Why The Wasp Should Lead An All-Female Avengers, According To Peyton Reed

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Women are finally beginning to take a more significant role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the Wasp being the first female hero to get her name in the title of a movie. Following that, we'll see Captain Marvel as the first MCU movie focused on a female character and work is being done on a future Black Widow movie. It certainly makes one wonder if a female superhero team up might be in the future of the MCU. Evangeline Lilly has previously stated that Captain Marvel makes the most sense as the one who will lead such a team, but Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed thinks that Hope Van Dyne is actually the better choice. According to Reed...

I'd like her running things. I'd like to see her as the head of the all-female Avengers. I know Evangeline sort of said, maybe, that would be 'Captain Marvel', because she does have the word 'captain' in her name. But I think Hope van Dyne is a very decisive leader and a tactician, in addition to being a brilliant scientist. So she checks a lot of boxes in terms of who's going to be running the Avengers, theoretically.

Peyton Reed certainly makes some good points here. Hope Van Dyne proved herself to be a skilled leader in Ant-Man and the Wasp. Between the two characters in the title, she's clearly the one who has a handle on things and she takes control of every encounter in the movie, with Scott Lang following her lead. And for the most part her plans work, so she knows what she's doing.

Evangeline Lilly had previously said that Captain Marvel makes the most obvious leader of an all-female Avengers time, because, after all, she is a captain. She's also, one assumes, going to be the most powerful member of this theoretical team, as she's likely to be the most powerful person we've met so far in the entire MCU. That's not always the person who takes command in these situations, but it isn't uncommon.

To be fair, the Avengers themselves don't even have a single leader, it's fair to say that Iron Man and Captain America have shared those responsibilities to some extent. The same could theoretically happen in a female Avengers team. Hope Van Dyne could take the Tony Stark role as scientific leader and Captain Marvel could be the moral center of the team.

Of course, Peyton Reed is careful to add the word "theoretically" to his comments to The Huffington Post, since his last statement actually makes it sound like this idea is going to happen. We have no idea if a project like this could ever actually see the light of day, but there's no reason that it couldn't and it sounds like an awesome movie.

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.