The recent D23 event showed off footage for the upcoming Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. While the footage hasn’t yet been released to the public, it was the first look at Kathryn Newton playing Cassie Lang. The character has already been seen played by two different actors in the MCU as she continues to grow up.
While Cassie hasn’t yet taken on any superhero persona of her own, it is likely that she will team alongside her dad and the Wasp in the upcoming threequel. This makes it the perfect time to catch up on the comic book history of her most significant moments.
6 Marvel Premiere (1972)
Issue #47 of Marvel Premiere debuted the Astonishing Ant-Man starring Scott Lang in his first appearance as the shrinking hero. The issue told of Scott’s backstory, having gone to jail for burglary and gotten out only for his daughter to develop a rare heart condition. This drained his finances and led to his return to crime. After happening to rob Hank Pym’s house, he finds the Ant-Man suit and proceeds to take on the mantle.
This issue doesn’t feature a great deal of Cassie Lang. She only appears in flashbacks as a child, but the knowledge that it was her illness that prompted her father to eventually take on his superhero mantle makes it a part of her story as well. The good intentions of her father all along help to show how she grew up in a world where being a hero could mean anything, and inevitably this was part of what led to her own superhero journey.
5 A-Next (1998)
A-Next was a series that imagined what the Avengers would look like fifteen years ahead of where the prime timeline was at that point. Cassandra Lang became Stinger after picking up a signal for help while making modifications to her father’s old helmet. This issue was the first ever comic that saw Cassie pick up a costume and become a hero in her own right.
The issue ended with some of the heroes that fought against Loki leaving and others, including Cassie, agreeing to reform the Avengers as a team. This futuristic team wasn’t to be long-lived, the series only ran for 12 issues, but it began the discourse around Cassie as a hero in her own right.
4 Young Avengers (2005)
While she didn’t make an appearance in the first issue of the Young Avengers series, Cassie would go on to become a permanent member of the team. After the death of her father Scott, Cassie lived with her mother and stepfather but was unhappy and prepared to leave and join the Runaways. However, when she heard about the Young Avengers, she vowed to seek them out instead.
Alongside Kate Bishop, who the Young Avengers had recently saved, Cassie found the team and helped them in a battle before officially joining. This occurred in Young Avengers #6, a huge issue for Cassie as it led to her first major, modern arc as a hero, naming herself Stature.
3 Ant-Man (2015)
The Ant-Man 2015 series coincided with the release of the Ant-Man film in cinemas, and Scott Lang was reinventing himself while trying to get a security position at Stark Industries. He did this primarily because he wanted a better position that could help him become a good father for Cassie, who was still a young child at this point and was living with her mother.
While it wasn’t crucial for Cassie’s own development, this series was another attempt by Marvel to show how Cassie was hugely important in her father’s superheroic endeavors and how his good intentions were a part of leading her towards her own journey into that world.
2 Astonishing Ant-Man (2015)
The Astonishing Ant-Man run began after Secret Wars ended the previous Ant-Man series extremely quickly. This series saw a new side of Cassie, as in this continuity she had been de-powered and moved across the country while her father tried to start his own security solutions company as Ant-Man. She ended up taking the new superhero role of Stinger in this series and got a lot of focus on her development into this hero role.
Finally getting a chance to be a hero alongside her father, although not always to his delight, was a great move for Cassie and helped the series at times feel reminiscent of the famous Matt Fraction run as Hawkeye. This could also be much more like the role she’ll take on with Kathryn Newton playing her in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania.
1 Ant-Man (2020)
All of this led to the most recent Ant-Man series which kicked off in 2020. With Scott Lang now living in an anthill, his daughter Cassie isn’t overly impressed by him and Scott tries to take on odd jobs and solve global conspiracies, all with the aim of raising his daughter’s opinion of him. This series has been hugely fun and again features Cassie as Stinger teaming up with her father.
The series is a look into the minds of Marvel major players and where they believe the Scott Lang character is heading in comics, with Cassie being a major part of that as she always has been. Whether Cassie suits up in the new film or not, her character is likely to become a feature of Marvel films going forward.