single punch, and be tough enough that missiles don't even scratch him. However, he is noticeably slower and clumsier than normal, leaving him wide open for attacks.
• The Minion Master: On top of his shrinking powers, he can control and speak with ants. You might think that's not useful, but then you remember just how many ants there are within a vicinity, and he can call upon all of them.
• Moment Killer: Cuts the sincere vindication of Hank and Hope reconciling short by hanging a huge, awkward lampshade over the scene and quashes Pym's feeling of elation that Janet might still be rescued from the Quantum Realm by making out with Hope right outside his door.
• More Expendable Than You:
  • Scott points out to Hope that this is the main reason why Hank wants him to be Ant-Man instead of Hope—because Hank doesn't want to lose her like he lost his wife Janet.
  • Does this again in Civil War by committing to a dangerous action to increase his size that could potentially injure or kill him, just to allow Captain America and Bucky to get to the Quinjet. Even Hank Pym, AKA the original Ant-Man, never dared do such a thing, seeing as it would render one's molecules so unstable, they could literally break apart.
  • Scott's belief that it doesn't matter what happens to him as he is expendable is his Fatal Flaw, even coming up in Quantimania
  Kang: You think you could win?
  Scott: I don't have to win. We both just have to lose.
• Mr. Fanservice: He has an obligatory shirtless scene in his first two solo movies.
• Mundane Utility: His Giant-Man form gives Spidey's webs something to cling to as they run to meet Thanos' army in the Battle for Earth.
• Mutual Kill: A non-fatal variation between him and Spider-Man in Civil War. Spider-Man takes him out by webbing around his legs and forcing him to fall as Giant-Man, but in the process he smacks Spidey hard enough to take him out of the fight as well. Effectively, this ended in a draw.
• Naïve Newcomer:
  • Serves as this for Team Cap in Civil War, as he was asked to join the group on a whim and so is awestruck meeting and working alongside the likes of Steve, Clint and Wanda. Generally, Scott comes across as overly enthusiastic even if he doesn't know what's going on. That said, his stint as Giant-Man more than proves himself to the rest of the Avengers.
  • Because his adventures are more down to Earth, Scott is the only member of the Avengers in Endgame to not have any encounter with an Infinity Stone. And since he is not associated with them until the very end, he is awestruck to hear some of their adventures, especially those from the cosmos like Thor and the Guardians.
  • It's especially obvious in Avengers: Endgame when Thor is recounting his run-in with the Reality Stone. Compared to his companions' stoic expressions, Scott is practically bouncing in his seat as he listens to Thor's story with almost child-like adoration, nodding enthusiastically the whole time.
• Nice Guy: Flaws and criminal record aside, Scott is pretty much one of the sweetest people in the MCU and an even better father.
• No-Respect Guy:
  • Most people have no idea who he is, blunting a lot of his snark. See Running Gag below.
  • He doesn't get much due credit from his fellow heroes either. In Endgame, even though he's the one who came up with the idea to use time travel to undo the Snap in the first place, he's still the butt of several of the others' quips.
  • This is shown to have been averted big time after Endgame, as Scott has made his efforts to undo the Snap known. Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel and Wakanda Forever hint that he's capitalising on his newfound fame. Quantumania sees people everywhere singing his praises.
  • Kang insults him several times in Quantumania, having apparently never considered any version of "Ant-Man" worthy of his attention. At first, he cites his own superiority as the cause, but in a moment of pique reveals that he finds the power to "talk to ants" to be absurd in of itself. Cue Hank siccing his giant ants on Kang, which either attack or trample him.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When Scott escapes from the Quantum Realm in Endgame and realizes what's happened in the five hours/years he was gone, he's understandably quite horrified. It later escalates into full-blown panic upon seeing the mass memorial site and discovering his own name on it.
  • While preparing for the Time Heist, Scott gets uncharacteristically upset about Professor Hulk preparing him for time travel tests with the Quantum Realm. Although given that the Avengers only have a limited amount of Pym Particles to work with, his reaction is more than justified.
  • Upon finding out Kang kidnapped Cassie and was never going to uphold his deal to keep her safe, Scott is embroiled with fury, angrily shouting Kang's name and destroying parts of his empire with rage-filled punches and kicks as Giant-Man.
• Odd Name Out:
  • With fellow main characters, Hank and Hope.
  • With his former(?) family Maggie and Cassie. The two having same letters before the similar last two letters of their names doesn't help his case. Then again, Luis does affectionately refers to him as Scottie.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Iron Man defeats him using the suit's fire suppression system.
  • Scott also starts panicking when Hank, Hope, and Janet stop responding to him while he's in the Quantum Realm.
  • When discovering the mass memorial site in San Francisco post-Quantum Realm visit, Scott starts to freak out trying to search for Hank, Hope, Janet, and Cassie's names, as well as when he finds his own name on it.
• Older Than They Look: Thanks to how the Quantum Realm works, Scott returns in Endgame five years (give or take five hours) physically younger than he is chronologically.
• One Last Job: He says that his days of breaking, entering, and stealing things are over when he meets Hank... right before he learns he has to infiltrate a corporation and forcibly take the technology from it.
  Scott: My days of breaking into places and stealing shit are done. What do you want me to do?
  Hank: I want you to break into a place and steal some shit.
