Major spoilers ahead. Turn back now if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

In the mid-credits scene in Ant Man and the Wasp,

Scott goes subatomic to gather “healing particles” for Ava aka Ghost.

Before he does so, however,

Janet warns him to avoid a “time vortex,” as they won’t be able to get him out if he does so.

Is this what it sounds like?

There’s been Avengers 4 rumors that time travel will be involved.

If this is what it sounds like, it could be confirmation of this theory. Are there any indications from the comics what this might be referring to?

closed as primarily opinion-based by Paulie_D, Buzz, Möoz, FuzzyBoots, TheLethalCarrot Jul 12 '18 at 6:46


  • It was the area with those worm looking things where Dr.Pym stopped for a while when he was on his way to find Janet, I can't seem to recall the name. – Thusal Hettiarachchi Jul 8 '18 at 11:03
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    @ThusalHettiarachchi I'm pretty sure those were just water bears, it seemed like Pym got stopped before he shrank down far enough and was temporarily stuck microscopic-sized. He wasn't in the quantum realm yet. – DaaaahWhoosh Jul 9 '18 at 17:56

tl;dr - No, it's a new creation for the movies, based on an idea in the comics they can't use.

The Quantum Realm is the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of The Microverse, as it's referred to in the comics. They don't have the film rights to the name, as it was used most often (and fleshed out the most) in the Micronauts comics, and they don't have those rights anymore.

Various versions of the Microverse have appeared in other comics, like the Fantastic Four, into which Doctor Doom disappears in an early adventure. Jarella's World in The Hulk was a micro-world as well.

In the comics, the Microverse is technically a parallel dimension that one passes into once someone shrinks past a certain threshold.

Since they couldn't use the Microverse, they adapted / created the Quantum Realm, which shares some of the same DNA with the comics version, but a lot of new ideas. All of the ideas of time anomalies and the like were whipped up for the films.

Tardigrades are a real thing, tho.

Doctor Strange witnesses the Quantum Realm for a moment in his film as he is made to pass through various dimensions and mystical zones.

There's a number of fan theories that the Quantum Realm, the energy found within it, and those very hand-wavy at the moment time anomalies will play a major role in Avengers 4, and the plot to defeat Thanos.


The short answer is, as far as we know, there actually isn't any such place. It was made up for the movie, as well as Pym Particles.

As far as science goes, it could refer to the size threshold of particles that have quantum effects on them. Particles that small are very strange (in fact some of them have a "strange" property) and it's a probability curve of where a particular "particle" is at any given time. This has been theorized based on experiments where they were able to create interference patterns on a screen by shooting photons through slots. The patterns showed up even when a single photon was tested, showing that it was actually in more than one place at a time and interfered with itself (

). All quantum-level particles act like this (neutrons, electrons, positrons, etc and the parts they are made of- muons gluons quarks) so if you think about how nothing has a set position in this "quantum realm" this could explain why in the movie everything was in flux and moving.

  • Pym Particles were not made up for the movie. – DonielF Jul 8 '18 at 16:06
  • The rest of this doesn’t answer the question. I didn’t ask for speculation, but rather if there’s any indication from the comics on the topic. Once you’ve said there isn’t, that should be the end of your answer. – DonielF Jul 8 '18 at 16:09
  • my apologies. I reaqd your question but i misseed the part where you specified in the comic. In THAT case the answer is simpler. The comic calls it "the microverse" – John Lord Jul 9 '18 at 13:23
  • Well, the entire quantum realm is referred to as such, yes, but is there anything comparable to a time vortex in there? – DonielF Jul 9 '18 at 13:25
  • I am not super-familiar with this. As far as i can find, "time vortexes" weren't explicitly mentioned in the comics. However i would call it "plausible" since according to the comics, the entire microverse was created by a time traveler named "Prince Wayfinder" – John Lord Jul 9 '18 at 15:00
