Is The Real Reason Ant-Man Wasn't in 'Infinity War' Because He's Unsnappable?

Throughout the promotional campaign for Avengers: Infinity War, one of the many questions fans across the globe had was: where the hell is Ant-Man? He was a major player in the airport battle in Captain America: Civil War, but we'd not seen him since he was in The Raft towards the end of that film. With the majority of Earth's Mightiest Heroes took the fight to Thanos in Infinity War, Ant-Man and Hawkeye were glaring omissions from that battle, and we didn't see them (spoiler alert!) turn into dust during the Snap Felt 'Round the Universe. While the status of Hawkeye became a running joke before and after the film, what we really wanna know is: where the HELL was Ant-Man?

With Ant-Man and the Wasp being the only Marvel Studios film to be released between Infinity War and 2019's Captain Marvel, we have to assume that the Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly-led sequel will provide some answers on Ant-Man's whereabouts during Infinity War... right? Well, not necessarily.

During a September 2017 Ant-Man and the Wasp set visit in Atlanta, we got a chance to sit with the film's director Peyton Reed (who also directed 2015's Ant-Man) and ask him, point blank, how the global ramifications coming out of Infinity War fit into Ant-Man and the Wasp. While definitely secretive in his response, Reed was still very insightful.

"I think we definitely had to deal with the ramifications post-Civil War," Reed began. "That was crucial to Scott [Ant-Man] and crucial to Hope [The Wasp]. It really is fundamental to what’s going on between the two of them at the start of this movie. Outside of that, what I’m really happy about is we’re free to tell our free-standing story. Once we establish that as the leaping off point, [it's understood that] this thing is going on over here."

Reed pointed out that Scott and Hope were dealing with "huge personal stakes and huge other stakes that are really separate of what’s going on with Infinity War. That, again, is something that was really, really appealing to me," he explained. "We have enough stuff to track in this movie without having to sort of keep abreast of what’s going on in [Infinity War]."

Based on that statement, it feels like Ant-Man and the Wasp is tied closer to the events of Civil War, to the point where it more than likely takes place prior to the events of Infinity War, which was also the case with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Does that mean that this film will have nothing to do with Infinity War, though? Not at all, and allow us to theorize for a minute.

The MCU has proven to be a vast universe; from New York to Knowhere, wild stuff is going on all the time, and pretty much simultaneously. Ant-Man and the Wasp might not take place immediately after Infinity War, but who's to say that the Snap Heard 'Round the Universe doesn't play into the end of film? Could we be seeing certain characters in the Ant-Man franchise start to disintegrate similar to many of our favorites at the end of Infinity War? Could we, say, see Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas) disappear, and his old buddy (and former Project Goliath assistant) Bill Foster (aka Black Goliath, played by Laurence Fishburne) take over as the cranky paternal figure in future films?

Another intriguing idea is that while Ant-Man and the Wasp could more than likely does take place before Infinity War, we could learn things in this film that'll play a bigger role in future Marvel projects, particularly in helping the remaining heroes figure out how to take down Thanos. A rumored Avengers 4 synopsis says "[o]ur beloved heroes will truly understand how fragile this reality is and the sacrifices that must be made to uphold it." Interesting word choice there with "reality." While not an alternate reality, the first Ant-Man film briefly took us into the Quantum Realm. Could Ant-Man be finding out more about this Realm (and the possibilities of alternate realities) in the sequel and, with his allegiance to Captain America, use that knowledge to hopefully reverse whatever Thanos did with the Gauntlet? Time will tell.

So, is Ant-Man truly unsnappable? That's to be determined. However, if Ant-Man is unsnappable, the reasoning could be that he'll have information that, along with whatever powers Captain Marvel bring to the table, could help right the wrongs of Infinity War.