  Scott: [Beat], (only in the trailer) ...Makes sense.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Ant-Man is this to the pro-registration side in Civil War during the airport battle. Between Spider-Man and him, Ant-Man came out on top as the most unexpected and annoying superhero reinforcement. His shrinking power allowed him to stand up to Black Widow, seriously annoy War Machine, partially sabotage Iron Man's armor, and when he grew into Giant-Man, he stalled most of the pro-registration team, allowing Cap and Bucky to reach the Quinjet.
  • In a heroic variant, Ant-Man is also this to Thanos. The Mad Titan didn't even so much as know that Scott existed, nor did he know of the Quantum Realm, and the fact that it enabled Time Travel that would allow them to steal the stones throughout time after Thanos destroyed them specifically to prevent the undoing of his Snap. Thanos's plan to balance the universe was undone by an outside factor he couldn't have possibly accounted for.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: He has a degree in engineering, and comes across as the brains of the operation around Luis, Kurt, and Dave. But he always ends up looking and feeling like an idiot around Hank and Hope or Tony and Bruce. Subverted, however, when he becomes Giant Man and in that state, he is often The Dreaded.
• Papa Wolf: Everything he has done is to help or protect his daughter in some way.
  • He's at his most angry when Cross attacks his home and breaks into Cassie's bedroom. In fact, trying to kill Cassie might be the one thing that'll make Scott break his Thou Shalt Not Kill policy, as Cross learns a little too late.
  • In Avengers: Endgame, his first instinct upon being resurrected is to track down his loved ones, especially his daughter. While he's ecstatic to see her alive and well, he's also dismayed that he missed five years of her life.
  • Reinforced hard in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. When Kang threatens to kill Cassie in front of Scott and make him relive that moment over and over for all eternity if he doesn't comply, he cements himself in that moment as Scott's sworn enemy. Secondly, he is split into multiple versions of himself in a paradoxal storm, but when they hear Cassie's voice over the intercom, they all band together, because no matter what iteration of Scott is there, they all want to save their daughter. Finally, after Kang refuses to honour his word and moves to kill Cassie (and the others), Scott stops holding back and rampages across Kang's empire with full intention of personally crushing the man in his palm.
• Pet the Dog: Upon meeting Wanda Maximoff in Captain America: Civil War, Scott wholeheartedly treats her with respect and considers her a great person, which she is visibly touched by. While it's justified by the fact that Scott is a Naïve Newcomer who isn't aware of the controversy surrounding her, the fact that Wanda has been treated like a dangerous living weapon by most people she meets makes Scott's friendly gesture all the more meaningful.
• Le Parkour: As part of his "cat burglar" skill set. This was one of the reasons why he was selected by Hank, as any movement as Ant-Man requires parkour skills.
• Pest Controller: He wears a special earpiece that allows him to convey commands to ants.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He retains his strength at normal size when he shrinks, reflecting the strength of ants compared to their small size.
• Plucky Comic Relief: He acts as a more goofy foil to the other Avengers in his appearances in the team-up movies.
• Recruiting the Criminal: His origin story — he's recruited by Hank Pym specifically because of his criminal skillset. He manages to segue his way from being Hank's one-time Boxed Crook to an actual superhero.
• Red Is Heroic: He is an Avenger with a red suit that allows him to change size.
• Reformed, but Rejected: He has a difficult time trying to find honest work due to his criminal past, and his ex-wife and her new husband are very hostile towards him. This changes after Scott becomes Ant-Man and proves himself to be a worthy father to Cassie. And even when he gets put under house arrest, both Paxton and Maggie are still quite friendly and jovial to him. They're also devastated when they believe he was a casualty of the Snap.
• Reformed Criminal: His goal is to become one, but Hank Pym has other ideas. It all works out in the end, though.
• Relationship Revolving Door: Has this with Hope. All throughout the first film, they share a palpable amount of unresolved sexual tension, resulting in a kiss at the end. However, in the next one, Hope spends a good chunk of the movie furious at him, mostly for running off to Germany and endangering the Pyms, which forces them to go on the run. She only thaws when he proves instrumental in bringing her mother back and the two of them—plus Cassie—are shown watching a movie together happily. Before this can go any further, Hope gets dusted, depressing the normally upbeat Scott to a degree that he can't even talk about her. Thankfully, she gets better. And they've settled into a committed relationship by Quantumania.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: In Avengers: Endgame, Scott is listed as one of the casualties of the Snap. In reality, he was Trapped in Another World, with no way of getting out during the time the Snap occurred. Justified, as absolutely nobody knew he was there aside from the Pym Family, who couldn't exactly tell anyone about what he was doing.
• Required Secondary Powers: His suit's helmet has a built-in life support system, because suddenly shrinking and growing would have adverse effects on the human brain (namely the fact that they're suddenly breathing oxygen molecules several times smaller/larger than their biology will let them process). Like Quill's mask, it seals and unseals as soon as Scott puts his head in, and automatically adjusts to whatever environment Scott is in, regardless of his size.
• Retired Badass: Tries to become one in Quantumania, choosing to end his hero career on a high note so he can concentrate on supporting Hope and making up for lost time with Cassie.
• Running Gag: Other characters not having heard of Ant-Man, much to his annoyance.
  Tony: Who are you?
  Scott: ...Come on, man.
  • Even after the events of Endgame, when he has gained a reputation for being the savior of the universe, a coffee shop owner misidentifies him as "Spider-Man". Scott decides to just roll with it.

