10 Amazing Legacy Superheroes Who Proved Fans Wrong

3. Scott Lang

Ant Man Scott Lang
Marvel Comics

Storylines To Read: FF Vol. 2 (Matt Fraction/Mike Allred), Second-Chance Man

If anything were to best exemplify Scott Lang's meteoric rise to stardom it would have to be 2015's Ant-Man movie. Michael Douglas may have held the reigns as Hank Pym, but it was Paul Rudd's Lang who led the film, with the character going on to take key parts in Captain America: Civil War and the upcoming Infinity War as well.

Created by David Michelinie and John Byrne, Lang was brought in as a replacement for Pym who, in all fairness, had absented the superhero spotlight for a while come 1979. The same master thief from the films, Lang stole Pym's tech to help his sick daughter before going on to team up with the former Avenger, becoming a staple of the Marvel Universe up until his death in 2004's Avengers Disassembled, and even then he was brought back a few years later.

Lang's staying power is a testament to the strength of the character, with the hero having held tenures on both the Avengers and the Future Foundation throughout his career. He's by far the superior insect-themed hero, and while Pym might be the more famous, it is Lang who's received the most attention over the last forty or so years.

Plus, y'know, there's also the fact that Pym's been a sh---y human being over the years, so when it comes to Ant-Men, we'll be taking Scott.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.