EDITORIAL: Why Edgar Wright's Ant-Man May Be Bad for The Pyms as Avengers

EDITORIAL: Why Edgar Wright's Ant-Man May Be Bad for The Pyms as Avengers

There's an element of Edgar Wright's Ant-Man movie that's been mentioned by him that some may have overlooked. What might that be? Read on!

Editorial Opinion
By AskaniSon - Oct 10, 2010 01:10 PM EST
Filed Under: Avengers

So there's a fact that Edgar Wright has stated about the Ant-Man movie in past
interviews that it seems that some people have overlooked (if you caught it, then
bravo-- it's fairly obvious anyway): he plans to have Hank Pym as Ant-Man "in
the 60s, Tales to Astonish style", with Scott Lang as the modern Ant-Man.



Okay. That's all good and well right? But despite him saying that, some people are still expecting a Hank/Janet cameo in Avengers and that won't work out if Wright gets his movie. Why? Well, if Pym is to be Ant-Man in the 60s then it's highly like that Janet would have been Wasp in that same time period. What's the problem with that? If Pym is 60s Ant-Man then he'll be quite old in the modern setting of Avengers and, if her character is kept intact, Janet will likely be old too.

So if Hank and Janet are old heroes, then we should be expecting a Scott Lang cameo in Avengers over a cameo from the Pyms. Therefore, any disappointed by the news that Ant-Man wouldn't figure into the Avengers out of love for the original line-up should be even more disappointed, as the Pyms may not ever appear alongside the Avengers at any point in any future movies either.

Now, I could be wrong. Perhaps I'm reading to much into what Wright said, and he didn't mean it in the way that I'm thinking. Perhaps somebody else theorized this months ago-- if that's the case, sorry. Haven't been around here that long.

Besides, Wright also said that he's going to work on a second draft of the script, so what held true then may not hold true now. What say you? Let me know below!
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LEEE777
LEEE777 - 10/10/2010, 4:15 PM
If that was the case EDGAR and MARVEL can take a flying jump with this movie!

HELLZ NO to PYM being in 1960, THIS AIN'T x-men: fist a$$ LOL¬ : p
Paulley
Paulley - 10/10/2010, 4:34 PM
Im not completely against it as long as Hank and Janet are in the shared Universe.. if its in the sixties so be it but as long as Hank is shown to be working for SHIELD in its early life.

kinda 60's setting suits the characters well.. Hank in a high pressured job and lives with his wife in a "perfect" house with white picket fence but actually behind closed doors she want get out and design tie dye t shirts and he smacks her about.

Then in the future Hank Pym Jr joins the Avengers as Giant Man lol
HotHead
HotHead - 10/10/2010, 5:53 PM
theres no way in hell this will be the case. perhapes wright expressed his idea but he and marvel soon relised the cost effect of this so he removed the idea on both the first draft and the second draft and the rest of the script and is stiking the scorce material. by the way im the only one who knows that the biggest problem with the ant-man film is not because he got his own film instead of being in the avengers but the fact that ant-man has no real villian of his own other than ultron(whose way to powerful and dangerous for anyone to handle alone and thus is the avengers arch foe) and in order to have a superhero film you have to have a villian (unless your wacthmen and similer charecters) and because of this the ant-man film can't realy work.
HotHead
HotHead - 10/10/2010, 5:53 PM
Paulley
Paulley - 10/11/2010, 1:29 AM
Lets face it they are not going to be in Avengers.. so id like to see them working for SHIELd if this means they did the main of there work in the 60's its not the end of the world..

you can get away with there silly names and costumes and just say it was the 60's.. and the fact is if they are say they are in there late twenties in the early sixties then they could still be around in modern times just old. Which still means Hank could creat Ultron as hs legacy that goes very wrong.

In regards to his enemies, Hank Pym/Ant-Man does have a large list of enemies and most of them are commie threats (Beast of Berlin, Comrade X, cuba's El Toro ) the others being evil scientist types (Dr Nemisis, Egghead, Paraman) which would suit the post cold war space-race type setting
CorndogBurglar
CorndogBurglar - 10/11/2010, 5:00 AM
That just means that Hank could be Giant Man, and Lang is AntMan.
Sturmpionier
Sturmpionier - 10/11/2010, 7:41 AM
I don't see Marvel essentially writing off two potential Avengers by pushing them 50 years out of continuity just because Edgar Wright feels like it. Remember, the original idea behind the Thor film was to have Thor come to Earth during the Viking era and that didn't survive either since the MCU is a cross-over film universe.

I see the Pyms getting their intro film after 2012 and then getting put on the roster of the Avengers for the 2nd team-up film.
AngryRob
AngryRob - 10/11/2010, 8:26 AM
um, I'm pretty sure he meant the movie would be in a similar tone to the 60's era comics and not set IN the 60s.
Paulley
Paulley - 10/11/2010, 12:45 PM
"The script has been written by Wright and Joe Cornish, who plan to include Henry Pym and Scott Lang as major characters, with Pym as Ant-Man in the 1960s in Tales to Astonish style, and a flashforward to Lang as Ant-Man's successor in the 1980s/1990s."
HotHead
HotHead - 10/11/2010, 5:43 PM
paulley@ dont forget to include whirlwind,the original black night(not dane whitman), & the people's defence force as major hank pym villians. even so most of his rouge gallery is preaty cheesy by today's standerds so it would be hard sell to mainstream audencies unless there changed in away that makes them more intresting to modern audiences.
BIGBMH
BIGBMH - 10/11/2010, 6:18 PM
I really don't like the sound of this. I don't know Pym that well, but he's one of the most important minds of the Marvel universe. What reason do they have to use Scott Lang as the modern Ant Man instead?
Sturmpionier
Sturmpionier - 10/12/2010, 5:19 AM
@BigBMH

None that I can think of.

