15. Ant-Man vs Yellowjacket (Ant-Man)
One of the more-inventive final battles in Marvel’s repertoire. The end of 2015’s Ant-Man sees Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang go up against Darren Cross (Corey Stoll). It’s far from the greatest MCU movie or the most memorable, but it boasts a fantastic finale.
A little girl’s bedroom might not be the most obvious setting for a superhero showdown, but director Peyton Reed expertly uses the movie’s shrinking/enlarging technology to great comedic effect.
Taking small scale to a whole new level, Ant-Man and Yellowjacket shrink down to insect size to battle on a toy train set. From their perspective it’s still an epic fight between two equally powered rivals. Train carriages are thrown and destroyed, and ‘life-size’ ants team up to assist our hero.
Reed never lets us forget the true scale of the fight. The most memorable part of the sequence is when Yellowjacket is hit by, and subsequently derails, everyone’s favorite locomotive.
It’s a moment of levity that really works, and it’s this kind of creative visual storytelling that shows Marvel at its best.
Combining action with humor is Marvel’s trademark and nowhere is this more evident than in Ant-Man’s final battle.