S-Z

• Science Hero: He has a Masters in electrical engineering, meaning that he can tinker with the Ant-Man suit to meet his specifications. It's saying something that Scott is confident enough to fiddle with the regulator before Hank warns him of the potential dangers. As a thief, he uses his scientific knowledge to use household objects to fool a fingerprint scanner and bust open a vault with ice. All of this tends to be heavily downplayed though, since he has nowhere near the scientific background or espionage training of both Hank and Hope.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: Although the Pym Particles keep his density from fluctuating, he expends much more energy moving and fighting as Giant-Man in Civil War, becoming completely exhausted after only a short time. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, it nearly causes his death, as he passes out while standing in the ocean and almost drowns. Averted from Endgame onwards, as by then he's trained himself to sustain his giant form with no ill effects (though he does note in Quantumania he gets extremely hungry afterwards).
• The Sixth Ranger:
  • Of the Anti-Accords side/"Team Cap" in Civil War, Scott's the only one not to have any previous established history with the others (unless one counts his scuffle with Falcon). The rest (Bucky, Falcon, Hawkeye, and Scarlet Witch) all have ties with Cap and will fight to the end because of their friendship with him, while Scott was there because he just happens to be a major fan who Falcon thought had the chops for it.
  • In Endgame, he's this to the original six Avengers, joining them to reverse the Snap and being instrumental to the plan.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: In Ant-Man and the Wasp, he half-shrinks down at one point to the size of a child and his gear is stuck so he can't revert back to his full size.
• Sizeshifter: He can quickly alternate between shrinking, growing, and returning to his normal size. By the time of Captain America: Civil War, he's integrated the enlarging particle into his suit and can use it to grow up to sixty-five feet, though he hasn't perfected it just yet.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Scott's role in Civil War is mostly to serve as a Sixth Ranger for the Anti-Registration team during the airport battle. Yet, his transformation into Giant-Man makes enough of a public spectacle to attract worldwide attention to Hank Pym and his technology, as well as make the rest of the Avengers outside of Falcon aware of who Ant-Man really is.
• Sole Survivor: By the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, he's the last living user of the Pym Particle and the carriers of the Ant-Man/Wasp legacy, due to Hank, Hope, and a newly freed Janet getting dusted by Thanos.
• Something Person: Ant/Giant + Man.
• Spanner in the Works: During Endgame, his experiences in the Quantum Realm led to him being the one to come up with the idea to travel back in time and retrieve the Infinity Stones in order to undo the damage that Thanos has done to the universe, basically messing up Thanos's plans big time.
• Square-Cube Law: Portrayed inconsistently across his outings on screen; in the first film his density while shrunken is such that he can throw a grown man across a room with a single punch and can break through a plate glass window just by being flung at it, whereas being Giant-Man in Civil War doesn't make his density any less than a being of that size should reasonably have. Additionally, being Giant-Man takes a lot more energy out of him to utilize due to his new size, but being Ant-Man doesn't take any less energy than he would normally need (there was even a scene of him huffing and puffing as he ran across a boarding staircase in the airport while shrunken). Generally speaking the mechanics of his various sizes seem to be governed by Rule of Cool or Rule of Funny more than any internal consistency.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: Hank gives him some throwing discs resembling shuriken that can grow and shrink things that they hit.
• Stupid Crooks: While he himself isn't dumb overall, this is precisely how he got caught when stealing from his boss at Vistacorp, Corrupt Corporate Executive Geoff Zorick, leading to his arrest. He stole several items from him, and then took his car... and subsequently got carried away and drove the car into the mansion's pool. Despite having a Master's Degree in electrical engineering, Hope and Hank tend to view him in this light, and he frequently lives down to their expectations, if only because they're genius-level scientists with spy training.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: In Avengers: Endgame, when Iron Man makes fun of how Captain America's 2012 costume makes his ass looks terrible, Scott fully jumps to the latter's defense and even calls it "America's ass" while giving it a cheesy salute.
