‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ Ending Explained: The Kang Dynasty Begins

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania has just been released, and it has already opened up many possibilities for the MCU as the greater storyline moves forward. Of course, the focus of this movie was on the Ant-Family, which has gotten larger over the years. And Quantumania is the newest adventure that this family is forced to go on so that they can grow and stop a potentially catastrophic event from happening.

The main enemy of Quantumania is Kang the Conqueror, who we know will be an even bigger threat to the MCU in the future because of an upcoming Avengers movie named after him. Of course, Kang’s storyline will make sense as we go along with what happened in Quantumania. So, with that said, let’s look at what happened in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and how it ended.

The return to the Quantum Realm

We all know that the Quantum Realm is one of the most important places in the Ant-Man storyline and even in the MCU as a whole. The entire Ant-Man franchise focuses on the Quantum Realm and the endless possibilities it could open up. But we saw during the events of Avengers: Endgame how the Avengers were able to use the Quantum Realm to their advantage by entering it and leaving in certain periods because this realm exists outside the normal boundaries of space and time.

Before we get to the importance of the Quantum Realm in the movie, let’s look at how the events of the film started. After a book reading from Scott Lang, who wrote an entire novel about his life’s journey, he got a call from the San Francisco police about Cassie Lang, his teenage daughter, being detained for doing what she thought was right. The entire father-daughter argument was carried over to dinner when the entire Ant-Family was trying to enjoy a nice meal, and that was when Scott learned that Cassie and Hank were working on an important project.

Cassie showed that she had found a way to communicate with the Quantum Realm without even entering it, as this was an important breakthrough on the part of the Ant-Family, except for Janet Van Dyne, who spent three decades trapped in the Quantum Realm. She was hysteric when she learned Cassie had just sent a signal to the Quantum Realm, forcing her to shut the machine down.

However, it was too late because whoever was on the other side had received the signal and used it to suck the entire Ant-Family into the Quantum Realm. This included almost everything in Hank’s lab, including the smart ants he had been experimenting with.

Ant-Family lost

When the Ant-Family got sucked into the Quantum Realm, they got separated. Hope was with her parents, all while Scott was with Cassie. But the thing was that they were deeper in the Quantum Realm than ever before, as this was part of the realm that had intelligent lifeform. And Janet never told them anything about the real Quantum Realm due to a deep secret that she wanted to keep away from the Ant-Family.

They ended up meeting different people, as Hope used her knowledge of the Quantum Realm to get them to Krylar, a former lover she had while she was in the Quantum Realm so that they could learn more about where Scott and Cassie were. Meanwhile, Scott and Cassie met the resistance fighters that were rebelling against the man called the Conqueror.

After both parties drank an ooze that allowed them to communicate with the citizens of the Quantum Realm, they learned more about this place. The Conqueror had already taken over much of the Quantum Realm and was now looking to get her hands on one of the members of the Ant-Family for reasons that were not yet disclosed. Meanwhile, Scott, Cassie, and the freedom fighters led by Jentorra came under attack when the Conqueror’s forces came to their settlement.

That was when Scott and Cassie were reunited with Darren Cross, who we all know was the antagonist of the first movie. Darren revealed that he could survive the events of the first movie when Scott tampered with his Yellowjacket suit and forced him to shrink uncontrollably until he got to the Quantum Realm. But this led to his body becoming deformed, as his limbs were now incredibly small compared to his enlarged head.

Darren was saved by the Conqueror, who used his futuristic technology to give Darren a fancy new suit that allowed him to move at will despite his deformed appearance. He now became the being called Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing (MODOK) as he answered only to the MODOK name in what was a comedic moment for the movie. MODOK took Scott and Cassie back to the Conqueror’s tower so they could finally meet him.

Meet the Conqueror

After Hope and her parents escaped the forces that were after them so that they could make their way to where Scott and Cassie could be, that was when Janet told them the story of the man called the Conqueror.

Back when Janet was still trapped in the Quantum Realm, she saw a man that crash-landed into the realm. They became friends, as Janet only hoped to have a friend after spending so many years alone in the Quantum Realm. This man carried futuristic technology that was centuries ahead of what humanity was capable of in the real world.

Janet learned that this man was called Kang and was from a future where he could invent a ship capable of traveling through time and space so that he could get to different timelines in different universes. However, the power core of his ship was destroyed. Thinking that Kang could help her return to Hope and Hank, Janet tried her best to fix the power core.

Kang and Janet installed the power core back into the ship, neurologically connected to Kang. Upon touching the ship, Janet connected to the neurological network between it and Kang as she learned about his actions. She discovered that he destroyed entire worlds, timelines, and universes throughout his lifetime, forcing her to try to stop him even though he was her only hope of ever returning to her world.

