'Ant-Man and the Wasp' Concept Art Could Explain 'Avengers 4' Time Travel

'Avengers 4' Quantum Realm

So far, virtually all of the Avengers 4 speculation has struggled to integrate the Quantum Realm with alternate dimensions and time travel, but a new emerging theory might have finally cracked a big secret: It’s all about memories.

On Friday, Screen Rant outlined a really convincing theory about Avengers 4 that references unused concept art from Ant-Man and the Wasp to explain how several characters in the upcoming movie might travel into their own memories rather than more traditional time travel. It’s a subtle difference, but a sensible one all the same.

Set photos from Avengers 4 so far seem to indicate that some Avengers, including Ant-Man, will travel back to the Battle of New York from the first Avengers movie. But rather than get there via some kind of time machine, they might go through some portals within the Quantum Realm to time-travel via their own memories. It would, at the very least, explain why they’d be limited to visiting events they’ve experienced before — not unlike Tony Stark’s B.A.R.F. technology.

BARF allows Tony to experience memories as if he were there. Could they use that in 'Avengers 4'?
BARF allows Tony to experience memories as if he were there in 'Civil War'. This new tech would be similar but different.

Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: The Art of the Movie was released on July 17, and it features used and unused concept art from the movie with annotations by Marvel’s concept artist Jackson Sze and other. One section related to the Quantum Realm has several revelations, like “an entire ecosystem” of creatures only hinted at with the Tardigrades shown in Ant-Man and the Wasp and the implication that Janet Van Dyne acquired her gear from a civilization living in the Quantum Realm.

But supposedly, a series of images in the book depict Hank Pym inside the Quantum Realm approaching a column of light that reconstructs reality around him, plunging him into a “surreal representation of his own memories.” One lengthy quote from Sze contextualizes this further:

“Early on, there was almost a Nexus inside the Quantum Realm that they wanted to explore, which was a quantum memory palace. I think they were discussing ideas about how Hank might actually be able to go into his own memories and change history.”

This “Nexus” could supposedly be the heart of the Quantum Realm that syncs up with a person’s memories to transport a projection of their consciousness back into their memories.

Those tardigrades aren't the only weird things down in the Quantum Realm.

Perhaps the devices on the hands of Tony Stark and Scott Lang in those aforementioned set photos implying time travel are what allow them to interact with their past memories?

In theory, a human entering the Nexus could allow them to relive their own memories or even enter them as a separate being to interact with their past selves. This is all some really heady, barely comprehensible abstraction. But in really bizarre way, maybe physical time travel is possible but the mechanism through which it happens relies entirely on a person’s memories?