The bigger picture

When it comes to Marvel’s franchise, each movie must contain references to the other MCU movies, if not completely setting them up. From this point of view, Captain America: The First Avenger was called many a times a big commercial for the first Avengers movie. In the same way, Avengers: Age of Ultron was rather disappointing, and not just because the director didn’t find the right formula to give each superhero its own plotline. It fell short because it had to setup many Phase III movie, with Civil War and Infinity War being the biggest one.

Ant-Man didn’t have to carry the same burden. It was an origin story with quite a few Easter-Eggs, but it was actually pretty self-contained. It was fun because the director(s) didn’t have to worry too much about what happens next.

Sure enough, the movie did introduce us to possible future movies (Doctor Strange, for example). However, it didn’t do it in a most obvious way, as it has happened with the above mentioned titles. From this point of view, Ant-Man was way better!

On the next page, the origin story!