Ant-Man: Marvel Universe Easter Eggs and Comics References Guide

This article contains major Ant-Man spoilers and explanations of both Ant-Man post-credits scenes, so you might not want to read it until after you've seen the movie.

UPDATE: 

The mid-credits stinger from the Ant-Man movie has been officially released online. You can watch it right here, and then click here to get taken to the section of this article that deals specifically with explaining it.

Ant-Man has never been the most well known or beloved of Marvel superheroes, but he's been around longer than most of your favorites. Like most Marvel Studios flicks, the Ant-Man movie starring Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas as two generations of shrinking hero pays plenty of tribute to the character's comic book history. 

With that in mind, we're here to give you as much information as we can about what hidden comic book gems are stashed all around the Ant-Manmovie. Note that this article isn't necessarily chronological. For example, you'll see an explanation of the first post-credits scene comes during my discussion of the Wasp.

Now, please keep in mind, I did this after only one viewing, so I'm bound to have missed a few things. I'll update this when I see it again, and anything verifiable that you can throw at me in the comments or on Twitter will also get added!

Let me just get everyone up to speed on the first of our two Ant-Men...

- Michael Douglas is Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym, and for the vast majority of Ant-Man's existence in Marvel Comics, he has been the company's primary shrinking hero. The movie kicks off in 1989, not because it's a banner year for Ant-Man or anything, but because it's a good way to illustrate that the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Ant-Man operated during the Cold War era.

- Hank first appeared in 1962 in Tales to Astonish #27, in a story called "The Man in the Ant-Hill," although he didn't get the fancy costume until Tales to Astonish #35. Hank was created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby. 

- So, a little bit later, when Darren Cross is talking about Hank's career and makes that "tales to astonish" joke, now you know what he was talking about. Oh, and you know who else made his first appearance in the pages of Tales to Astonish? A less cuddly version of Groot, long before his Guardians of the Galaxy days.

- Unlike the movie Ant-Man, the comic book version was a founding member of the Avengers. Very much like the movie version, though, Hank was inseparable from Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp. More on her in a bit.

- Hank has a long and impressive career as one of the most brilliant minds in the Marvel Universe, but his history is so confusing that we had to write an entire article about JUST that. You can read it here.

- As for the other folks in that opening scene, Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter needs no additional introduction, and I have to assume that you recognize John Slattery as Howard Stark, who also needs no additional interruption. To the best of my knowledge, neither of those characters ever met Hank Pym in the comics, but the Marvel Universe is a big, strange place, so feel free to correct me. 

- The other person in the room is Mitchell Carson (played by Martin Donovan). Carson is notable for having been co-created by The Walking Dead's Robert Kirkman, and the comic book version was intended to be SHIELD's Ant-Man, until someone else (Eric O'Grady) stole the suit. I can't imagine he's destined for any of that here.

- Scott Lang, on the other hand, didn't show up in the Marvel Universe until 1979. He was created by David Michelinie and John Byrne. Like Hank, you're getting a rather streamlined version of the character here on screen, but the broad strokes are correct. In the comics, it was his daughter's illness that left him needing money for her treatment that motivated him to steal the Ant-Man tech, and he eventually proved himself a hero.

Interestingly enough, he just recently had a stint as the leader of a Fantastic Four team as part of the Future Foundation. It's fun stuff by writer Matt Fraction with some wonderful art by Mike Allred. If you're looking for something a little more out there than your average Marvel Ant-Man story, you should check these out.

If you're looking for something a little more traditional, the current series by Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas is as close as you're going to get to taking a new chapter of the movie home with you. It's really a lovely comic, and pretty damn funny.

- The Ant-Man costume, is a pretty slick looking update of what is generally considered to be the character's best known look. Keep in mind that the Ant-Man character has had a TON of uniforms, but in general, the red/black color scheme and clunky helmet are pretty much the inspiration here.

See?

And speaking of comic book accuracy...

Ant-Man's preferred method of transportation has always been hitching a ride on a friendly (or not so friendly) flying insect. 

This is a fairly iconic moment, at least as far as Ant-Man has iconic moments, so seeing shots like this next one in the movie definitely pushed my Marvel buttons...

- The place that Scott is staying at after he gets out of prison is The Milgrom Hotel, named for comic book writer, penciller, inker, and editor Al Milgrom. Some of my favorite Milgrom work includes his art on The Deadly Foes of Spider-Man, and his inking of Ron Frenz on Thor. He was also the first artist on the first Avengers spinoff title, The West Coast Avengers. Since the Ant-Man movie takes place on the west coast, it's fitting that there's a hotel in his honor here.

- The Pym Technologies logo sure does look like something that Ant-Man co-creator Jack Kirby would have designed. Here's a better look at the logo:

See those lines and circles? That was like Kirby's universal symbol for unfathomable technology. For comparison, here's a Jack Kirby image from The Eternals (who had a quiet reference in Guardians of the Galaxy, too), positively loaded with the same abstract circuitry:

I feel like there's a little of that classic Marvel Comics DNA in this high-tech chamber that Darren Cross power struts into, as well:

Basically, if you need ridiculous technology in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just go back and look at Jack Kirby drawings and figure out a way to do them in three dimensions!

Oh, and who the hell is Darren Cross, anyway? Darren! Yo! Turn around!

Okay, so...who is Darren Cross? I'll tell you who he sure as hell isn't...and that's Yellowjacket. But he was definitely the first villain that the Scott Lang version of Ant-Man faced off with (and, like Scott, Darren was created by David Michelinie and John Byrne), so that's a nice bit of synergy. It's rare in these movies that you see that happen.

Corey Stoll is really cool, by the way, and we have an interview with him talking about how awesome it is to be the villain in a movie like this right here.

Anyway...

The comic book Darren Cross was also a douchey business scientist, and the mock-up of Cross Technological Enterprises that you see in the movie is the name of his company in the comics. He was also superpowered, but not in the way we saw in the film. Instead, he was searching for a way to fix his defective heart and ended up looking like if the Hulk was made out of bubblegum.

Not that I'm complaining, really. The Yellowjacket design for the movie is infinitely cooler than anything comic book accurate, anyway.

We should probably discuss the whole Yellowjacket thing, though...

- So, aside from the fact that I absolutely adore the Yellowjacket design here, the name has long-standing ties to Ant-Man lore, even if it was deployed way differently in the movie. 

Like I said, Hank Pym's comic book history is pretty long and twisty, but here's the very shortest version I can come up with. He liked to play with different identities and costumes. He was Ant-Man, then he was Giant-Man for awhile, and then he was Yellowjacket...then he went on to other things. It's bonkers.

But while he was Yellowjacket, he was having some mental health issues. At one point in the film, Hope Van Dyne tells Darren Cross that he's acting weird because the constant experimenting with the Pym Particles is "affecting your brain chemistry." 

The constant messing around with chemistry did have something to do with Hank's own identity issues in the comics. While he was still technically a hero as Yellowjacket, he also wasn't the nicest, most heroic guy. I guess a little of that is reflected in the big screen Darren Cross.

Anyway, enough about that dick. We've got more good stuff about The Wasp and those post-credits sequences coming...