No matter how you feel about each and every movie in the MCU, it’s pretty wild that Marvel has managed (via our Disney overlords) to create the first 10-year sequence of interconnected franchises. Ever.
Yeah, I know, Hollywood’s been pumping out Bond movies for about a million years, but that’s not the same and you know it.
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The MCU is basically the film franchise equivalent of that scene where Dr. Strange goes bouncing through the multiverse.
That wobbly bit off in the corner is Iron Man 2 and we don’t talk about it.
So one of the unique* joys of the MCU is the sheer interconnectedness of it all.
You can go back through an entire decade of films and figure out stuff nobody else has.
*unique until DC gets their act together, which might be never.
And sure, maybe sometimes fans are seeing connections that aren’t really there.
But you can usually count on Reddit to go full conspiracy theory with the smallest details they discover.
So when someone hits on an undiscovered link, it can get some attention.
Reddit user leafinferno said that they’d noticed something in Thor: The Dark World that lined up with Avengers: Infinity War in a very interesting way.
Basically, the idea is this:
In Thor: The Dark World , when Jane Foster is possessed by the Aether (actually the Reality Stone) and being scanned by the weird Asgardian MRI machine, she and the technician debate whether it should be called a “quantum field generator” or the admittedly snappier “Soul Forge.”
But what the heck does THAT mean?
Well, it means that as far as the MCU is concerned, there’s a direct relationship between souls and anything with the label quantum slapped onto it.
Like, say, the Soul Stone and the Quantum Realm?
And this is where other MCU theories begin to link up. Reddit user memeabstinent connected leafinferno ‘s detail to their own idea.
This is where we’re gonna get a little deeper, so hold on.
See, at the end of Ant-Man And The Wasp , when Scott goes into the Quantum Realm to grab “healing particles” to bring back, it happens during the Snap.
At first, the Quantum Realm is bluish and calm — but by the time Scotty is getting panicked that nobody’s yanked him back to Normal Realm, he’s surrounded by more and more orange blobs swirling around.
So let me get this straight: Scotty Boy’s hanging out with all the dusted characters?
If I thought was gonna die by crumbling into ash and the afterlife turned out to be chilling with Paul Rudd…well, I can’t say I’d be disappointed .
Also, we know that someone in the Quantum Realm can still reach out to…the, uh, Normal Realm.
Janet van Dyne did it to Scott so she could help get herself out of the Quantum Realm.
So if she could do it…can anyone?
I mean, Janet did spend a couple decades down there, and the Quantum Realm is pretty trippy.
Although, apparently everything is fine once you take your helmet off. What is this, Prometheus ? Did Ridley Scott consult on Ant-Man ?
There’s another pretty important detail that popped up on Reddit.
User dubstastic posted this “blink and you’ll miss it” screengrab from Hank and Janet’s romantic getaway from the Quantum Realm.
Uh…is that a legit city down there?
Alright, all of this is starting to add up, right?
I mean, it definitely explains how Janet was able to expand her wardrobe despite us never seeing any subatomic tailors.
Maybe it’s also how she picked up those magic quantum powers, too.
So what’s up? Is this micro-city full of other people who got shrunk subatomic?
Alternate Theory: That movie Downsizing with Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig is actually part of the MCU. Prove me wrong.
But seriously, this means it’s almost 100% that the Quantum Realm is gonna be a *big* deal going forward.
Ugh, sorry about that.
But let’s be real, there was no way I was gonna avoid that “big” pun forever, so I’m just owning it now.
So when next we see the Quantum Realm, we might find out it’s sharing real estate with the Soul Stone.
And if Ant-Man is the one hero who can do the most to reverse Thanos’ big win at the end of Avengers: Infinity War , well…
Thanos might become the first being in the multiverse who isn’t happy to see Paul Rudd.
