Stature: 13 Facts Marvel Comics Fans Should Know About The Ant-Man Character

Marvel Comics fans should know the name Stature by now, especially with her appearance in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania." In the comics, Stature is Cassandra Lang — Cassie for short — the daughter of the second Ant-Man, Scott Lang. Like in the movies, she's the apple of her father's eye and a motivating factor in his becoming a hero. However, in the mid-2000s Cassie embarked on her own heroic journey as the superhero known as Stature.

With the superhuman ability to increase in size, Stature joined the Young Avengers, a team of teenage superheroes led by a new Hawkeye — Kate Bishop — alongside Patriot, the grandson of a super soldier. Also joining the team is a Skrull called Hulkling and the children of Scarlet Witch, Wiccan and Speed. If those names seem suddenly familiar to MCU fans, that's because they've all made their debut over the past few years, leading many to suspect that the Young Avengers could be coming to the big screen.

For now, though, we're due to see Cassie's growth into a costumed hero in the third "Ant-Man" film, so there's no better time than to dig into the character's past. With a longer history packed with more adventures than you might expect, we've found 13 facts to grow your knowledge of Ant-Man's daughter, Stature.

Ant-Man himself has gone by many names — including Yellowjacket, Goliath, and Giant-Man — and so too has Cassie Lang, as Stature is just one of a few superhero names that she's adopted over the years. As it happens, in the issue before she took that name, she was briefly nicknamed Ant-Girl for the obvious connection to her father's super identity.

She also has another identity known as Stinger. However, her first appearance as Stinger is not even in the main Marvel universe, Earth-616. Even longtime readers may not remember that Cassie's Stinger persona has its origins in the MC2 universe (Earth-982), as seen in the pages of "A-Next" #1, where she fights as a member of a future off-shoot Avengers team that includes Jubilee and Speedball.  

More than a decade after that appearance, Cassie Lang would officially take the name Stinger in the main Marvel Universe. This occurs after an incident in which she is kidnapped by Darren Cross in "Ant-Man" #5, leaving her without powers. Desperate to regain them, Cassie resorts to extreme measures, making a deal with the villainous Power Broker for a suit that will give her new shrinking powers. 

As Stinger, she dons her purple jumpsuit and classic Ant-Man helmet, giving Cassie the iconic Wasp look complete with bug-like wings.

Comic fans familiar with Cassie Lang and her superhero alter-ego Stature probably know she's one of the earliest members of the Young Avengers. First appearing in the mid-2000s, the group has become one of the most popular teams of young heroes in Marvel Comics and is especially notable for being more than a mere collection of sidekicks. However, the Young Avengers aren't the only team that Cassie Lang has been a part of during her colorful history as a hero.

During Marvel's Civil War storyline, for example, Stature joins Captain America and fights on his Secret Avengers team. However, she's also one of the earliest members to defect, quitting the team in "Civil War" #4 after becoming disillusioned at the prospect of fighting other heroes. In the aftermath of that story, when SHIELD teams up with Iron Man to establish officially sanctioned superhero groups for every state, Stature is one of their first recruits. 

Later, in "Mighty Avengers" #1, the Scarlet Witch offers Stature and the newly reborn Vision spots on the re-assembled Mighty Avengers team, which they accept — nevermind that it is later revealed that Scarlet Witch was actually Loki in disguise.

Kang the Conqueror wasn't the only Marvel supervillain that Cassie Lang had eyes for, as it seems her attraction to enemies of the Avengers is something of a pattern. However, like her relationship with Iron Lad — who wasn't quite Kang — her love for another of Marvel's evil tyrants isn't quite what it seems. In this case, she was smitten with Kristoff Vernard, the young ward of Doctor Doom who would later take up the mantle of the Latverian dictator himself.

You'd be forgiven if that name doesn't ring any bells, as many of Vernard's appearances were in the '80s and '90s when he was still a child. Initially, he comes into Doom's care when his parents are killed in a violent revolution. After the real Doom is apparently killed, Vernard is brainwashed by Doombots in "Fantastic Four" #278, leading him to believe he is Doctor Doom. After being defeated by the Fantastic Four, the team takes the child to live with them, where he meets the young Cassie Lang. A childhood crush soon develops between them.

As their feelings are never seriously acted upon as kids, it's hardly a romance, but an alternate future offers a glimpse of what their relationship could have been. In the MC2 universe, Vernard — now a heroic Doctor Doom — and Cassie — as Stinger — have an adult romance in the pages of "Fantastic Five" #5, where they do some pretty passionate lip-locking.

As Stature, Cassie Lang has the power to grow to tremendous size, much like her father. This gives her the ability to take on some of the strongest villains, but on some occasions she's used them to square off against her fellow heroes, such as during the Civil War storyline. However, even when that is over and she joins the 50-State Initiative, she has one last hero-on-hero fight when she clashes with her father's Ant-Man replacement, Eric O'Grady.

This happens at Camp Hammond, when the Initiative is training new recruits, including Stature. In "Avengers: The Initiative" #8, O'Grady begins mocking the previous Ant-Man (who is dead at the time) to curry favor with the Taskmaster — a surprising villain who joins the program — pushing Cassie over the edge. Growing to giant size, she calls out O'Grady, who super-sizes himself, unwilling to back down. What follows is a brutal hand-to-hand fight between skyscraper-sized heroes. Unfortunately, the more experienced O'Grady comes out on top.

Years later, Cassie got a kind of revenge in "Ant-Man" #3. There, Black Ant — a villainous Life-Model Decoy posing as Eric O'Grady — briefly takes her hostage. In the ensuing fight, Black Ant is no match for Cassie, who grows to a massive size and squishes him with the palm of her hand.

When her father is killed through the machinations of the Scarlet Witch during the Avengers Disassembled storyline, Cassie Lang is inconsolable. Though she would eventually find solace — and family — with the Young Avengers in the ensuing years, she never lets go of the bitterness she feels after the loss of her father. However, Cassie gets a second chance with the help of Iron Lad, who takes her and a group of Avengers back through time in an effort to return Wanda Maximoff to her old self.

Finding themselves back in time before the death of her father, Cassie is compelled to save him from death, whisking him away into the future before he is killed. This leaves the Avengers of the past to believe that Scott has been killed by Jack of Hearts. 

As a result, history remains unchanged, but Scott returns to the land of the living in the present, where he and Cassie get another chance to be a family. In some ways, this storyline shares similarities to Cassie and Scott's relationship in the MCU, where Scott is believed to be dead for five years during the Blip, only to be brought back through the Quantum Realm.

We've already covered at least one alternate-universe version of Cassie Lang, the MC2 hero known as Stinger. However, Stinger isn't alone in terms of parallel world variants, and we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the version of Cassie who resides in the Ultimate universe – Earth-1610. While originally launched to be a more realistic version of the mainline Marvel universe, as time went on, it got increasingly over-the-top, just like its Earth-616 counterpart. When they brought in Scott Lang, for example, he was introduced as part of an entire team of Giant Men, and Cassie was a member of their Giant-Women Brigade.

Appearing first in "Ultimate Comics Ultimates" #17 in 2012, we learn that she is, like her Earth-616 version, the daughter of Scott, who in this universe joins up with SHIELD alongside her father. She has quite a few adventures of her own, though, at one point winding up mind-controlled by the villainous Modi (son of Thor) in "Ultimate Spider-Man" #18 while joining a new Ultimates team that took on the Dark Ultimates in "Ultimate Comics Ultimates" #19.