Ant-Man and the Wasp is now in theaters and while the film’s action is centered around the antagonist Ghost, a classic Ant-Man villain has his own role to play in the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe offering – Elihas Starr, better known as Egghead.
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Warning: Spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp follow.
After a few encounters with the mysterious Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) the villain manages to get the upper hand, stealing Hank Pym’s (Michael Douglas) lab. Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) attempt to steal it back, but are caught by Ghost and Hank’s ex-partner, Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne). It’s then that Ghost’s reason for wanting the lab — and Elihas’ role in the film — is revealed.
Years before, Elihas Starr worked alongside Foster and Hank but was fired and subsequently discredited when he attempted to steal Hank’s work. In Ghost’s retelling — it turns out that she’s really Ava Starr, Elihas’ daughter — Elihas was desperate to recreate Hank’s technology as well as restore his own reputation. His desperation caused him to take risks which resulted in one of his experiments ending in a massive explosion. Elihas tried to get his wife and young Ava to safety, but Ava turned and ran back to her father. The whole Starr family was thus caught in the explosion, killing Elihas and his wife. Ava survived, but the massive exposure to the energy of the Quantum Realm caused the young girl to end up molecularly unstable, the cells of her body constantly coming apart and then back together. It is what allows her to phase in and out of material reality as Ghost, but it also leaves her in constant, excruciating pain.
SHIELD capitalized on Ava’s predicament, turning her into a black ops assassin, but with her condition rapidly degrading and SHIELD disbanded, Ava and Foster are desperate to cure her — something they think they can do by utilizing Hank’s Quantum Tunnel and harvesting Janet’s quantum energy to stabilize Ava, no matter the cost to Janet.
While Elihas only appears briefly in the flashback that reveals how Ava became Ghost, his actions are clearly a driving force for Ant-Man and the Wasp. They also provide an interesting thematic tie to another entry in the MCU: Marvel’s Runaways In that series, Molly Hernandez (Allegra Acosta) has her own unique set of powers as a result of her parents’ experiments. On Runaways, Molly’s parents were members of PRIDE as well as scientists. When they discovered something mysterious about a type of rock, they are murdered in an explosion orchestrated by PRIDE but not before young Molly was exposed to the curious rock and ends up with super-strength as a result.
Like Molly, Ava’s powers are a result of her parents’ actions and experiments and both characters grow up orphans after their parents are killed because of those experiments. And while Runaways is unlikely to crossover with the movies of the MCU anytime soon, Ava could find herself in another situation similar to Molly’s. On Runaways, Molly is teamed up with the other kids of PRIDE members to try to take down their parents. With Ava less a direct villain and more a person who has done bad things but isn’t exactly a bad person, she could go on to be part of the Thunderbolts should they be introduced in the MCU. In comics, the Thunderbolts was, generally, a team of villains who were attempting to redeem themselves. Ghost actually was a member of the team in comics so having the MCU counterpart also seek redemption via heroic means feels like a natural fit.
What do you think about Egghead’s role in Ant-Man and the Wasp? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Ant-Man and the Wasp is now playing in theaters.
Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.
