The real fun of following the Marvel Cinematic Universe is seeing partnerships develop. Once Steve Rogers gets out of the ice at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger, he’s in a world that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t have much time to acclimate, though, because Loki arrives on Earth and forces Nick Fury to get the Avengers Initiative off the ground. While Steve makes new allies, they don’t get along great because they’re so different. Fortunately, at the start of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the titular hero meets someone he has a lot in common with: Sam Wilson.
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Steve and Sam fight HYDRA together, and once the battle is over, the two decide to work together to find Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship that comes to an end when Steve hands Sam his shield in Avengers: Endgame. However, during Sam’s time as Steve’s right-hand man, he makes another friend in an unexpected place and becomes the focal point of the best cameo in MCU history.
Ant-Man Runs Into an Avengers-Sized Problem in His First Solo Outing
Scott Lang bites off more than he can chew when he tries to rip off Hank Pym in Ant-Man. Hank bails Scott out of jail and asks for his help getting back at his former mentee, Darren Cross, who is working on weaponizing shrinking technology. The plan is for Scott to wear the Ant-Man suit and break into Pym Technologies to steal the Yellowjacket suit that Cross is preparing to sell; however, the team doesn’t have everything it needs yet. There’s an old Signal Decoy in a storage facility in New York that will help in the heist, so Hank sends Scott to retrieve it and show off everything he’s learned. While the mission seems simple, Ant-Man meets a roadblock in the form of an Avenger: Falcon.
The storage facility is now the Avengers’ headquarters, and Sam is the one tasked with guarding it after becoming one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Falcon’s appearance in Ant-Man is great because it feels organic, given that Age of Ultron was released only a few months before the Paul Rudd-led movie. The humor that comes from a guy in a bird suit fighting a guy in an ant one is also hard to beat, as it leads to one of the funniest bits in the MCU, when Sam demands whoever is on the other end of his communication device not to tell Cap that he lost to a tiny man.
What gives Falcon’s cameo the edge over Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Chris Evans’ return as the Human Torch in Deadpool & Wolverine is that it’s only a building block. After meeting Ant-Man, Falcon keeps tabs on him and brings him into the fold in Captain America: Civil War. While working with Captain America leads to some issues in Scott’s personal life, he knows going to him is the right move in Endgame, which sets the stage for all of the dusted characters to return. Ant-Man‘s first big MCU fight opens the door for so much, and Marvel Studios may not even be done pulling at that string.
Falcon & Ant-Man’s Friendship Could Be an Important Part of Avengers: Doomsday
It’s been six years since Ant-Man and Falcon shared the screen, but that doesn’t mean they’ve fallen out of touch. Sam is assembling a team that will compete against the New Avengers in Avengers: Doomsday. His partner, Joaquin Torres, is his first recruit, and it’s hard to imagine a world where Scott isn’t his second. After all, Sam’s only other major friend, Bucky Barnes, is part of the New Avengers, and the two aren’t on speaking terms. That leaves Scott as one of the few people on Earth that Sam can trust.
It also helps that Paul Rudd is already confirmed to be part of the cast of Doomsday. The character hasn’t appeared since his battle with Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but the villain spooked him plenty, which means he’ll be ready to go whenever Doom shows his ugly mug. Sure, Scott could try to solve the world’s problems on his own, but he would be better off aligning himself with a hero that he’s been familiar with for a decade.
Ant-Man is streaming on Disney+.
Do you think Falcon’s cameo in Ant-Man is the best one in the MCU? Are you excited to see the two heroes reunite in Avengers: Doomsday? Let us know in the comments below!
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Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios
