Cassie Lang

Origin

Born with a congenital heart condition, Cassie’s father, Scott Lang became Ant-man in order to save her. He at first stole the costume, in order to rescue the doctor who could save Cassie’s life, but later was given official permission to wear it by Captain America. Her father would team-up with the Avengers on several occasions through the years, and did – for a brief time- joined the Fantastic Four working on behalf of Reed Richards as a tech support (during Reed’s brief absence). It was during his tenancy on the Fantastic Four that Cassie lived in the Baxter Building, and often looked after Franklin during missions. After Cassie’s parents divorced, her mother and new stepfather felt that it was too dangerous for her to be around her father and got full custody of her. Visiting her father one weekend a month, she stole Pym Particles in hopes of becoming a superhero like him.

Creation

Cassie Lang was created by David Michelinie and John Byrne and first appeared in Marvel Premiere 47 (1979). She was utilized by Heinberg and Cheung as a member of the Young Avengers in 2005 after several years in comic limbo. Soon after her resurrection, Cassie took on an identity that matches her MC2 version.

Major Story Arcs

Young Avengers

When her father was killed as an Avenger by a deranged Scarlet Witch, she withdrew from her mother and stepfather and planned on running away to California to join the Runaways. That was until she saw the Young Avengers on TV.

In her attempt to join them, Cassie met Kate Bishop at a hospital, who joined her in trying to locate them. Cassie’s powers first manifested during a fight with Patriot when she tried to get her father’s belongings from the Avengers Mansion. Her ability to change size seems to be linked to her emotional state, as anger has caused her to grow and guilt to shrink (the latter first being seen in Young Avengers: Presents).

Civil War

During the Civil War, she teamed up with the Runaways to free their friends and shut down an evil S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Together with the Runaways, Cassie battled Noh-Varr who had been brainwashed by the renegade SHIELD operatives. Halfway through the Civil war, she switched sides and helped Iron Man win the war, registering under the SHRA and joining the Initiative recruits at Camp Hammond. Recently, she was kidnapped by the Puppet Master along with Arana, Dusk, and Silverclaw, but was freed from his control by Ms. Marvel and returned back to the United States. Since then, Cassie has been staying at the Initiative Training Center at Camp Hammond, working alongside the other recruits there, even aiding them against the assault of the insane clone KIA. During this period, she also came into contact with Eric O’Grady, the current Ant-Man, facing off against the “hero” in a giant-sized duel when he insulted her father. Stature was one of the over sixty superhumans at Camp Hammond to confront the insane clone KIA during his rampage throughout the base with the Tactigon, and like the others, was swiftly defeated by the alien superweapon.

Cassie survived, however, and shortly thereafter was met by the current Vision, who had just completed a worldwide sojourn to discover his true identity. Meeting him in a restaurant outside of Camp Hammond, Stature lambasted the synthetic for assuming that the Initiative forces (herself included) were either dupes for the government or villains hoping to crush America’s civil liberties, defending her decision to side with Iron Man as one of responsibility and honesty, going so far to suggest that the anti-Registration forces were rebelling just for the sake of rebellion or out of some romantic revolutionary ideal rather than out of an educated decision. The pair were ambushed by AIM terrorists shortly thereafter, and upon defeating them, Cassie was stunned when the Vision declared his love for her. Although intrigued by the gesture, she decided to take some time to sort out her feelings for him instead of accepting him outright. Cassie was then faced with an almost tragedy. During a fight with the Growing Man her stepfather Blake was seriously injured. The guilt caused Cassie to shrink to almost nothingness. But with help from her friends Wiccan, Hawkeye and Patriot she was able to snap out of it before she shrank to nothingness. She later saw Blake in hospital and he forgave her.

During the Secret Invasion Cassie first fought the Skrulls during their invasion of New York. She was quickly defeated but survived the conflict. She later took part in final battle and she was able to grow larger then the Skrull Yellowjacket and take him out with a single punch. Later still, she was seen battling the Skrull Galactus and other assorted Skrull imposters. She became a member of both the Young Avengers and the Mighty Avengers along with her love interest Jonas (Vision 2.0).

Avengers

Vision and Stature are in the ruins of the Avengers Memorial Park. Whilst there a new statue appeared showing the death of Wasp. Surprisingly, they see that statues of the Young Avengers are there too, and notice that they have been covered in some kind of synthetic goo- which seemed to be making the super heroes into statues. They flee from this and see the utterly unexpected, the woman whom the original Vision loved and who killed Cassie Lang’s father; the Scarlet Witch, but before any of the three can say anything Wanda teleports them away. Stature later helps the rest of the Mighty Avengers in saving the world from Chthon’s chaos. Later by the words “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE” spoken by Hank Pym, now Wasp, and the help of the Scarlet Witch’s powers the new Mighty Avengers are summoned: The Wasp, Jocasta, Vision, Stature, Amadeus Cho, Hercules, Jarvis, and U.S. Agent.

It has been revealed that Cassie is still doubting her place in the Mighty Avengers. She feels strong ties and obligations to the Young Avengers, and she continually expresses a desire to return to them, at the very least so she can inform them of what she and Jonas had been doing. She also shows a strong desire to maintain her father’s legacy and good name, complimenting Cho on using the old Ant-Man helmet (since he’s someone she actually likes), and showing reluctance to lay siege to the Baxter Building since her father was once a member of the Fantastic Four.

Cassie brings the Young Avengers to the Mighty headquarters to confront the Scarlet Witch, but to their surprise they find out that Scarlet is Loki in disguise. Cassie faced many adventures with the Avengers, including facing the Unspoken, Assault on New Olympus, Ultron and helped in the Siege of Asgard, where she yet again faced the Ant-Man costume thief, Eric O’Grady. After the Siege, Cassie and Vision left the main Avengers team and fully re-join their Young Avengers team-mates. In the Heroic Age, The Young Avengers move into the Avengers Mansion. They also embark on the Children’s Crusade with Magneto, searching for the real Scarlet Witch.

Children’s Crusade

During Children’s Crusade, Cassie is reunited with Iron Lad, and through the use of time travel, she was able to bring her father forward in time from the moment he was about to die from the Jack of Heart’s explosion to the present. This wasn’t part of the mission plan which was to save the Scarlet Witch. Since her father is alive and well, he tells his daughter he is very proud of her.

Things took a turn for the worse when Dr. Doom takes Scarlet Witches’ reality warping powers and fights the combined forces of the Avengers and X-men.

Doom looks like he kills Scott Lang again, and Casie charges at the super powered dictator, getting a good blow against him. Dr. Doom then blasts the giant hero with a explosion like spell, shrinking her down to size. After the battle, all the heroes gather around what seems to be a dead Stature. In the final issue of the Children’s Crusade, it is confirmed that Cassie died from her injuries sustained by Victor Von Doom’s attack. It is, in part, her death which leads to the Young Avengers disbanding, and later becoming integrated into the Avengers. This appears to be only a formality, as the team soon go their separate ways. However, the Young Avengers have recently been reformed, with a new roster consisting of Wiccan, Hulkling, Noh-Varr, Miss America, Kid Loki and Kate Bishop.

Return from the Dead

During AXIS, the inversion spell cast during the battle with Red Onslaught causes Doctor Doom to adopt a new, decidedly more heroic personality. Seeking to make up for the horrible things he’s done during his life, Doom temporarily forms a new team of Avengers to capture and harness the power of the Scarlet Witch, who has been turned evil by the inversion. Realizing that he only has enough power to make one lasting change, Doom nobly chooses to use it to resurrect Cassie, whose death he deeply regretted.

After her resurrection, it is discovered that Cassie no longer has her powers. She and her mom move to Miami, where Cassie attempts to live a normal life. She is eventually kidnapped by Augustine Cross, who forces Erica Sondheim to remove her heart and place it in the corpse of Darren Cross, which allows the villain to live once again. Cassie survives due to Augustine allowing Erica to put a replacement heart in her chest. Feeling guilty, Scott breaks off contact with Cassie, though he continues to keep tabs on her in secret.

Stinger

Sometime later, Scott accidentally reveals that he has been spying on Cassie after buying her tickets to a charity basketball event, which causes her to become angry and tell him to stay away.

During this time, Cassie begins to grow increasingly bitter and resentful over no longer having her powers, which comes to a head after she is captured and nearly killed while trying to help Kate defeat some Secret Empire goons. She seeks out the Power Broker, with plans to trick him into giving her back her powers by posing as a potential supervillain. Though she plans to double cross him, the Power Broker quickly recognizes Cassie and offers to allow her to keep her new powers and costume in exchange for robbing Darren Cross. After being told what Cross did to her, Cassie agrees to work with the Power Broker, and takes on the new identity of Stinger.

Unfortunately, this was a plan by Cross to bait Scott. They kidnapped Cassie as soon as she was found in his offices. Scott put together a big crew to break in and get her back. They were able to free Cassie and steal some some of Cross’ inventions on the side. Unfortunately, Darla’s TV producers had her followed 24/7 by surveillance drones for her reality show. They caught everything, editing it to blame Scott.

Scott’s Weak Spot

Scott was willing to do anything for Cassie. That actually put Cassie in danger since it was easy to pressure Scott in to doing something if she was put in danger.

For instance, when Captain America was brainwashed into a Hydra loyalist and helped them take over America, Cassie was taken into custody to force Scott Lang to be Hydra’s mole on the resistance.

Later, during the War of Realms, Frost Giants took over Florida, where Cassie lives. Under orders from Frigga, Scott led 3 other size-changers in Frost Giant disguises to liberate Florida. They found Cassie leading an all-female resistance among the handmaidens Moonstone enslaved for special treatment.

The Bug Lords

Scott returned to Florida to be near his daughter. His ex-wife was now supportive of her superhero career path, and Scott wanted to be there to help mentor her. He was back to being a one-man security firm hired to use his bug communicating abilities to solve the mysterious death of a whole hive of bees that were being observed.

He found The Swarm, who was forced into working for bug super-soldier, Macrothrax. Swarm created 3 other soldiers that were humanoids made of bugs: Tusk, Thread, and Vespa, as well as using Ant-Man’s tech to commune with the primordia Bug Lords. To stop them from taking over the world, Scott has to call in help from his daughter. They chase Macrothrax to the Savage Land, where Cassie and her dad are able to combine the might of all the Savage Land insects to best the Bug-Lords.

Ultron Transport

When Scott was hired by the Avengers to take Ultron‘s special Asgardian-warded vibranium casket to the microverse, he brought Cassie along as they are now partners. They first needed to bring the casket to New York City where Hank Pym’s lab was. He had technology that would allow for them to send the casket to the microverse with more accuracy than the shrinking tech on their persons.

Unfortunately, Pym-Ultron has learned how to use the ant-communicators as radios and had been planning with The Black Ant a means of escape. The Black Ant was to use Hank Pym’s old Aging Ray on the vibranium to degrade it. The mix of temporal energy, Asgardian magic, and vibranium’s unique sonic frequency caused the casket to be lost in the timestream. As The Black Ant attempts an escape, Cassie and her dad used their new ability to speak to all bug life to trap him in a spider’s web.

Just then, Cassie watched as a time platform appeared and took her father away. After a quick adventure with Ant-Men from other times to stop Ultron, he returned safe and sound.

Powers and Abilities

A baseline human originally, Cassie deliberately exposed herself to concentrated Pym Particles during her visits to the Avengers Mansion, hoping to replicate the powers of her father, the second Ant-Man. The attempt was successful, granting Stature the ability to grow and shrink, altering her strength and stamina in relative proportions to the transformations. While the upper and lower limits of this ability have yet to be determined, it has been demonstrated that Cassie can grow to a size of at least thirty feet tall, and shrink down to the level of an ant. Due to repeated exposure to the Pym Particles, Cassie’s physiology has absorbed enough to let her change size at will.

Moreover, emotional changes have also caused transformations, as her body subconsciously reacts to mood swings or changes in temperament, Anger causes Cassie to grow and guilt causes her to shrink. Cassie’s abilities have gradually been increasing since she first demonstrated her powers. At first she struggled to grow to 10-15 feet tall and shrink to doll size. But now she has shrunk to microscopic size and grown taller then most buildings. This is roughly a limit of 250-300 feet. Also she seems to be able to change the size of the clothes she wears, although this ability has varied between appearances.

After becoming Stinger, Cassie got back her size altering powers alongside the Stinger suit, made of unstable molecules, that changes of size alongside Cassie. The suit also has a pair of Bio-Synthetic Wings that allows her to fly. She is also equipped with special gaunlets that shoots blasts of energy. Power Broker also gave Cassie a helmet that allows her to communicate with insects.

