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Well the biggest little Marvel movie of the year, Ant-Man, came out and was received well enough. Lot of questions about Ant-Man, Scott Lang, and the rest of the gang have been coming my way. Figured we could cover some of my favorite lil’est Marvel heroes. Let’s start off with the second cutest character from the movie, the first being Antony, Cassie Lang! She’s got quite a career in her and she’s not even out of high school yet! So what’s up with Cassie, did you just think she was Scott’s daughter? Let’s find out!

Cassandra Eleanor Lang is the daughter of Scott Lang and Peggy Rae, thing was, Cassie was a really sick kid. She had a rare heart condition and the only doctor in the world who stood a chance to save Cassie’s life was being held prisoner. Cassie’s dad would steal the Ant-Man suit from its creator, Hank Pym, so he could easily break-in to Cross Technological Enterprises to rescue Doctor Erica Sondheim. Sondheim was able to perform the surgery necessary to save Cassie’s life and she was back to full health.

Thing is, while Cassie’s dad had done a bad thing by stealing the suit, it turned into another blessing because Pym was so impressed he gave her dad the suit and name to be the new Ant-Man! Her life would go through so many changes in a short period of time. Back at full health but her parents divorced, Cassie would live with her dad as he was now a full-time superhero and would become an engineer working for the Fantastic Four or working at Oracle, Inc. with the Heroes for Hire. She would get kidnapped by a villain but her father was able to save her and his friend Jack-of-Hearts was able to save him from killing the villain, but dying in the process.

All these adventures were, to Cassie, amazing and she loved living with her dad. Her mother saw this as possibly the most dangerous environment to raise a child in and took sole custody of Cassie. She’d grow distant from her mother and step-dad while still trying to see her father as much as possible. Cassie’s dad was the coolest person in the world to her and so when she would learn that her father was killed going towards what looked to be a revived Jack-of-Hearts that only turned out to be an explosive trap, killing her dad. Cassie was devastated and pulled even further away from her mom and step-dad.

Planning to runaway and join the team of children of supervillains called the Runaways, Cassie is instead inspired by a news story of a group of teen heroes appearing in New York City, the Young Avengers. Cassie knew what she had to do, she found Kate Bishop, the woman who was most prominent as one of the saved citizens from the Young Avengers news story. The two teamed up to find the Young Avengers and join the team, meeting them at the rundown and abandoned Avengers mansion. She planned to take her father’s Ant-Man gear to carry on his legacy but when she got into an argument with Patriot it turned out that Cassie had developed her own powers of being able to grow and shrink almost on command.

Turns out, if you are a young Cassie Lang, living with your dad and the Fantastic Four, if you expose your little young self to Pym Particles well then you may develop size changing powers of your own later in life. Nice, Cassie, nice. Now part of the Young Avengers, wearing a suit similar to her father’s and going by the name Stature while trying to keep it a secret from her parents. Working with Young Avengers lead to Cassie starting up a sorta-relationship with Iron Lad and then when he left the team she would begin a full relationship with the new Vision who was a new A.I. based off the old Vision’s along with some of Iron Lad’s personality and using Iron Lad’s re-purposed armor for a body. To say their relationship status was complicated is an understatement.

Originally Cassie was anti-registration but upon seeing heroes fighting each other and the police, she decided to register so she could learn to fight villains and other criminals. She would join The Initiative, which was superhero boot camp training. She stays with The Initiative until Norman Osborne gets in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. (now H.A.M.M.E.R.) where she bails to join the Mighty Avengers.

When Wiccan of the Young Avengers tries to find his birth mother, Scarlet Witch, Cassie, the rest of the Young Avengers, Quicksilver and Magneto team up to help him. They travel the globe with both the X-Men and Avengers trailing them to find that an amnesiac Scarlet Witch is to be wed to Doctor Doom. While trying to restore Scarlet Witch’s memories through the use of time travel, Cassie is able to rescue her dad moments before he is destined to blow up. So while Scott Lang was technically dead what really happened was Cassie would bring him back to the future alive and well. The reunion is sadly cut short when it turns out Doom’s plan had been to steal Scarlet Witch’s godlike powers for himself and he gets these powers.

Doom gives an ultimatum to all heroes present to join him or die. Cassie goes big instead of going home and battles it out with a giant-size Doom but Doom is more than a match for her and Doom kills a teenager but she is able to give the heroes a chance to rip the power from him.  The Young Avengers, having also lost Vision in the process as he goes all out to help stop Doom, decide to disband. Scott is left devastated by this, it seems father and daughter just don’t get to be. That is, until Doom once again gets access to those powers for one moment, with that he makes right the wrong of Cassie’s death. Cassie is alive and well after nearly a year of being gone.

Deciding to try and live a normal life, Cassie listens to her mother and moves with her to Miami to go to school. She is happy to learn her father has joined them so she can still visit him in his tiny home. Literally, it’s a toy model home, their big screen TV is actually a cell phone. It turns out that Darren Cross, who kidnapped Doctor Erica Sondheim all those years ago was only kinda sorta dead. His son needed a new heart to revive him, a heart that could grow to whatever size his father’s monstrous body needed. Cassie has such a heart, so she is kidnapped and drugged to be used for this as vengeance for what her illness brought on the Cross family’s doorstep of the disaster that was her father’s superhero premiere.

While her father and Sondheim are able to save Cassie’s life working together with Scoot shrinking down to repair her heart with Sondheim’s instruction, Scott realizes he and all heroics, put Cassie into too much danger. Whereas the first time saved her life, everything since then has endangered his child. Without her knowing it, her father leaves Miami, hoping to keep Cassie safe from more danger. How Cassie feels about this is unknown.

I’m sorry we gotta end on that downer folks, here’s a picture of movie Cassie, but that’s where current 616 Cassie is at in her life. I hope she returns to being Stature to show her dad that it’s not just his own heroics that get her into trouble but her own as well. She was seen as an older variation during the recent Secret Wars: Civil War so hopefully she’ll show up in her dad’s new title in the fall. I really love Stature and want to see her get all big and get swoll and smoll alongside her dad. Father Daughter team-ups aren’t common enough in comics. Take your daughter to work day every day. See you next time!

Suggested Reading
Marvel Premiere #47
Young Avengers Vol. 1
Avengers: The Initiative
Mighty Avengers Vol. 1
Young Avengers: Children’s Crusade
Ant-Man Vol. 2

Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net