Cassie Lang

Science has finally done it: a child who has actually grown as much as their grandmother thinks they have since the last time she saw them! Cassie Lang is all grown up with a heartfelt desire to make the world a better place for future generations. Like her dad, Scott, Cassie is headstrong, independent, loyal and loving - fighting hard for what and whom she believes in, even if it means putting herself in jeopardy (or jail). She's grateful to have her dad back in her life - along with Hank, Janet and Hope - whom she has a special bond with. But Scott still sees Cassie as a kid - and she doesn't have time for that. If you're wondering why Cassie Lang gets such a long paragraph when everybody else just gets a sentence, it's because she's this series' Build-A-Figure. No, they haven't gone back to printing info on the boxes or anything, we simpy had to find a different source for the official word on her, and that source was character bios released by the studio. Informative! As the Quantumania Build-A-Figure, Cassie is sold in nine pieces among six figures (Ant-Man himself doesn't have one, and since his costume hasn't seen any real changes, there's no rush to buy him). Snap them all together and you'll have yourself the biggest little teenager in the world! Cassie was played by Kathryn Newton, which certainly came as a surprise to Emma Fuhrmann, who had played her in Endgame - she learned she was being replaced when the casting was announced, just like all the rest of us. Since this figure is more than 10" tall, there's plenty of room for a good likeness - normally the Ant-Clan need to wear full helmets to be able to breathe (human lungs being built for a specific size of oxygen molecules, after all), but apparently the unique environment of the Microverse is breathable at any scale, which is why this figure gets an unmasked head when her daddy didn't. A few strands of hair fall in front of her ears, and the rest of her hair is pulled back into a ponytail. Which is not to say she doesn't have a helmet at all. The MCU's magic foldaway helmets are a meme by this point, but the fact it's a separate head here means you can at least pretend she wears something sane. It's got the same kind of shape as Wasp's helmet, with the pointed "nose" and short antennae coming back off the jawline. Also like this series' Wasp, if you look underneath the alternate head, you'll see a big flash of pink skin-colored plastic, despite the fact these helmets are meant to be self-contained apparatuses. This isn't meant to represent her chin or anything, though: it's an insert to create the eyes behind her goggles without having to find a way to paint them inside. It was really unnecessary, though, because while the plastic over the eyes is translucent, it's such a dark shade that you can't see her eyes in there anyway. Let me tell ya, there's nothing that hurts like putting a bunch of work into something for it to never be seen. As nice as "Stinger" is as an identity, there's no denying that "Stature" is better - it's possibly the best supranym ever created for a size-changing character, and it took until 2005 for anyone to stumble onto it! Her suit looks like a modification of the Wasp costume, which it probably is since everybody except Scott was helping her prepare for this life. Again, the size of the figure means we get lots of detail in the sculpt: all the different textures, the various support structures built into the suit, all that. It's kind of awesome that she just wears plain sneakers with her costume, rather than superhero boots - it's not just US Senators who can recognize how dumb a dress code is when compared to comfort. When 616 Cassie first became Ant-Girl, she just wore a variation of her dad's red-and-black costume; but that was years after the "MC2" comics had introduced her as Stinger, wearing pink. Coloring variation eventually shifted that bright magenta to a darker shade, which ended up looking purple, and these days that's her signature color, something that's been carried over to the MCU. It also helps her stand out from Ant-Man and the Wasp. The toy is a quite dark shade of it, especially right next to black, but the silver highlights all over the suit provide a little contrast. Nothing's as strong as the white soles of her shoes, though! Most of her articulation is the usual Marvel Legends stuff: swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, swivel/hinge wrists (front-to-back hinges on the fists and the open left hand, side-to-side on the open right hand), double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell neck, plus a swivel where her ponytail plugs in. The torso is a bit unusual, though, with a hinged adbomen and balljointed chest. You don't see that very often on the regular figures! The chest joint is very tight, but the hinge is surprisingly loose - it doesn't have any kind of "click" to it, so depending on how you have her posed, it may slip forward unexpectedly. Be careful it doesn't make her fall over. Quantumania was originally supposed to be the late-2023 MCU release, in place of The Marvels, but those two got swapped and Hasbro had to scramble. Dan Yun revealed how the entire Marvel Legends team worked hard to ensure that all the prototypes were ready and approved so they could at least announce the lineup and open the preorders within the movie's release window - that's why these figures are quote/unquote "late." Now that Stature officially has powers, we're one step closer to an MCU Young Avengers (though at the rate they're going, these Avengers aren't going to be "Young" by the time the team forms). This wasn't a terrific series overall, but Cassie Lang did her Build-A-Figure job and sold the figures she was included with. Wasp | Kang | Ultron | Egghead | Crossfire | Future Ant-Man -- 09/26/23

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