Stinger: A Case For Cassie Lang's Codename in the MCU

 

While I’ve been particularly busy and going through a lot of personal turbulence, I felt an odd impulse to just throw this together. It’s something I’ve been thinking about since Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was announced and has grown into a bit of a personal obsession. This is my case for why Cassie Lang should be called Stinger in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

 

Let’s start with a little background: Officially Marvel Studios hasn’t assigned a codename to their interpretation of Cassie Lang in the MCU. However, there is precedent for official sources to refer to and, as a result, canonize information gleaned from fan-produced sites. An example of this would be the Across the Spider-Verse animated movie from Sony legitimizing the designation of their Venom films as ‘Earth-688’ after the Marvel Fandom wiki used the place-holder designation ‘Earth-TRN688’ (TRN referring to Temporary Reality Number) to refer to it in lieu of any officially provided designation. This itself had a knock-on effect that presents further issues which are beyond what I want to discuss today. Needless to say, sometimes widely accessed fan-curated content, well-meaning though it may can end up creating unintentional ‘Ascended Fanon’.

 

 This brings me to the well-considered Marvel Cinematic Universe wiki, a fantastic resource on anything related to Marvel Studios. While I have the utmost respect for the many contributors to the site, I can’t help but notice they have elected to assign Cassie Lang the codename ‘Stature’ despite the character never being referred to by any superhero title in any official MCU-related material. A look at the character’s talk page revealed the matter has been closed, with the only cited source I can see for the name ‘Stature’ being an early Deadline article that refers to the comic character’s origin and codename. Nothing else.

 

 My main concern, if you can call it that, is that an unassuming and well-meaning Marvel Studios employee will do a brief online search, encounter this wiki entry first and take it at face value, thereby making it official. Not that I dislike fanon being elevated or embraced per se, but it does rather bias the odds of the MCU Cassie being known as Stature rather than Stinger.

 

Here are some examples that reinforce a lack of official codename for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Cassie Lang at this point. Here is the Funko Pop figure, exclusive to the Marvel Collectors Corps, titled ‘Cassie Lang’.

 

Here are some official designs seen on shirts, socks and various other merchandise, again referring to the character as ‘Cassie’ or ‘Cassie Lang’.

 

The Marvel Legends action figure line released a series of 8 figures in its ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Build-A-Figure Cassie Lang’ line which came packaged with various parts which combined to make the character as depicted in Quantumania.

 

Another tie-in to the Quantumania movie, Cassie was introduced to the Marvel’s Contest of Champions mobile game under the title ‘Cassie Lang’. The same is true of this adaption of the character in another mobile game, Marvel’s Future Fight.

 

 

All this to say, clearly the powers that be at Marvel Studios haven’t settled on the character’s codename just yet.

 

Now I’d like to make the case for using the superhero moniker ‘Stinger’ rather than ‘Stature’. Firstly, Cassie adopting Stinger as a superhero title pre-dates Stature, with the MC2 comics A-Next #1 being published in 1998 well before her Main Marvel Universe comic counterpart became a hero and took the name Stature in Young Avengers #6. Yes, the MC2 comics originated the concept of Cassie as a superhero.

 

Secondly, the costume. Cassie debuts her Pym Particle suit in Quantumania and it is primarily purple. The colour purple was first associated with Cassie Lang as Stinger in the MC2 but also inspired her Main Marvel Universe counterpart years later in the pages of Astonishing Ant-Man #6.  In addition, Cassie would ditch Stature too, also adopting Stinger as her codename. Both costumes are nearly identical, and both sport a insect inspired helmet, another element the movie would adapt albeit a full-face mask in keeping with their established rules for shrinking.

 

Additionally, the MCU’s Cassie demonstrates a gifted intellect, another character trait first and most closely associated with the MC2’s version of Cassie. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Young Avengers Cassie isn’t known for her scientific ability.

 

I’ve talked about all this before and I’m sure I’ll probably bring it up again some time. I’m also aware there are elements of Cassie in Quantumania that are more aligned with the Stature name, such as her ability to grow to giant size, but I think it’s important to make the argument all the same. I’d personally love to see ‘Stinger’ make the jump to the big-screen and see Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz’s creation get more recognition.

 

Until I stop questioning how they are growing and shrinking at subatomic size, I remain

 

frogoat