Let's look at what each character brings to the table thematically for Marvel:

Hank Pym & Janet van Dyne

1)Ultron!
2)Girl power
3)Mental illness
4)Domestic violence
5)guilt

Scott Lang

1)an excuse to introduce Cassie Lang
2)we get to watch him die

Again, I really can't see ditching these two great characters just because of Wright, or the screenwriters current product. They scrapped the Thor script (Viking era) because it didn't fit AND they scrapped the Avengers script in favor of Whedon's vision.

Marvel films has been making movies that are really faithful adaptations of their comics. Dumping the Pyms like this for a story gimmick would be the first time on of their adaptations made a major departure. It seems like something Fox or Sony would do to a Marvel IP rather than something Marvel would do to itself.
Paulley
Paulley - 10/12/2010, 6:42 AM
@Sturmpionier: Really you think Iron Man was in anyway faithful to his original comic appearance... i didnt see a trench coat waering Iron Man wielding a magnet to chase down a fat vietmanies man did you?

Hank in the 60's would infact be more faithful to his comics cus thats when they came out.. and all his storylines were about soviet spies.

@Hothead: yea your right Whirlwind was a big Pym baddie but i just dont see anyway of making him work on screen.

---


Anyway i kinda like the idea becuase then we get to find out more of what SHIELD was upto during its inception post-WW2.. it would be cool to find out that Avengers wasnt the first time SHIELD tried to put a team together.
ROBBEATZZZ
ROBBEATZZZ - 10/12/2010, 8:09 AM
I DONT LIKE TO ASUME..BUT I THINK HE'S GOING TO TAKE THE 60'S COMIC VERSION OF PYM AND USE IT IN THE MODERN MARVEL FILM U
Sturmpionier
Sturmpionier - 10/12/2010, 12:26 PM
@Paulley

I meant overall faithfulness, not strict meticulous detail. By that measure, ALL the main Marvel characters should have settings in the 60's; then add Wolverine 10 years later; Spider-man would be fighting Venom by about age 40; the New Avengers would have an Iron Man in his 70's.

The Pyms were founding Avengers, not half-century antecedents. Iron Man updated his enemies from SE Asian thugs to C Asian thugs. I still found the adaptation pretty faithful overall. Ant-man can still fight Russian spies, maybe not Commie Russian spies. Or maybe they should still be Commies. I guess that depends on how you see Russia these days ;)
Paulley
Paulley - 10/12/2010, 4:07 PM
@Sturmpionier

Lol they keep flying military craft in our airspace, which we have to send jets up to chase them off.. and they assassinate people on our soil... damn commies. :P

Anyway, picking and choosing what what you consider faithful is very subjective.. your saying its wrong to follow one thing but right to follow the other?? who are we to say.

If it turns out to tell a better story Hank and Janet are in the 60's and not in the Avengers then so be it.. having them crammed in to an over packed team film just because "they were Avengers" isnt a good enough reason.
Sturmpionier
Sturmpionier - 10/12/2010, 5:17 PM
@Paulley

You make a good point about canon; what's integral to me may be just an interesting detail to someone else.

I see a strategic problem for Marvel though by setting the Pyms all the way back in the 60's. You would be basically taking two characters that have a decent following and loads of backstory and losing them just for the sake of a single film. Maybe Marvel doesn't see much of a cross over future for them. If that's the case, then they are none the worse for wear for leaving them in 60's. Currently though, Marvel films seems intent on positioning their characters to interact with each other.

As an aside, I'm not arguing for them to be in Avengers 1. That roster does seem full. I'd like to see them replace Hawkeye and Black Widow in Avengers 2. Actually, I'd put up with almost anyone replacing Black Widow.

Paulley
Paulley - 10/13/2010, 2:10 AM
lol.. they could go Ultimate route and make Black Widow and Hawkeye (and War Machine) a covert ops more military based group.

As for the Pyms just cus they became active in the 60's doesnt mean they coannot be involved now.

A) flashbacks (i.e. Howard Stark)
B) Period movies (i.e. Captain America)
B) they would be aged about 70+ ... superscientists tend to be old... and its not like old people cant be active (i.e. Michael Cain's Harry Brown and Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino both had actiony hero characters aged late 80's)
Sturmpionier
Sturmpionier - 10/13/2010, 6:36 AM
Yeah, I was actually thinking along those lines myself. Really old characters probably wouldn't be on any Avengers roster though by the 2nd decade of the 21st century. This is maybe just me, but I wouldn't replace Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne with Scott Lang in my universe if I were running the show. But I'm clearly not.

At any rate, the overall structure of the team is Cap, Thor, Iron Man. The other people are there to make it a full ensemble, but it's the dynamic of the Big Three that will make it entertaining or not.
Paulley
Paulley - 10/13/2010, 9:27 AM
yea i can agree i dont think we would be seeing them running out on the front lines at that age.. SHIELDs retirement plan should be a little better than that
HotHead
HotHead - 10/15/2010, 4:10 AM
sturmpionier@ actuly its the big four because of the hulk after all he was a founding member too,all the founding members minus hank&jan are going to be the backbone of the team
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