There Is A Secret, Gross Connection Between Two Ant-Man Characters
Ant-Man Quantumania writer Jeff Lovesense explains that, yes, Janet Van Dyne and Kang had sex, and no, she doesn't want to talk about it.
At a certain point in everyone’s life, there’s a realization that your parents are just people, flawed individuals that have their own needs. The same holds for superheroes, as Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) discovered in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania when she and her mom, Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), found themselves in the quantum realm. In an interview with writer Jeff Lovesense, a brave IGN reporter asked the question on everyone’s mind: Did Janet Van Dyne and Kang (Jonathan Majors) have an intimate relationship while stranded together for years?
I intentionally left it a little vague, but clearly – let’s say they’re very good friends [laughs].
Jeff Lovesense on the relationship between Janet and Kang in Quantumania
Jeff Lovesense is saying what happened between two consenting adults stuck together for years without saying what happened between two consenting adults. As he explained later in the interview, “And I think sometimes we’re in kind of this YouTube reaction video world where everyone wants every little detail explained. And I don’t think I ascribe to that. I think there’s a magic in what is unsaid and what is not explicitly said.”
Films don’t need to spell out every detail and reveal every nuance of a character’s back story. Death on the Nile did not have to show the origin of Hercules Poiroit’s mustache, but it did it anyways, and during Ant-Man Quantumania, there’s enough of a hint that everyone watching gets what happened.
After encountering Krygar (Bill Murray), Janet explains to Hank (Michael Douglas) that she “had needs.” This means in one of many infinite universes, Catwoman and Peter Venkmen got together. Janet’s open about her involvement with Krygar, but not Kang, and the likely reason why, as shared by the writer of the film, is something very relatable to the viewing public: shame.
Not shame over what may have happened, but shame over who she was with since Ant-Man Quantumania reveals Kang is an insane despot. Imagine if Norman Osborn had somehow been in a relationship with one of Peter Parker’s girlfriends, Gwen Stacy; that would be a very stupid choice for the writers to make but also something that Gwen would never want to mention; it’s a good thing that never happened.
As Lovesense explains, “And maybe she didn’t want to tell the family or the Avengers about it, because if they went down there, he would f**kin’ kill them. Or he would get their Pym Particles and get out.” Keeping Kang secret was to protect the world, especially after Janet was responsible for him staying stuck in the quantum realm. When she first returns to reality in the second Ant-Man film, it’s clear that she’d been through a lot, and relying on a madman that’s destroyed entire timelines counts as a traumatic event.
While we can all agree that Janet and Kang had sex, we can also agree that leaving it unsaid is for the best. Ant-Man Quantumania is still part of the MCU, which rarely even includes characters kissing, and made headlines with The Eternals, including a “sex scene” between Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Icarus (Richard Madden). Paul Rudd‘s latest film is already struggling at the box office, and it doesn’t need any scandal, no matter how minor.
Ant-Man Quantumania kicks off Phase 5 of the MCU and elevates Kang to the level of multiversal threat, ending with Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. All of that is good, as is the implication that characters have fully-realized lives taking place largely off-screen, but no one needs every character detail spelled out on-screen. If only the rest of Hollywood had the same philosophy as Jeff Lovesense, maybe original movies wouldn’t be so rare in today’s theaters.
