By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
Shrinking to the size of an ant seems like an odd super-power. But it's not remotely the oddest thing about Marvel's Ant-Man character, whose movie premieres July 17.
For one thing, the comic book Henry Pym doesn't seem to have been designed to be a superhero -- in fact, he was probably a throwaway, one-shot character. Pym first appeared in early 1962 in Tales to Astonish #27, an anthology title of monster stories. Pym -- named for an Edgar Allan Poe character -- was a scientist who shrank himself to insect size with a potion, and had a hair-raising adventure in an ant hill. When restored to his normal size, Pym destroyed his size-changing formulae, deeming them "far too dangerous to ever be used by any human again!" The story was all of seven pages long.
That should have been it for Henry Pym. Atlas Comics, the predecessor to Marvel Comics, had a number of monster titles, and in them many lab-coated scientists outsmarted monsters throughout the 1950s and then disappeared, presumably to live happily ever after. The lab-coated Pym, like those other guys, should have had his seven pages of fame and then been forgotten.
But timing is everything. In 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were creating one successful superhero series after another in the newly born Marvel Comics -- and using those heroes to headline the publisher's faltering monster books. Thor took over Journey into Mystery, while the Human Torch (of Fantastic Four) became the star of Strange Tales. A new character named Iron Man was slated to take over Tales of Suspense. That left only Tales to Astonish without a superhero star.
And suddenly Henry Pym was back. He had inexplicably changed his mind about those size-changing potions, and appeared in Tales to Astonish #35 in full superhero mode, complete with a costume, a helmet to communicate with insects and, with issue #44, a sexy sidekick named The Wasp (who was also his girlfriend, socialite Janet Van Dyne).
We can only guess how and why Lee and Kirby opted to lift the Pym character out of obscurity, because most history-of-Marvel books tend to skip over Ant-Man entirely. He was the runt of the litter in 1962, a year that saw the debut of Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man and (despite a January 1963 cover date) Iron Man.
Unlike his brethren, though, the little hero wasn't a big hit. "I loved Ant-Man," Stan Lee told Comics Scene magazine in 2000, "but the stories were never really successful."
To save his little hero, Stan flipped the script. If Pym could shrink, why couldn't he grow? With Tales to Astonish #49, Ant-Man became Giant-Man! But even that wasn't enough. In Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, author Les Daniels said "Even with his new size, this was one hero who never really made the grade, and who never seemed to be touched by the Marvel Magic."
But if he didn't have magic, Hank Pym did have timing. Just as he was saved from obscurity by the need for a superhero headliner in 1962, he was saved again by the need for a lot of characters for a new book. Marvel Publisher Martin Goodman had always wanted an all-star superhero team to compete with DC's Justice League of America, and now Lee could give it to him. In mid-1963, Avengers #1 starred Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and -- yep -- Ant-Man and Wasp. The change to Giant-Man caught up in Avengers #2, and once again Henry Pym got another extension on his comic book life.
But even being part of Marvel's team of superstars didn't save the "Master of Many Sizes." Lee dropped him from Avengers in May 1965, and replaced his strip in Astonish with one starring the Sub-Mariner a few months later.
And now, without a title to call home or a writer with a vested interest in him, really weird things started happening to Henry Pym:
- 1966: Hank and Jan return to the Avengers -- only, inexplicably, Pym is calling himself Goliath.
- 1968: Despite being a biochemist and not an engineer, Pym somehow invents the artificial intelligence Ultron, who immediately launches a long career trying to annihilate the human race. Whoops!
- More 1968: A shrinking character named Yellowjacket shows up at Avengers Mansion, claiming to have killed Pym -- and marries Van Dyne! But Yellowjacket is really the size-changing (and name-changing) Pym, suffering from a split personality due to a lab accident. Jan realizes it's Hank behind the mask though, and goes ahead with the marriage to finally land her man!
- Still 1968: Yes, that is ridiculous.
- 1977: Ultron brainwashes Pym again.
- 1981: Pym has a mental breakdown, attacking a foe that had surrendered. Faced with a court martial, Pym builds a robot to attack the Avengers so he can save the day. In the process, he strikes Janet, forever labeling him in fan circles as "Hank the Wife-Beater." He is expelled, and Van Dyne divorces him.
- 1987: Forgoing any superhero persona -- which he believes has led to his mental problems -- the scientist joins Avengers West Coast as simply "Dr. Pym."
- 1999: Pym, once again in superhero drag, and once again an Avenger, finally remembers that he used his own mental patterns as the template for Ultron. Maybe that's why the big robot is crazy as a tin-plated bedbug!
- 2004: Pym is secretly replaced by a shapeshifting alien. He eventually returns, only to find the alien was a better Avenger.
- 2009: When Van Dyne appears to be dead (she gets better), Pym starts calling himself "Wasp" because ... well, because he's really messed up.
- 2015: Pym is merged with Ultron as a human-robot hybrid that exiles itself from Earth.
And those are just the highlights! Plus, I haven't mentioned all the other characters Pym has spawned. At least four other characters have used his "Pym particle" size science to become giants, all of whom used the name Goliath at one time or another. Two other Ant-Men have come and gone, one of them the Scott Lang who will appear in the movie.