• Super-Strength: When he's shrunken he has his strength at normal size applied to a very small point; when gigantic he's capable of feats that rival the Hulk. For instance, he is seen easily breaking apart a plane or swing a gangway at War Machine in Civil War. In Endgame, his giant form manages to dig his way out of the collapsed ruin of a building and is seen sucker-punching a Leviathan, one of the monsters that required the Hulk to physically match back in Avengers. He also squashes Cull Obsidian like a bug.
• Super-Toughness: His increased density grants him this, allowing him to retain his durability from normal size in his shrunken form. As Giant-Man, he becomes even tougher, being able to take being peppered with bullets, missiles, and explosives by War Machine and only being mildly irritated by it.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Scott unmasking and revealing his first name to Sam in their fight didn't make it too hard for Sam to track him down. Given how Scott was recently released from prison and his crimes were even talked about on news channels to the point where Scott himself was interviewed, all Sam had to do was ask around.
• Survival Mantra: Before enlarging himself into Giant-Man in Civil War, Scott starts chanting "I'm the boss" to himself to psych himself up.
• Team Member in the Adaptation: Inverted with the Defenders and the Guardians of the Galaxy. In the comics, he was a member of both teams at separate periods but in the MCU, he was never a member of either team.
• Technical Pacifist: He is very specific that he is not a robber, he is a cat burglar, seeing as robbery involves the threat of violence. He gets trained during the movie how to fight as Ant-Man, but only so that he can control his strength and not kill someone accidentally.
• Theme Naming: He likes to use names that start with "ant" when naming his ants. Such as: Ant-ony, Ant-on, and Ant-onio Banderas.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: He avoids killing whenever it's possible. The one exception is when Darren Cross threatens to kill his daughter in cold blood. This pushes Scott to screw with the other man's suit, imploding him in what looked like an extremely painful manner. It should be noted that even then, it wasn't specifically out of anger but because Cassie was in danger and there was no other way.
• Took a Level in Badass: His Giant-Man form, which on its own is already amazing to behold, becomes this in Endgame. He punches a Leviathan to the ground, squishes Cull Obsidian like a bug, and only reverts to his normal size because he has to fix the Quantum Tunnel. Notably, he can now stay in this form for a longer duration without experiencing any signs of exhaustion.
  • Quantumania shows us just how much of an unstoppable force Giant-Man can be when angered. He smashes buildings and aircraft like they’re nothing and sends Kang's minions running for their lives. Kang himself has to step in to turn the tide of the attack.
• Trapped in Another World: In The Stinger for Ant-Man and the Wasp, he enters the Quantum Realm to retrieve more "healing particles" for Ava/Ghost. Hope, Hank, and Janet are acting as mission control, but before they can bring him back to his regular size, the three of them are snapped out of existence due to the events of Avengers: Infinity War. Poor Scott has absolutely no clue as to why they aren’t responding, and no way of getting out... Until circumstances in Avengers: Endgame allow him to escape.
• Troll: When he miniaturizes and gets inside Iron Man's armor, he claims he's Tony's "conscience" and that they haven't spoken in a while.
• Underhanded Hero:
  • He is a former burglar, fresh out of prison. He's trying to turn over a new leaf and leave his old life behind, but the skills he perfected as a thief are exactly what Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, needs to stop a powerful villain.
    Scott: My days of breaking into places and stealing shit are over. What do you want me to do?
    Hank: I want you to break into a place and steal some shit.
    Scott: ...Makes sense.
  • In his second appearance (Captain America: Civil War), Scott acts as a booby-trap when Spidey steal Cap's shield, spends most of the fight messing with the insides of Tony's suit, and provides an enormous distraction so that Cap and Bucky can get away.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • A common advantage Scott can exploit, in part because of his being a Pint-Sized Powerhouse when shrunk... and partially because his Giant-Man strength and durability is pretty much Hulk-Level and that entire powerset is unexpected by most enemies.
