Rumor: Marvel Repurposing Superhero Name, Costume As Ant-Man Movie Villain

Take this with a big heap of salt, since the original report seems to be speculation -- but a rumor at Badass Digest is making the rounds, suggesting that the main costumed villain in Peyton Reed's Ant-Man will be Yellowjacket.

In the comics, of course, Yellowjacket is one of a number of costumed identities taken on by the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym (played in the movie by Michael Douglas), but BD doesn't believe Douglas will be Yellowjacket in the film; instead, the prevailing theory is that it will be Patrick Wilson, who will apparently play William Cross.

In the comics, William Cross becomes the villain Crossfire, but word of a yellow-and-black color scheme for the villain in the upcoming film is seemingly what gave BD the idea he will become Yellowjacket (a pretty easy intuitive leap to make, certainly). The Yellowjacket/Crossfire claims come on the heels that Corey Stoll will play the industrialist villain Darren Cross, William's brother and the film's main antagonist.

It may be -- as phrasing suggests -- that BD's Devin Faraci, who is generally tuned into this kind of thing, had heard it somewhere else before the JoBlo report dropped "yellow and black" into the collective water.

Faraci notes -- quite correctly, in all likelihood -- that the odds are Ant-Man's various incarnations (Goliath, Giant Man, Yellowjacket) won't make it onto film as the nature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn't lend itself to bouncing back and forth in the same way that serialized, monthly comics do, and so introducing at least one of those names and costumes as a villain allows the characters to make their way to the screen (and, by extension, to the toy store shelves).