Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Writer Confirms Scrapping Janet's Superpowers

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Michelle Pfeiffer made her debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Janet van Dyne back in 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp, which included the tease that her time in the Quantum Realm had given her some otherworldly powers, only for those plot points to be abandoned for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Writer Jeff Loveness recently recalled that original plans for the most recent sequel included the expansion of these powers, which she had seemingly earned from her encounters with Kang the Conqueror, but that those elements ended up being too confusing for audiences who weren't quite as familiar with the history of the characters and they were cut.

"Janet's got obviously those healing properties, but I looked it as more of like, less healing, and more of like, 'Oh, she's got a bit of that inter-dimensionality phasing as well, and she was able to almost like stabilize Ava.' We wrote that," Loveness shared with ComicBookMovie.com. "It was in there, and I think it just it was just confusing the viewers in our test screenings like, 'Wait, she has phasing powers?'"

In Ant-Man and the Wasp, the lack of time audiences spent with Janet made her a mysterious figure so it was easier to at least briefly accept that she had some sort of powers, though they didn't end up playing a role in the theatrical release of Quantumania. Loveness noted, however, that these scenes merely ended up being cut from the final version of the movie.

"There's a part where like they just landed the jungle and Janet pushes him against the tree and says like do not move, and the light goes over them, I think it's clever editing, but in the script, that was like, she phases them out of sequence, and so the scanner misses them, because she phases them both out, and it really hurts Hope and Hank. And Janet's in a lot of pain," the writer explained. "And that was like, 'Oh wait, you can still do that? What is going on down here?' That was almost tied into her traumas like she can't really control these powers well, being in the Quantum Realm makes her more unstable, and it was a part of that Kang core of like, she made that sacrifice of almost like touching a hot stove, and running away with it, and it really messed her up."

With it currently being unclear when, where, or if Janet will make another appearance in the MCU, fans will be left to speculate about whether we could ever see those powers return in any significant way or if the nature of them means they would only be helpful in very specific scenarios.

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Stay tuned for details on the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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