Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Characters Ranked

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Characters Ranked

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has hit theaters and divided its fans. But in typical MCU movie fashion, I’m going to be ranking all of the main characters of the movie. 

NOTE: This post will contain SPOILERS for the entire movie. So if you haven’t seen the movie, this will spoil a lot of the big plot points in it. So you have been warned, this is your only warning. 

8. Darren Cross/MODOK: And to be clear, this is a distinct last place for me. I wasn’t at all a fan of MODOK in this movie. And I don’t mind the idea of having Darren coming back and a villain from an earlier movie come back for the third and (maybe) final Ant-Man movie. But the execution of MODOK in this movie…bad. Simply, bad. The problem is that MODOK and Kang don’t fit together in the same movie. Kang is a genocidal maniac killing hundreds and thousands of people in the same movie as MODOK. A character designed to tell very stupid jokes that simply aren’t funny. I know that MODOK has always been a funny character, but I don’t think having him opposite Kang was the right move. It was a very weird choice to put this character in this movie. Other things you have to talk about here, the design and look of MODOK…wow, not good. It’s very hard to design MODOK well in live action, and I think they did the best they could. But I think this shows that MODOK doesn’t really work in live action. So I thought this was a complete and utter dud of a character that could have been interesting. 

7. Lord Krylar: Now I debated even including him on this list, but he was given a character poster so I decided to include him on this list. And he’s really just a cameo, he’s in one scene of the movie to give Janet, Hope, and Hank some information. He does flesh out Janet’s character, we learn a little bit more about her ties to The Quantum Realm and her connections to Kang. Some of the jokes of him fulfilling Janet’s needs, that was an ok joke. It wasn’t a joke that I would have put in this movie but it was funny enough. It’s fun that we are getting Bill Murray in the MCU, even though it’s just a one and done cameo. It’s fun that he agreed to do this, I think since it is Bill Murray the character is a lot more memorable. The fact that he really is just a cameo in this movie is largely why he’s in next to last place on this list. As far as a cameo goes, he’s good. But not a great character over all. 

6. Hank Pym: It’s fun that he and his ants were the calvary moment in the finale, it’s a fun little moment to throw into the finale. But I think there’s one big problem with Hank that holds him back for me. In the previous two movies, Hank was not a guy cracking jokes. He was funny, but he was funny because he was grumpy and annoyed by everything around him. Therefore, his reactions to Paul Rudd is what made him funny. So in this movie, I wasn’t a fan that they turned Hank into a guy cracking jokes. And I think part of the charm of Hank got lost in this movie. I don’t think making Hank the funny guy was the right direction to take his character. Now Michael Douglas is of course world class talent, so he’s still really good in the movie. But I wish this movie didn’t try to make Hank a comedic character telling jokes. 

5. Cassie Lang: Now this is probably the most frustrating character in the movie. Where I thought there was an interesting character arc for Cassie. But the character arc felt wasted in this movie about exploring The Quantum Realm and stopping Kang. If you think about it, Scott skipped over the apocalypse. He didn’t live through Thanos’ snap the way Cassie did, so now that he’s a hero he thinks the world doesn’t need to be saved anymore and doesn’t need to help people. But Cassie lived through the apocalypse and wants to help people, she knows exactly what others went through during The Blip. That’s an interesting character arc for Cassie to go on and you elaborate on her getting a suit and working with Hank. But since the movie was more so about The Quantum Realm and Kang, Cassie’s arc felt undercooked. It was close to being an intriguing character arc that was wasted with the film’s other ideas.  

4. Janet Van Dyne: This was another super frustrating character for me, and one that had things that I liked and didn’t like about her. On the positive, it’s nice that we get to spend a lot of time with her. She was brought into the picture into Ant-Man and the Wasp, brought back for like 5 minutes and then gets snapped by Thanos. She’s in like 10 seconds of Avengers Endgame during the funeral. But this is the first time where we actually get to spend some quality time with her. We understand a lot about her place in The Quantum Realm, it’s all development for her character. But I feel like her character was used in a very weird way that didn’t fully work for me. What I mean by that is her character felt like she made choices just because the plot needed her to. If you stop and think about it, why didn’t Janet have a conversation with Cassie about this quantum communicator she created before she turns it on…because the movie wouldn’t take place. If Janet told everybody everything that happened, the plot wouldn’t take place. And that’s just lazy writing if you ask me. I don’t like it when movies have characters act a certain way because the script needs them to. 

3. Hope Van Dyne/The Wasp: Now she’s a character that I felt has been very underused in her time in the MCU. Even though this movie has her superhero name in the title, it’s really just an Ant-Man with The Wasp in it. And I would say Ant-Man and the Wasp, they were co-leads in that movie. And so in this movie, she’s not really given a whole lot to do in this movie and that’s kind of why she’s this high on the list. She doesn’t do anything in this movie that bothers me or that makes me love her. She’s a fun addition to the movie, it’s nice to see her again in the MCU. Evangeline Lilly is a good actress and plays her very well, she always packs a mean STING. I like the romance between her and Scott in these movies. But I really do wish that Hope was able to stand on her own a bit more in this trilogy. And I’m not sure if we will be seeing Hope again in the MCU, if we do I hope she gets to stand on her own a bit more

2. Scott Lang/Ant-Man: One of the two title characters for the movie, and I thought what they did with Scott in this movie really did work for me. I liked that this movie did explore what Scott has been up to in a post Endgame world. He went from being this thief that nobody knew to being a superhero that helped save the world. And so the fact that he wrote a book about his experience seems like a very Scott Lang thing to do. Tied to that, it’s also nice to see that Scott’s post Endgame time was happy and not so sad like so many other MCU characters. I liked all of that stuff and I wish we got more of that in this movie. And you get all of the fun ANTics and humor that Paul Rudd brings and it’s pleasANT to see him make jokes. And I would say this, I think that Paul Rudd gives his best Ant-Man performance in this movie. I really liked what he was able to bring where you get all of the fun Paul Rudd jokes plus a bit more dramatic acting for him. 

1. Kang the Conqueror: I don’t think anybody is surprised by this placement, Jonathan Majors stole the entire movie as Kang. Kang was really one of the big selling points for the movie, and they nailed it. Both with the performance and the writing, it was top notch and great. On the writing side of it, you know that he’s this dangerous threat that our heroes need to take out. He’s a genocidal maniac that is killing thousands of people, just because. Through the writing you really do feel the threat of Kang. But then you also have Jonathan Majors who is giving it his all in this movie, where he can be so menacing and you don’t like him. You like him as Kang, but you don’t like Kang as a character. And in just one movie, he’s able to make a mark on the MCU. And as of now, I think is a top tier MCU villain. But we will see what happens with Kang's future in the MCU. 

There you have it, my ranking of the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania characters. Which one was your favorite? Also, I’ve done these types of character rankings for every MCU movie since Black Widow, so if you like these types of rankings. I have several of them available on my blog. Thanks for reading!