Unlike almost every other outlet you’re likely to see on the internet right now, I enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It’s the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first of the sprawling canon’s fifth phase, and despite featuring a cringe-CGI bonanza, it’s a lot of fun.
Some time after the events of Avengers: Endgamewhich relied heavily on the highly fictionalized ~quantum physics~ and time travel components introduced into the The ant Man franchise, Paul RuddScott Lang lives his best life before he and his family are inadvertently transported to the microscopic Quantum Realm and introduced to an all-powerful variant of the mysterious Multiversal Overlord, Kang the Conqueror. A lot of Quantum is unfortunately tedious, as it quickly introduces one staggering concept after another, leaving the audience struggling to follow; but in addition to Rudd’s signature charm, the film is held together by his character’s rebellious young daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton). Through the time jump presented in End of Game, Ant-Man’s once precocious child is now old enough to go to jail – repeatedly! – for protesting against the police and getting caught up in all sorts of trouble. She’s holding on after her dad in a truly heartwarming way, all the while becoming a Tony Stark-level super-genius.
As excited as I am about adult Cassie, I have to ask: does every MCU superhero need a kid right now?
From End of Game, nearly every member of the original Avengers gang and every other superhero in their orbit has embarked on the joys and heartaches of parenthood. In End of Game, shortly before Stark’s death, we are introduced to his young daughter Morgan. In Wanda Visionthe first project after End of Gamewe meet the twin sons of Wanda and Vision, who also played a key role in the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Hawk Eye is all about Hawkeye racing home for Christmas to be with his family, while mentoring and taking on a fatherly role for Hailey Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop. The season finale of She-Hulk reveals that Bruce Banner has a teenage son on the distant planet of Sakaar, where he was stranded for two years for Thor: Ragnarok.
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Speaking of Thor, Thor: Love and Thunder ends with the God of Thunder adopting his nemesis’ young daughter and embarking on space adventures with her as his sidekick. And perhaps most memorable, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever features a mid-credits scene of Shuri learning that her late brother T’Challa is survived by a young son named after him.
As someone who’s inhaled every MCU project since covid-era shelter-in-place guidelines denied me any other form of entertainment, don’t get me wrong, I’ve formed strong attachments to some of these characters. My dog is named Bucky after the Winter Soldier himself. But every superhero that suddenly, almost simultaneously, spawns a mini-me is a lot like a franchise that’s not ready to let go of its past and embrace its future — a new generation of superheroes that aren’t just extensions of a previous generation of heroes.
I also can’t help but ask myself more practical questions: When can you even be a superhero while being a parent? Even in a world as highly fictional as Marvel’s, I can more easily believe in aliens than in the United States adopting well-funded universal childcare programs. Or, maybe the MCU’s big embrace of parenthood is actually a heartwarming metaphor for how parents have always been the real superheroes, all this time??
In any case, whatever your opinion on the reproductive life of the Avengers, I remember the legacy of Black Widow, considered the mother of the Avengers, although her forced hysterectomy prevented her from having biological children. At Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of UltronNatasha describes herself as a “freak” for not having children, a mean and stigmatizing line that I will probably never be able to forgive the MCU for subjecting us to.
At a time when James Cameron is spit nonsense about Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman being less than having no children, and all of the Avengers suddenly balancing worldsaving duties with domestic life, it feels like we’re stretching more plus the cultural imagination in our assessment of what it takes to be “great”. I can only brace myself for what this could mean for female superheroes.