Ant-Man

Scott Lang is the MCU's most structurally important minor character. The Ant-Man films are explicitly low-stakes heist comedies, and they work because Paul Rudd plays Scott as a genuinely ordinary person — more concerned with reconnecting with his daughter than with saving the world. But the Quantum Realm discovered in Ant-Man and the Wasp becomes the entire mechanism of Avengers: Endgame's time heist, making the smallest Avenger arguably the pivot point of the franchise's climactic resolution.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) takes the series in a different direction, sending Scott into the Quantum Realm and introducing Kang the Conqueror — the primary antagonist of the Multiverse Saga. The shift from grounded heist comedy to cosmic stakes doesn't entirely work, but the film's importance to the broader MCU arc is substantial: it establishes Kang's scale and the existential threat of the Council of Kangs. For casual fans, the first two Ant-Man films are light, enjoyable viewing; for Multiverse Saga completionists, Quantumania is essential context.