Avengers #229
March 1983
Cover art by: Al Milgrom & Rick Parker
Story: Final Curtain!
Writer: Roger Stern
Pencils: Al Milgrom
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Due to the machinations of Egghead, Henyr Pym is now working for him and the Masters of Evil. Quick recap of what happened: the assumed dead Egghead framed Pym for treason, and then the Masters of Evil abducted him during his trial. They also left a brainwashed Shocker behind who claimed that it was Pym himself who orchestrated his “escape”.
Meanwhile back at Avengers HQ the team is feeling pretty down. Pym's trial for one. Iron Man is missing. She-Hulk is really depressed since she is now a normal human again, and can't get back into her Hulk form. It takes my favorite Marvel Captain Marvel to come along and get them to act like heroes again, and actually do something. She is the one who reminds them that dead villains have a tendency to not stay dead for long, and they go to prison to talk to the Shocker.
During her pep talk, Hawkeye is giving Jennifer all kinds of grief about being human again. She slaps him, and he laughs. She slaps him again, and it just makes Hawkeye laugh harder. She hulks out, and smashes Hawkeye through a wall. Ahhhhh, subplot resolved.
At the prison the Avenger's slap a Stark device on the Shocker's head and he remembers everything! He gives the Avenging ones the address of Egghead's hideout.
Back at the aforementioned hideout Egghead hasn't been keeping a very close eye on what exactly Pym has been working on. It is a device specifically to take out the Masters of Evil, and it envelops Hank in a force field. Dr. Pym defeats the villains with relative ease, but thenhe turns his back on Egghead! Egghead pulls out some sort of raygun and is about to fire, but Hawkeye lets loose an arrow first! The gun explodes and Egghead dies...again.
I really liked this one quite a bit. Seeing Captain Marvel rallying the veterans was a great moment for her. Hawkeye egging She-Hulk on. Seeing the genius of Henry Pym, and singlehandedly defeating the Masters of Evil.
It isn't often you see Al Milgrom on pencils. I rather liked it myself, of course having Joe Sinnott inking doesn't hurt.
Replies
I think this is the issue where the Beetle runs into Thor's hammer. I also expected some sort of romance between Jen and Clint after this. Egghead just didn't seem like a serious villain to me.
Roger Stern was trying to rehabilitate Henry Pym after what Jim Shooter did to him. Sadly that meant having Pym give up costumed adventuring though it was best for the character to lie low for a while.
I fondly recall the scene where Captain Marvel stands up to Thor over Egghead still being alive.
It's not mentioned but Egghead was responsible for the death of Hawkeye's brother Barney Barton (back when people did sometimes stayed dead!).
I saw it as Stern picking up the threads Shooter left. Had Shooter stayed on the book, I don't think he was going to leave Pym to rot in jail. It was Egghead who had set Pym up in #217, the issue where he fought his former teammates, and went to jail.
Phillip said:
Really more what artist Bob Hall did to Hank.
Per Jim's Blog: Hank isn't a wife beater.
Bob Hall even kind of backs him up.
Unfortunately, that hit is pretty much the defining moment for the character, so it will always be with him.
I will say a lot my favorite Pym stories were when he was just a scientist working the WCA's lab.
That may be true though after thirty five years, it's still what people remember most about Pym. As they said, they exploited that in The Ultimates.
Besides, we can't go with the intent of the story but what's shown on the physical page. He struck her and showed NO remorse for it during that issue.
And I can't believe that Shooter couldn't have fixed it if he wanted to. And this was a guy who stopped the Justice League/Avengers book, a license to print money, over characterization and continuity!
And it was made quite clear during that issue and the following one that he was mentally ill at the time. He showed plenty of remorse for the one time that he struck her in subsequent issues, notably Avengers 230.
It's precisely because of the Ultimates, and things like Chuck Austen's awful run on the main title (where he had Hawkeye say he hated Hank and had for years) and other times where writers kept going back to it, while ignoring the mental breakdown, is why it stuck.
Philip Portelli said:
Shooter had him expelled from the Avengers in the next issue, framed by Egghead for treason in #217, and acknowledging his mental health issues in #224 while he was in jail. He was fixing it, and Stern continued the story in his first four issues, #227-230. Pym was redeemed, forgiven by Jan, and chose to give up being a costumed hero.
THAT'S why it stuck: Because other writers kept going back to it.
The original story presented the incident as Hank snapping under stress. But other writers kept going back to it, either to reinforce it (Hank's a wife-beater) or to explain it away (Hank's not a wife-beater; he snapped under stress). But they didn't just drop that incident down the memory hole, where it belonged.
In the Ultimates, Pym was an unrepentant abuser, and beat Jan continually. He beat her because he was a bully and felt like it. He was a pretty awful human being.
I think people mix this up with 616 Hank striking Jan once, while mentally ill. When not mentally ill, this Hank Pym is a decent person.
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