Speaking of which, it's clear the movie doesn't use Ant-Man's history exactly as it appears above, but it does seem to include the principal elements. As for the rest, changes are certainly in the spirit of the long-running character named Ant-Man. Or Giant-Man. Or Goliath. Or Jellowjacket. Or ... well, you get the point.
Reach Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), the Internet (comicsroundtable.com), Facebook (Captain Comics Round Table) or Twitter (@CaptainComics)
Replies
My personal fave was "Dr. Pym". It all just made so much sense.
I left out the part where he was told he was the Scientist Supreme, and then told he wasn't!
"Scientist Supreme"? Is that the counterpart to the Sorcerer Supreme, or just a new sandwich at Arby's?
After "What's the Matter with Batman?" came out I sent an e-mail to Robin Rosenberg suggesting that she tackle Henry Pym next, and reminding her that an Ant-Man movie was lsated for 2015 release. I don't know that she took me seriously, but there's plenty of fodder here for a book just as entertaining and educational as the Batman one was.
”2015: Pym is merged with Ultron as a human-robot hybrid that exiles itself from Earth.”
Really? Something similar was done to a long-time character in Doctor Who. I didn’t like it there, either. Is Janet still dead?
As reprehensible an action as punching his wife in the face is, I never thought Hank Pym deserved the title of “wife beater” based on that one incident (or those two incidents if you count the “Kree/Skrull War”).
The final caption in TTA #27 reads something like, “…and for the rest of his life, he never stepped on an ant hill again.” Man, that doesn’t even begin to cover it!
Jim Shooter claims that the whole "wife beater" thing was the result of a mistake by artist Bob Hall. From his March 29 2011 blog:
"Hank Pym was Not a Wife-Beater
Before I embarked on the storyline that led to the end of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne’s marriage, I reread every single appearance of both characters. His history was largely a litany of failure, always changing guises and switching back and forth from research to hero-ing because he wasn’t succeeding at either. He was never the Avenger who saved the day at the end and usually the first knocked out or captured. His most notable “achievement” in the lab was creating Ultron. Meanwhile, his rich, beautiful wife succeeded in everything she tried. She was also always flitting around his shoulders, flirting, saying things to prop up his ego.
As I was developing the storyline, I discussed the potential pathology of their relationship with a psychologist who happened to be sitting next to me on a five-hour flight. The story made sense, he thought. I went ahead with it. During the time the story was running, I got a great deal of hate mail. It worried me enough to ask Stan what he thought. He said he got the same kind of mail in the ‘60’s regarding Peter Parker’s various romantic travails. He asked me how Avengers sales were doing. They were in fact, increasing by 10,000 copies per issue. Stan said that people obviously cared passionately about what was happening to Hank and Janet, as if they were real people. That’s the key. And he said, “Don’t worry about the mail.”
In that story (issue 213, I think), there is a scene in which Hank is supposed to have accidentally struck Jan while throwing his hands up in despair and frustration—making a sort of “get away from me” gesture while not looking at her. Bob Hall, who had been taught by John Buscema to always go for the most extreme action, turned that into a right cross! There was no time to have it redrawn, which, to this day has caused the tragic story of Hank Pym to be known as the “wife-beater” story.
When that issue came out, Bill Sienkiewicz came to me upset that I hadn’t asked him to draw it! He saw the intent right through Hall’s mistake, and was moved enough by the story to wish he’d had the chance to do it properly.
By the way, I was too busy to finish the story, so Roger Stern took over two-thirds of the way through. I thought he did a great job. He’s an excellent writer who doesn’t get enough credit."
Actually it is done well Jeff.
I should not have liked it but there was sense of fate to it that I think dispatched Hank in just about an acceptable way.
I recommend it.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
Detective 445 said:
What makes Hank look like a wife beater in the issue isn't so much the scene itself. When they show up for his trial by the Avengers she's wearing dark glasses, and after he verbally attacks Captain America during the trial she takes it off to reveal a terrible bruise. The Avengers are shocked and Thor asks her if he struck her. The similarity to spousal violence seems intentional, and fits the situation of Hank's degenerating mental state. Shooter's website has his plot for the first X-O story, which is panel by panel, so it's my guess he wrote detailed plots for his Avengers issues and described the glasses and bruise.
She's also in a nightie when he hits her, which places the action in a domestic context, although the scene is in his lab. She's just discovered him working on the robot and learned his plan.
Luke Blanchard said:
I'm not sure I agree with that. Shooter's argument is that he wrote it to appear that the actual blow to the face was an accident which would cause the other Avengers to see Hank as a wife beater. But, he thinks that Hall's depiction of the blow also caused the readers to think of it the same way.
However, I'm not sure if I totally buy Shooter's explanation either. If it was an accident, then why doesn't Hank act like it was an accident after it happens. Also, it's more of a backhand than a right cross
The scene will have been dialogued after it was drawn, so Shooter could have been responding to how it was drawn when he dialogued it, but his dialogue reinforces the spousal violence implication. Hank is aggressive towards Cap in the next sequence and Janet doesn't initially speak up.
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