  • Put to tremendous effect in Quantumania. Kang reneges on their deal when he takes the multiversal regulator and threatens to kill them all (Cassie included) anyway. Kang is quick to dismiss Scott (and the others) as nothing more than the insects they model themselves after and simply moves forward with his plans. Cue a furious Giant-Man unleashing one of the most brutal and unapologetic rampages in the MCU to date. He even puts up one hell of a fight, giant and small, against Kang the Conqueror himself, to the point the dictator is forced to concede he's a threat and actually try to kill him.
• The Unfavorite: He may be the closest thing Hank Pym had to a son outside of Darren Cross, but he's still this compared to Hope. He's less than thrilled to learn that Hank already had wings and blasters that he could've given him, but was (understandably) saving for his daughter.
• Unknown Rival: Long before he even meet Hank Pym, Scott really disliked Tony, probably thanks to his residual dislike for the corporate world. When interviewed by WHiH World News, he's glad when Christine Everhart says "he's no Tony Stark". Tony, on the other hand, doesn't even know Lang exists.
  Scott: ...Come on, man.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's this as Giant-Man. He's much more powerful than anyone in the Pro-Accords Avengers but his inexperience with the form means that he doesn't really have as much tricks as he does in his shrunken form and can only land basic kicks and punches and use his Super-Strength to pick up objects and hit people with them.
• Unstoppable Rage: When Kang goes back on his word to free Cassie in exchange for the power core, Scott gets very, very angry. He charges into the Conqueror's base at the size of a titan, crushing everything in his path and shrugging off every attempt to stop him like a juggernaut, literally roaring with rage.
  Scott: KAAAAANNNG! WE HAD A DEAL!
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • While Scott and his access to Pym technology is crucial to ending the Infinity Saga, doing so also makes him indirectly responsible for the events of the Multiverse Saga. By introducing time travel to the MCU and proposing the Time Heist, Scott sets off a chain of events that results in the 2012 Loki Variant absconding with the Tesseract. This in turn sets off another chain of events in Loki that culminates with the breaking of the Sacred Timeline and the restoration of Kang the Conqueror and his other Variants.
  • Scott ponders this himself at the end of Quantumania. By all accounts, he's done his job as a hero; the villain is thwarted, peace is restored, he's reunited with his family and the people of the Quantum Realm are finally free from Kang's tyranny. However, as the movie comes to a close, Scott can't help but ponder if his actions really were the right thing to do, as not only is he unsure if Kang is truly dead, but Kang's threats of the horrors to come plague his mind, leaving Scott reeling with anxiety about what he meant and if he's unknowingly done more harm than good. Unfortunately, The Stinger proves his fear was right. Horribly, horribly right.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Hank. The two trade insults back and forth, but ultimately respect each other.
• Weak, but Skilled: Shrinking and controlling ants is basically his whole shtick... at least, to begin with. To make this useful, he trains hard and learns to fight properly; otherwise, him being tiny and punching anyone at full force could outright kill them. Hope puts it best when she says he needs to fight like a bullet. As a result, while he can never take on a Avenger like Black Widow in a straight fight, his Sizeshifter powers let him trick his enemies and target their weak spots. This is averted in Captain America: Civil War, where in addition to shrinking he can also enlarge, providing him with brute force as well.
• Weirdness Magnet: In Quantumania, he remarks that his life does not make sense because weird things keep happening to him.
• Would Hit a Girl: Training with Hope was full-contact. This served him well later during the airport fight in Civil War when he briefly had to throw down with Black Widow.
• Written-In Absence: Due to being under house arrest, he does not partake in the events of Infinity War. Ant-Man and the Wasp specifically shows what he was up to before (and during) the events of that film.
• Wrong Time-Travel Savvy: In Endgame, Scott is the one who opens up the idea of time travel to the Avengers, but gets the rules of time travel wrong, such as firmly believing in Never the Selves Shall Meet. Stark and Banner, who have studied the matter from a more scientific point of view, say that taking cues from Back to the Future and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is ignorant and lame, much to Scott's disappointment.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After recruiting him, Hank tells Scott that he can leave his criminal days behind to become the hero his daughter Cassie always sees him as.
• Zerg Rush: He can command an entire swarm of ants to overwhelm his enemies.