When Kang discovered what Janet saw, he revealed that he never got lost in time but was simply exiled there by the people who sabotaged his ship. As such, he wanted to return to where he came from to get his revenge and then continue with his goal of conquering and destroying worlds.

Janet stole the power core right after Kang recovered his suit from his ship. This futuristic suit, however, was too powerful for her Wasp suit to handle, and that was what forced Janet to use her Pym discs on the power core to enlarge it so that Kang’s ship wouldn’t be able to use it.

Meanwhile, back in Kang’s tower, the duo of Scott and Cassie finally met the Conqueror, who used his power to torture Cassie so that Scott would be forced to help him out with a “heist.” But what he wanted Scott to do was to get to the center of the enlarged power core so that he could use his Pym particles to shrink it back to size.

Scott got to the center but got into trouble with a probability storm that created different versions of himself. After initially failing, Scott got some much-needed help from Hope, who arrived just in time with her parents. They could shrink the power core back to size, only for Kang to take it and Janet from them without even giving Cassie back. 

While the Ant-Family failed in that regard, they got some much-needed backup when Hank found out that the ants that he had been working within the real world found themselves in the Quantum Realm a thousand years ago and were able to create a civilization there. These ants had numbers and technology almost on par with Kang’s army and tech.

The Conqueror falls

In his tower, Kang showed Janet what he had been planning the entire time. Instead of just taking his ship back to where he came from, he wanted to take his entire army to get his revenge on the people that wronged and exiled him to the Quantum Realm. As such, he needed to integrate the entire power core into his tower.

Still being held captive, Cassie escaped and freed Jentorra, who told her they needed to sabotage Kang’s signal so they could send the word out to the rest of the freedom fighters that they needed to act now. While Jentorra was holding off some of Kang’s men, it was up to Cassie to rally the freedom fighters, as almost all of the Quantum Realm got her message.

Scott and the Ant-Family came just in time to try to stop him from achieving his goals. Using his suit, Scott enlarged himself to his full size as he tried to keep Kang’s ships and defenses at bay. Luckily for him, the freedom fighters came to assist him, and he was able to focus on getting to Kang’s tower. Meanwhile, Kang sent MODOK out to kill Cassie due to her meddling.

Cassie successfully defeated MODOK by enlarging herself. Instead of killing MODOK, she told him to stop being a dick, as Darren seemingly got the message. Meanwhile, Scott successfully destroyed the mechanism that was supposed to send Kang’s army out of the Quantum Realm.

Kang, tired of the Ant-Family and the freedom fighters, entered the fight. Using his futuristic suit, he could easily overwhelm the freedom fighters and the Ant-Family. However, Hank came just in time with his giant ant army. They overwhelmed Kang and his forces, as the Conqueror was seemingly defeated, especially after Darren sacrificed himself when he betrayed his master. Meanwhile, Janet told them she had one shot of using Kang’s ship to open a portal back to their world.

After Hank, Janet, Hope, and Cassie left the Quantum Realm through the portal, Kang prevented Scott from doing so. With his suit damaged, he was no longer as invincible as he once was but was still more than a handful for Ant-Man to handle. As he was trying to make his way out of the Quantum Realm after beating Scott up, Hope came back to help. They used the Pym discs to destroy the power core, as Kang was also killed when he tried to stop the discs from destroying them.

Meanwhile, Cassie found a way to open up a new portal that allowed Scott and Hope to return to their world. The movie ended with Scott celebrating with the Ant-Family. However, he can’t help but shake off the feeling about what Kang told them when he warned them that something worse than him was about to come. Still, he thought it might not be such a big deal.

The Kang Dynasty begins

In the mid-credit scene, we saw different versions of Kang from different timelines talking about how the “exiled one” had been killed. These versions of Kang were responsible for exiling him to the Quantum Realm, as it was clear that the Conqueror was the most dangerous variant of this character.

Nevertheless, these versions of Kang decided to summon all of the Kang variants to a world that is seemingly outside of space and time. And they did so because the people of Universe-616 were now more knowledgeable of the multiverse than ever before.

In that regard, the foundations of the upcoming Avengers: Kang Dynasty movie have now been set. While the Kang that we saw in Quantumania was an incredibly dangerous man with technology that could overwhelm entire worlds, an entire army composed of variants of Kang is more dangerous. And while we don’t know what these variants of Kang are up to, we all know that they don’t like how the people of Universe-616 are now aware of the existence of the multiverse and the possibilities that come with such knowledge.