A lot happens in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, especially at the end. Want to make sure you got everything? Worried that there’s a detail you missed? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a breakdown of the Quantumania ending!
Major spoilers ahead!
The Quantum Realm is saved
Kang’s big plan, throughout the film, is to retrieve the energy core of his ship and use it to escape the Quantum Realm. That way, he can continue his quest to overcome all the other Kangs fighting for supremacy over the multiverse. As dictator of the Quantum Realm, he’s built an empire and amassed an army, and he’s raring to go.
As Kang activates his engine and starts to launch his ship, Scott, Hope, Cassie, Hank, and Janet all try to stop him. They’re joined by Jentorra and her freedom fighters, who need to defeat Kang in order to win back their home, which Kang conquered. Thanks to a sudden intervention from Hank’s hyper-intelligent ants, the freedom fighters manage to quell Kang’s forces and the Quantum Realm is restored to its rightful denizens. M.O.D.O.K., née Darren Cross, a.k.a. Yellowjacket from the first Ant-Man, decides to turn against Kang, and dies thinking that he’s become an Avenger. Scott lets him have the title.
Meanwhile, after Hank, Janet, and Cassie escape the Quantum Realm, Scott finds himself locked in a bloody showdown with Kang. When Hope joins the fight, though, they’re able to blow up Kang’s engine core again—this time, taking Kang with it. Is Kang dead, or just trapped inside the core? We don’t see a body, but one post-credit scene implies that he’s gone for good. Either way, Cassie opens a new portal from her lab back in San Francisco, and Scott and Hope go home.
The ant-gang gets their happy ending … for now
We find Scott back in San Francisco, enjoying his life again. He buys an ice cream cake and throws a party for Cassie’s birthday, even though it’s not actually her birthday. When she calls him on it, he explains that he’s just making up for lost time. It turns out that you don’t have to play with time travel to regain time with the ones you love. You just have to make the time you do have count.
After picking up the cake, though, Scott is plagued with sudden doubts. What did Kang mean when he said that something worse would come if he was defeated? By defeating Kang, has Scott unleashed something far more terrible on the world? (And where, oh where, have we seen this dilemma before?)
Scott decides not to worry about it, though, deciding that the world has definitely seen the last of Kang. Oh, and those rumors that Ant-Man dies at the end of Quantumania? Not true. Scott is just fine.
Of course, his doubts are warranted, as we see in the post-credit scenes. You can read our full rundown of those scenes here, but suffice it to say that there are many more Kangs coming—and they’ve already started scattering across the multiverse.
How Quantumania sets up the Multiverse Saga
The next time we see Kang will probably be in Loki season 2. Loki and Mobius catch up with one of Kang’s variants, Victor Timely, in the second post-credit scene, and there’s still that giant Kang statue at the TVA to contend with.
After that, it’s hard to predict where Kang will pop up. We’ll definitely see him in 2025’s The Avengers: the Kang Dynasty—in fact, Kang hints at that dynasty during his announcement to the troops in Quantumania, before Cassie cuts off his transmission.
However, all the different Kang variants out there mean that there are plenty of ways Marvel can pepper its upcoming projects with Kang cameos. They may do what they did with Thanos in the Infinity Saga, giving us frequent hints about what Kang is up to while all the smaller stories in the MCU play out.
In the meantime, I hope Scott enjoys his ice cream cake! Oh, wait, we see in the last shot that it’s disgusting. Ah well.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
