the original Magician) when he was hired by a publicist named Marlena Howard through the Hench App to pretend to have a grudge against her. Scott Lang later reunited with Raz Malhotra and took him to confront Power Broker at his public promotion of the Hench App 2.0. They ended up coming into conflict with a female Blacklash who Power Broker hired to guard the event. Due to Raz's inexperience in crimefighting, Blacklash got away. Following the incident, Scott Lang gave Raz an offer come with him to Florida to be trained while looking over Hank Pym's lab there. Raz accepted the offer. Scott later recruited Hijacker, Whirlwind, Beetle, Voice, and Magician to his Ant-Man Security Solutions. As a team, they fought Darren Cross, Crossfire and Augustine Cross to save Stinger, aka Cassie Lang. After that battle, the NYPD arrested Scott for his crimes. After a trial, he was released. During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Ant-Man joins the resistance group against HYDRA after they takeover the U.S. After seeing footage from Rick Jones, explaining Steve Rogers' conversion into HYDRA's supreme leader, Scott is among the heroes who join Hawkeye in the search for the Cosmic Cube fragments that were scattered around the world, so they could reform the Cube and restore Steve back to normal. After he smuggles Cassie out of the country, he offers Sam Wilson to join the resistance but Sam turns it down. Ant-Man then meets him at a bar, with a small group of heroes led by Hawkeye. Hawkeye and the Tony Stark A.I. manage to convince Sam to smuggle them out of the country so they can find the Cosmic Cube fragments. It is eventually revealed that HYDRA found and captured Cassie, forcing Scott to become a double agent in order to save her life. He confesses his treachery just as HYDRA's forces arrive and destroy the resistance's hideout. During the final battle, Scott shrinks Bucky Barnes down so that he can enter the Cosmic Cube and reawaken Kobik. This ultimately allows Kobik to bring back the original Steve Rogers, who defeats his HYDRA doppelganger. With his reputation tarnished due to his betrayal, Scott joins the Guardians of the Galaxy in order to get away from Earth for a while. During a later attempt to coordinate a return to Earth for Cassie's birthday with Nadia van Dyne's aid, things go quickly awry, and the two