Early ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Ideas Included AIM Beekeppers

The latest film from Marvel Studios introduced a lot of fan-favorite ideas from the House of Ideas, but Ant-Man and the Wasp almost included some classic comic book villains.

A new piece of concept art from Ian Joyner reveals an epic action scene with the titular heroes taking on the foot soldiers from Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM, that are affectionately referred to as Beekeepers. But this Marvel Cinematic Universe version updates their costume and makes it more contemporary, while staying true to the classic look.

Take a look at the photo:

Joyner writes about the design on his own ArtStation account, revealing this was never in a script but was more of a “dream scenario” for a scene in the film:

“An unused idea/scene pitch for Ant-Man and the Wasp, once Ant-Man returns from the Quantum Realm I thought a fun gag would be having him toss his new friend tardigrade at the baddies Pokémon style!” writes Joyner. “I also attempted to sneak the classic A.I.M ‘Bee Keeper’ guys into something that might work in the MCU (nothing like this was in the script, just a fun little brainstorm). The fantastic Andy Park was our leader on this adventure! To see a a lot more weird unused concepts, final ideas and much more check out the Ant-Man and the Wasp art book! (Ant-Man and Wasp designs by Andy Park, Models by Tully Summers.)”

Of course, AIM has had already appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was the organization run by Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3. The villainous group weaponized Extremis technology to give regular people super powers, though it usually resulted in the users’ death.

Killian was killed by Pepper Potts, the MCU’s heaviest hitter, in the event of that movie, and it’s unclear of their status in the present day.

In the short Marvel One Shot Hail to the King, the actor who played the Mandarin named Trevor Slattery was shown in prison to be intimidated by the actual supervillain he portrayed. But hat version of the Mandarin is assumed to be associated with the Ten Rings terrorist organization.

More recently it’s been theorized that Sonny Burch, the antagonist of Ant-Man and the Wasp, could be working for AIM, which we could find out about in a potential third film in the franchise. Given the fall of HYDRA, it makes sense that another evil organization could rise up to fill the void.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is now in theaters everywhere.