Character Profile

• Height: 5’10”
• Weight: 140 lbs
• Eye Color: Blue
• Hair Color: Blond
• Citizenship: American
• Marital Status: Single
• Occupation: Middle School Student, Adventurer
• Known Relatives: Scott Lang (father), Peggy Rae (mother), Blake Burdick (stepfather)

Alternate Realities

Earth 982 – MC2

In the MC2 reality, Cassandra is known as Stinger. She is still daughter of Scott Lang a.k.a Ant-man and an unknown mother. She is a member of the MC2 Avengers , also known as A-Next. She has a close relationship with Spider-Girl and J2 , as well as Franklin Richards of the Fantastic Five.

This variant of Cassie was using the Stinger uniform and identity before she was using it on Earth-616

Avengers Fairy Tales

In another reality Cassie found herself in Wonderland and meeting many alternate versions of the Young Avengers. At first her emotions cause her to grow and shrink beyond her control. She also meets an alternate version of Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and Tigra. Cassie grows up a little while she is Wonderland after being put on trial by the King and Queen.

Ultimate Universe (1610)

Cassie makes an appearance with the Giant-Man Squad. She also goes by the code name Giant Woman rather than Stature. It can be presumed that, like her 616 counterpart, Cassie gained her size-altering powers from Pym Particles. Unlike her appearances in Earth 616 however, Cassie never became a member of the Young Avengers (they don’t exist in 1610) nor did she ever adopt the name “Stature”. The Ultimate Universe Cassie Lang is an agent of SHIELD, and head of the Giant-Woman squadron. She helped out in the fight against the Ultimate Universe’s HYDRA unit after Captain America became President of the United States. She also battled Miles Morales, the new Spider-Man, after being brainwashed by Modi’s Mind Gem. Miles managed to defeat her, and Cassie later returned to her senses.

It is never fully made apparent that Scott Lang’s history remains intact in this universe- though it can again be presumed that it does not. Cassie was also invited to join the new Ultimates team which she gladly accepted. It has been revealed that Cassie grew up in Florida with her mother (she had a poster of the Ultimates in her room whilst living there). Though Cassie was offered a place on the Ultimates, she is currently a member of Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos; due to circumstances surrounding the presence of the Infinity Gems and Reed Richard’s crusade against SHIELD.

What If: Civil War

In this universe, Captain America unites all the superheroes against S.H.I.E.L.D and the U.S. government, in an effort to forcefully repeal the Super-human Registration Act. Although making no physical appearance, Cassie is reportedly killed by sentinels.

Media

Television

• Cassie Lang made her first appearance in media in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. She did not appear as the hero Stature, but as a young girl. She made her first appearance in the season 2 episode “To Steal an Ant-Man,” where she was kidnapped by Crossfire. She was voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey.
• Cassie appears in the Ant-Man short “Science Fair,” voiced by Laura Bailey.

Film

• Cassie appears in the live-action Ant-Man movie, portrayed by Abby Ryder Forston.
• Abby Ryder Forston reprises her role as Cassie Lang in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
• Cassie Lang appears in Avengers: Endgame, now played by Emma Fuhrmann. When Scott escapes from the Quantum Realm, he discovers that five years have passed since the ending of Avengers: Infinity War. After heading home in a panic, he discovers that Cassie is much older, and is now a teenager. At the end of the film, Cassie is seen celebrating with Scott and Hope after Thanos is defeated once and for all.
• Cassie appears in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania. She is portrayed by Kathryn Newton. Against Scott’s wishes, she had been secretly working with Hope and Hank on quantum realm experiments, including her own suit (resembling her Stinger suit).

Games

• Marvel: War of Heroes: Cassie appears in several cards in the mobile card game Marvel: War of Heroes. Her cards are:
  • [Growing Up] Stature
  • [Proud Daughter] Stature
• Lego Marvel’s Avengers: Cassie Lang appears as a playable character in her Stature identity.
• Marvel Avengers Academy: Cassie, as Stinger, appears was released during the “Young Avengers Mini-Event”. Her recruiting quest is Big or Small, Pt. 1.

Merchandise

• An action figure of Cassie Lang as Stinger was released by ToyBiz for the “1st Appearances” line. It was part of a wave of exclusives for Previews Magazine, with the other three figures being Spider-Girl, American Dream, and Wild Thing.
• Hasbro later released a Marvel Legends figure of Earth-616 Cassie Lang as Stinger in a two-pack with the Scott Lang version of Ant-Man.
• Cassie was featured in the HeroClix figure game in both her original and second Stature costumes.