If you happen to’ve been watching the Marvel motion pictures so as or monitoring the upcoming Marvel motion pictures, you already know the cinematic universe delivers on large battles and layered storytelling. Nevertheless, a few of its finest moments are the quiet ones. Living proof: a easy magic trick that started as a joke in Ant-Man and the Wasp and advanced right into a mini character arc. Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang learns close-up magic, and Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo takes that trick and makes it his personal throughout a number of appearances.
This little MCU continuity gem was highlighted by the Instagram person @UnitedEgo, which shared a fan-cut video montage, which you’ll be able to watch embedded under, connecting the dots. The put up in query revolves across the sleight-of-hand magic trick that is carried out by each Scott Lang and Jimmy Woo throughout completely different Marvel Cinematic Universe tasks. Test it out:
Let’s rewind. In Ant-Man and the Wasp (streamable with a Disney+ subscription), Jimmy Woo is tasked with checking up on Scott Lang, who’s beneath home arrest. Scott, ever the artistic dad, has been educating himself close-up magic to go the time. He casually exhibits off a trick, leaving Jimmy each skeptical and secretly impressed. His response? A baffled “how’d you try this?” adopted by some clear curiosity.
Flash ahead to Jimmy return in WandaVision, throughout which he flips out a enterprise card like a professional magician when introducing himself to Monica Rambeau. It’s a fast second however, when you’ve been following his character arc, it’s additionally a deeply satisfying one. He didn’t simply study magic offscreen for no purpose. It’s a full-circle second rooted in a personality beat from years earlier.
In interviews, Randall Park has spoken about how difficult it was to study the cardboard flip and the way rewarding it was to movie it. He recalled that whereas filming Ant-Man and the Wasp, an actual magician was on set educating Paul Rudd the tips. Park admitted he was genuinely intrigued and thought it’d be cool to study sometime. I am undecided if Park anticipated that “sometime” would come full circle in WandaVision, the place he’d get to point out off his personal magical chops in a character-defining callback.
These little threads are what make the MCU greater than only a assortment of latest and upcoming superhero motion pictures. They flip even the smallest background moments into long-running character improvement. It’s MCU storytelling at its sneakiest and sweetest. What’s additionally nice is that the trick even comes again into play throughout a short lunch scene between Scott and Jimmy in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Jimmy Woo mastering a magic trick over a number of appearances could not shift the multiverse, however it’s a quiet nod to continuity, character progress, and, let’s be sincere, Paul Rudd’s underrated function as a mentor in probably the most surprising methods. Additionally, can all of us simply admit that Woo is an MCU character who wants extra display screen time? The place was his director’s chair within the 5 and ½ hour-long Avengers: Doomsday solid reveal?
The subsequent MCU film headed to the large display screen is Incredible 4: First Steps, which is about to hit theaters on July 25 as a part of the 2025 film launch schedule.