Little Guy, Big Movie: Ant-Man Joins Marvel Movie Universe

For those who know their AVENGERS lore, you already know that the movie team roster isn't quite the one shown in the team's comic book origin story. Someone's missing. Someone... big.

That someone would be Hank Pym, also known as Giant Man. But Pym had another superhero identity as well. (Let's face it, he's had several, but he can never escape the fact that he smacked his wife around.) Among those identities was Ant-Man, who could not only reduce himself to ant-size, but he could also telepathically communicate with ants; which, to the unimaginative, might make him the equivalent in power to Aquaman.

The Ant-Man identity has been passed on to a new character in recent years, Scott Lang, and it is this version that the Marvel cinematic universe seems to be picking up for inclusion into their world building empire. But Henry Pym is still around and kicking, portrayed by Michael Douglas, who serves as the mentor to Lang, played by Paul Rudd. The movie will also star Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne (Pym's wife, aka the shrinking, flying Wasp, was Janet Van Dyne) and Darren Cross as Yellowjacket -- notable as Yellowjacket was one of those many identities I was telling you Pym used to adopt.

Me, I'm kinda hoping to see that Ant-Man was running around inside alien machinery during the invasion of New York, making some of those Avengers' victories possible -- but if that's the case, you won't see it in this initial trailer, which is sparse on details and heavy on sarcasm. I did enjoy the shrinking special effect and how the filmmakers have pulled it off.

So here's the trailer. Are you going to see ANT-MAN in theaters this July 17, 2015?