Others

Ant-thony

Ant-thony

Species: Carpenter ant

Appearances: Ant-Man

Scott Lang's primary ant companion, a flying carpenter ant.

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• Flight: On account of having wings, this is Ant-thony's primary use for Scott.
• Gender-Blender Name: Ant-thony is female.◊ Justified as she was named by Scott, who wouldn't be familiar with sexual dimorphism in ants, and for the sake of the Punny Name. This is averted in the French dub of the film, where she's called Antoinette.
• Horse of a Different Color: Acts similarly to a horse in being Scott's ride and how Scott feeds her water.
• Ludicrous Gibs: On account of being shot with a handgun, all that is seen of Ant-thony after her death is her fallen wing.
• Mauve Shirt: She's basically like most of the carpenter ants, except she has a name and is close to Scott. Still, it didn't guarantee her survival.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Along with the other ants, though her closeness to Scott makes her the main one by default.
• Punny Name: Ant-thony.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Cross shoots her out from under Scott as they try to board Cross's helicopter. This really does not sit well with Scott.
• Sidekick: Essentially acts at this to Scott by being his main steed.
• The Speechless: She's an ant.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Averted Trope. Cross evidently sees the Ant-Man's ants as nothing more than The Swarm, and doesn't even know Ant-thony exists. However, Scott becomes close to Ant-thony, seeing her as his friend, and his string is played pretty heavily when Ant-thony gets shot dead in the final battle, as the camera takes time to linger on her fallen wing.
• You Are Number 6: Hank Pym gives his ants numbers, rather than names, since there's so many of them. This one is number 247, though she's briefly confused with number 248.

Variants

Zombie Apocalypse Scott Lang

Scott Lang / Ant-Man II

"I know what you're thinking — I've lost weight. Thank you for noticing! But don't worry; I'm not gonna let it go to my head."

"Hi, Ms. van Dyne."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Voiced By: Paul Rudd

Appearances: What If...?

On Earth-89521, Scott was infected with the Quantum Virus, but was eventually cured by Vision, albeit at the cost of him being reduced to a head in a jar.

