Look Out for the Little Guy is the in-movie memoir by Scott Lang, also known as Ant-Man, that he’s written and shared with the world, as seen onscreen in the new Marvel Studios film Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Hyperion Avenue is proud to bring this book to real life.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t get the chance to be around my daughter Cassie for so many chunks of her life, to share what I’d learned with her. I’m still working on that, but it’s hard now that she’s a grown-up herself who’s already seen and experienced so much without me to guide her. I missed the boat on that one, but believe me, you are in for an entire book of “Dad wisdom” just burning for a home.

‘Merbeings’: a rich history, real or not

I mean, just between us, I’m proud to be an Avenger, but sometimes I also feel like a “latecomer.” Sure, I came through in the ultimate clutch, but in baseball terms, I’m not a starter—I’m a DH (designated hero). Unless you’ve spent the past few years in a cave (or, say, a subatomic realm), you’ve probably at least heard of Pym Technologies. Or at least, Hank Pym. Even worse, this was also around the time that my marriage to Maggie broke up. I don’t want to get into the specifics of why—that’s strictly Scott-Maggie stuff—but let’s just say “Husband suddenly going to the pen for three years” wasn’t exactly a marriage-saver.

One of Scott’s ideas involves ways to make working from home easier. While working from home was, of course, a concept before the coronavirus pandemic, it has become somewhat inseparable from the ongoing cultural moment in which the various reasons for and against WFH are in daily headlines. This seemingly innocuous mention of working from home in the chapter that already has an internal logic that doesn’t work makes for a bizarre reading experience. I don’t think this chapter is implying Covid exists in the MCU, but it does make you ask the question in a chapter that has you asking a lot of questions without answers. Here’s how I see it: I’m the “everyman Avenger.” I’m the one you could grab a beer with, the one you’d feel okay asking to look after your dog when you’re away or for a drive to the airport. I’m not a Super Soldier or a billionaire (unless this book is super-successful), just a regular dad, a San Francisco Giants fan, and a guy who’s made mistakes I’m still trying to rectify. One of the better parts of Quantumaniahowever, was turning Scott Lang into a writer. This brought a lot of comedic elements and moments to the film and also gave Marvel the chance to actually bring his book, Look Out For The Little Guy, to life as a readable book written as if it was in the MCU universe.

So that’s what I plan to do in this book. I’m going to tell it all, from how I saw it, experienced it, and heard it firsthand from my hero buddies. I’m going to bring you into the hero world. And finally, because—if you take nothing else away from my words—what I want to share is that what makes all of us giants is how much we look out for the little guy. How we help out our fellow humans when they need it most. How our greatest super-power can simply be a listening ear, a concerned eye, or an outstretched hand. How we don the “hero’s uniform” by simply showing up and doing the unbelievably unlikely job that life has just handed us. Unbeknownst to me, he “tested” me by enticing me to steal the Ant-Man suit from his highly formidable safe. Once I succeeded at that, Hank and his daughter, Hope Van Dyne, kinda “stole” me from police custody, offered me the gig (as if I had a choice!), and then trained me to pull off one of the craziest high-tech heists ever. We get a first person perspective on the final battle with Thanos, but sadly, he didn’t reveal how he shrunk down, went up Thanos’ butt and became Giant-Man to end (see what I did there) him.

One day, Bruce “the Hulk” Banner and Clint “Hawkeye” Barton took me out for lunch. They said they were con­cerned that the world didn’t really know what had hap­pened with Thanos and the Blip and our long struggle to finally put things right again. Now, if you're familiar with the films, you'll likely start to hear Paul Rudd's voice when you're reading this. That actually works well as the tone and the cadence of the text is very much in line with how the Ant-Man character was written for him. If you know that take on the character then you can see how he would have penned a book like this.

Success!

Because that’s the job life has for you, at least right at this moment, and it’s the kind of job you don’t get to quit.