Ant-Man and the Wasp saw the MCU debut of Janet Van Dyne, a character with a long history in the comics as the original Wasp, as played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Fans were excited to see what the sequel would do with her and while the actress made a big impression in the part, we didn’t get too much of Janet in action. Mostly because a large chunk of the plot revolved around rescuing her from the Quantum Realm.
Now, director Peyton Reed’s explained that Janet’s limited screentime was partially deliberate, as he wanted to retain a sense of mystery about her missing decades. This was to get fans theorizing about what effect living in the Quantum Realm for 30 years has had on her – including the new powers she seems to have gained.
“We wanted to maintain a little bit of mystery about Janet and what has transpired in the thirty years she’s been down there [in the Quantum Realm] and also the idea she talks about how she’s evolved while she’s down there. We only see a couple of examples of it.”
However, there were also some scenes they wanted to keep that would have given us more Janet (and Hank) but ultimately had to go. Thankfully, though, these will be included on the home video release of the movie, according to Reed.
“There’s a little bit more Janet on the Blu-Ray and DVD release. There will be one deleted scene with Hank and Janet down there, which we just couldn’t find a place for in the movie.”
From what we can gather from Ant-Man 2, Janet’s time in the Realm has given her a sort of affinity with Quantum particles. In the movie, we see her attune to Scott’s brainwaves by sending him a psychic message and also possessing him for a short time – a process called “Quantum Entanglement.” Most impressively, she was able to heal Ava Starr AKA the Ghost of her life-threatening condition.
Clearly, if Ant-Man 3‘s ordered by Marvel, we might get to explore Janet in interesting new ways. Even if a threequel isn’t on the cards, though, at least the Blu-Ray release of Ant-Man and the Wasp will give us a little more of the OG Wasp.