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• And I Must Scream: Subverted. Even though he's lost his entire body sans his head, and can't move around on his own until the Cloak of Levitation assists him, Scott doesn't seem phased in the slightest. He even goes as far as to make dad jokes about his situation. Even when he does briefly lose his composure, it's about the fate of his old friends rather than himself.
• Back from the Dead: The Vision cured him of the zombie virus, but for some reason he had to be reduced to a talking head for it to succeed.
• Badass Cape: Once the Cloak of Levitation starts helping him move around.
• Brain in a Jar: Vision curing him necessitated him being reduced to only his head, which is kept in a jar.
• Composite Character: In Marvel Zombies Janet van Dyne was the one who was reduced to a head in a jar, though she also gained a robotic body she could control unlike Scott who relies on the Cloak of Levitation.
  • Scott's continued propensity for wisecracks after being reduced to a severed head and return to a more heroic nature after being infected also shares some elements in common with zombie Deadpool (also known as Headpool).
• Noodle Incident: Why Scott had to be reduced to being a head in a jar to be cured isn't exactly explained.
• Oh, Crap!: Reacts like this when a zombified Hank and Janet lunge at him.
• Pungeon Master: Constantly makes head and body puns to compensate for his new appearance.
• Sad Clown: He constantly makes quips, mostly about his current condition and zombies., but he admits to the other survivors that he's doing it to cope with traumatic experiences.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike his Earth-2149 counterpart, he was cured by the Vision.
• Stepford Smiler: By his own admission, he copes with traumatic experiences through Dad Jokes. He briefly falls into despair twice in the episode — once when reflecting on how much he misses Hank Pym and again when he sees a zombified Hope Van Dyne.
• Uncertain Doom: Scott survives alongside T'Challa and Spider-Man, and is last seen flying the Quadjet to Wakanda, hoping to use the Mind Stone to cure all the zombies and restore the world. However, unknown to him and his fellow Avengers, Wakanda has already fallen to the zombified Thanos, who has the Infinity Gauntlet almost completed and waiting for them to arrive with the remaining Infinity Stone. Considering that the Watcher didn't summon him to join the Guardians of the Multiverse (though of course he wouldn't be of much use) to stop Infinity Ultron and the zombies of his universe are later seen but not him, things do not currently look good for him.

Scott Lang 1602

Scott Lang / Ant-Man

"Great stealing, everyone. Ales all around! Chin-chin!"

"Stupid gnats! Hey, shrinking's my thing! Can't stand copycats."

Species: Human

Citizenship: English

Affiliation(s): Avengers 1602

Voiced By: Paul Rudd

Appearances: What If...?

A variant of Scott who is an outlaw along with Rogers Hood and Bucky Barnes.

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• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: While the two of them did fight on the same side in Captain America: Civil War, Bucky and Scott never really interacted with each other, and thus had no relationship. Here, the two of them are Rogers Hood's co-Lancers, and so have much more banter between them. While Scott is fairly friendly toward Bucky, Bucky himself is annoyed with Scott's antics.
• Adaptational Badass: Downplayed. While Scott is generally a pretty good combatant, this variant is shown to have proficiency in swordfighting his Sacred counterpart lacks, and even refers to himself as a swashbuckler.
• Adaptational Skill: He has swordsmanship skills in this timeline like many of the other characters.
• Canon Foreigner: Not only did Scott never appear in any of the Marvel 1602 comics, but Ant-Man also wasn't a thing since Henri le Pym was only Giant-Man in that version.
• In Spite of a Nail: Just like his Sacred Timeline counterpart, Scott ends up working with Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes for noble reasons, having the time of his life while doing so. Furthermore, he still has the ability to shrink and control ants despite being in the 1600s.
• Pretender Diss: He gets annoyed at the Royal Yellowjackets for also being able to shrink and labels them copycats.

Dead Scott Lang

Scott Lang / Ant-Man II / Giant-Man

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliations: Avengers (formerly)

Portrayed by: N/A

Appearances: Deadpool & Wolverine

A variant of Scott Lang who seemingly perished by unknown means, and whose body was dumped into The Void. His corpse is used as a base of sorts for surviving variants of characters from the X-Men Film Series.

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• Body Horror: In the trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine, we see Giant-Man's helmet open up to reveal his face. From what little we can see of it, it indicate's that Scott's body has been entirely mummified by the Ant-Man suit, with his skull and teeth being visible behind the smoke.
• Giant Corpse World: Per the trailer, Giant-Man's appears is being used by Cassandra Nova and some returning X-Men villains as a base of operations within the Void.
• Mythology Gag: Ant-Man's corpse being used as a city for surviving characters in an After the End style scenario is lifted straight out of the original Old Man Logan storyline.

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"Look out for the little guy. Make mistakes. Take chances. Because if there's one thing life's taught me, there's always room to grow."