My hopes are shrinking.

Marvel

Huh

As we are polar opposite of 2015’s huge blockbusting summer, ‘tis is the season for teasin’. In the midst of the Agent Carter premiere, we got a decent-sized teaser trailer for Ant-Man. After watching the near two-minute teaser, I was disappointed and underwhelmed. I had to go back and rewatch just to be sure I hadn’t missed “the good.” The Avengers: Age of Ultron teaser had me replaying it for days just for my personal entertainment.

People can throw out the “it’s only a teaser” line, but look at how much fans were able to extract from The Force Awakens trailer alone. The excitement just isn’t there for me with Ant-Man. Now, I have an immense amount of faith in Marvel and what they can do with an obscure property (*cough* Guardians *cough*), but this is the first time I really cringed at anything they’ve released in recent memory. Paul Rudd’s “huh” after being asked to be the Ant-Man, and the ending hook of the teaser where he asks, “Is it too late to change the name?” both drilled the screw of doubt into my mind.

Amongst the slow and numerous fades, many characters were glimpsed briefly. Corey Stoll as Darren Cross, not Yellowjacket, was shown walking once from the front, once from the back and finally just turning his head in shock. Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne is seen not only walking, but sparring with the character Scott Lange and wielding a gun as well. Michael Douglas’s Hank Pym, who narrates the trailer, sets up the type of story we’ll get in the final product. It’s also evident that his character will be one of the better components of this origin story. Finally, while Paul Rudd as Scott Lang seems dry, what he can do and how he looks as Ant-Man is the highlight of this teaser. The suit looks sleek and fits right in with the modern superhero aesthetic Marvel has created. However silly it may look, riding flying ants presents the small-scale action only Ant-Man can provide.

It’s Marvel, and I’m excited to see Ant-Man no matter what degree of justice Rudd is able to bring to the role. The fact that Age of Ultron precedes this buggy tale by only two months may cast too big of a shadow. I fear that fans will be riding this high and no matter what good Ant-Man does, it will go unnoticed.

Do you think “Age of Ultron” will squash “Ant-Man”’s spotlight? What do you all think of the teaser? Creep down to the comments.