An independent researcher has revealed that Dr Henry Pym, the famous Ant-Man, is a fraud.
"I was shocked, because I admired this guy. But then I found out he's been lying."
Pym has always claimed that he communicates with ants by tuning into "electronic impulses" or "vibrations" they send with their antennae. But when the reseacher looked up the article "Ant" at Wikipedia he found they actually communicate using (quote from the article) "pheromones, sounds and touch".
"I'd been trying to talk to ants for years using drums and my CB radio and never gotten anywhere. I felt hurt and deceived."
The researcher believes he knows the truth behind the deception. "We know he can really control ants. But they communicate using pheromones, so it must be he controls them using pheromones." He points out that this fits more logically with Pym's biochemist background than Pym's electronic signals claims.
Dr Pym said he was unavailable for comment as he was "too busy experimenting on a young woman who looks just like my late wife to give her superpowers."
From the Outer Lunar Times. This post displaced the thread Preview: 'Shadowman' #5 from the home page.
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Ant-Man used electronic signals to stimulate the ants' pheromone receivers and simulate their reactions as the signals would have a far longer range than if he used actual pheromones. And he may have used real pheromones at first, combined with his shrinking gas.
Possibly prolonged exposure to these signals may have contributed to his ongoing mental stability, beyond moving in on an eighteen year old doppelganger of his deceased wife and thinking that he could fight crime at 1/2 an inch tall!
I really like the elegance of that explanation, but how does he pick their communications up? As for Jan, in their state eighteen is the age of consent for participation in forbidden experiments.
After the events of Tales To Astonish #27, Henry Pym was able to decipher the ants' pheromone "language" and studied their behavior patterns. Using this knowledge, he created his helmet which was able to translate his words into pseudo-chemical signals that the ants were able to understand and unable to resist. Obviously these experiments showed great ingenuity and a greater need to control his enviroment.
I'm sure Hank did regular (perhaps daily) follow-ups on the effects of his procedures on Jan's body. For Science, after all!
If you could communicate with ants, would YOU tell the criminals how you did it? No, you'd keep it quiet, if only so that they couldn't listen in or jam your communication, or worse, command the ants to kill YOU! Instead, you'd make up some mumbo-jumbo to confuse the criminal element, and if push came to shove, you might admit to your fellow Avenger Tony how it really worked...unless you found that he was trying to make time with your wife...then maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you'd make a robot to attack the team and then be the only one who could defeat it, and prove your worth.... Just sayin'....
I think it's entirely possible that before he met Jan that he was spending a little too much time with the ants and not enough with other humans. That would be a good incentive to shrink down and create some "Old Spice For Ants". I'm just sayin'...
I'm really not surprised. For years, Tony Stark claimed he had invented "transistor-powered" armor.