Incredible Hulks #616; Ant-Man & the Wasp #1

[stolisomancer]

I have absolutely no idea what's going on with Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash anymore. First it went off on this really long, weird story about Golden Age superhero sidekicks which lasted for approximately fifty years without stopping, then the ongoing stopped coming out, then there were a bunch of limited series and one-shots, and now it's relaunching at Image. I don't get it. (This kind of thing is why I never got into Grendel.)

That aside, Seeley is apparently doing a bunch of work for Marvel now, some of which came out this week. He wrote a short in the back of this week's Incredible Hulks, and wrote and penciled the first issue of the Hank Pym & Eric O'Grady buddy comedy Ant-Man & The Wasp.


The first couple of pages from Ant-Man & Wasp entertain me on a sort of meta-level. Hank is filming a public service announcement.





"Hi, I'm Hank Pym. One time about thirty years ago, I was going insane and I slapped my wife. Since then, I've been through eighteen different superheroic identities, led two different teams of Avengers, saved the world six or eight times, died twice, came back to life twice, resurrected my wife, banged a robot, and prevented the alien takeover of Earth.

"Please, if you would be so kind, shut the fuck up about me hitting Jan."

---

Meanwhile, over in Incredible Hulks, Bruce and Jen have spotted a disturbance out in the middle of the desert. The Armadillo's in a fight with a bunch of dorks on ATVs, who're apparently some kind of thrill-seeking vigilantes. While Bruce fights the Armadillo, Jen goes off to figure out what's going on.

The pencils are by noted girlie pin-up artist Al Rio, who's really expanded his portfolio. He started off as sort of a J. Scott Campbell clone, but he's gotten some Bryan Hitch influences and the storytelling here is much cleaner than some of his other work I've seen. It's nice to see he's improving.

Comments

[bluefall]

I love Jen. SO MUCH.

That is all.

[bluefall]

Oh, wait, that's not all, I have to second your wtf with Hack/Slash. Dude lost me somewhere in with the Samhain thing, like, is this supposed to be a Buffy/Angel parody or what are you even going for with this? and then it all just stopped making sense entirely. It's nice to see Seeley being coherent again, particularly with another character I care about.

[jjgalahad]

!!!

You're back! Good to see you again! :D

(And yes, Jen is always awesome.)

[thebigapricot]

I like Jen here better than in She-Hulks. Or maybe I just like one versus multiple She-Hulks.

[stolisomancer]

Jen as an authority figure isn't a great fit and never will be, but to Wilcox's credit, he seems to recognize that and works within it. She does work better in a role like this one, as part of a team.

[thehood]

I loved She-Hulks personally. I loved Jen's interaction with Lyra. I thought they played off each other well

[lonewolf23k]

"Hi, I'm Hank Pym. One time about thirty years ago, I was going insane and I slapped my wife. Since then, I've been through eighteen different superheroic identities, led two different teams of Avengers, saved the world six or eight times, died twice, came back to life twice, resurrected my wife, banged a robot, and prevented the alien takeover of Earth.

"Please, if you would be so kind, shut the fuck up about me hitting Jan."

Yeah, I'm pretty much reading that into the subtext now.

[avantre]

I genuinely didn't like Hank long before I found out about the hitting incident - the first time I encountered him was in West Coast Avengers (and I didn't read the old Avengers stories until later on). So not everyone thinks he's a douche due to the one incident.

Having said that, the version they've got on the new Avengers cartoon is a version I'm finding very likeable, and I know I'll miss him when he inevitably leaves the lineup soon (since they're mirroring the original comic's lineup order).

[fifthie]

Oh yeah Hank Pym, that guy who's hit his wife exactly as many times as Peter Parker has.

[dorksidefiker]

I have absolutely no idea what's going on with Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash anymore. First it went off on this really long, weird story about Golden Age superhero sidekicks which lasted for approximately fifty years without stopping, then the ongoing stopped coming out, then there were a bunch of limited series and one-shots, and now it's relaunching at Image. I don't get it. (This kind of thing is why I never got into Grendel.)

Oh good, I'm not the only one who's been COMPLETELY lost the last few issues.

[philippos42]

I'm glad to see Al Rio getting some mainstream work in his "clean" superhero style. It's pretty much his own (though a bit like Gary Frank) & seems suited to superheroes. I wish his panel layouts framed as well as his pinups.

Really, you could have Al do a cover in photo-realist, a main feature in this style, & a backup in J. Scott Campbell knock-off, & it would be almost like three different artists.

[stolisomancer]

Yeah, he did an issue of the old Heroes for Hire book in his pin-up style. It was okay; clean lines, decent framing, okay storytelling, oddly static. This is a huge improvement.

[bruinsfan]

His artwork here kind of reminds me of Rodney Buchemi's work on Incredible Hercules, though it's softer and more modeled as opposed to crisp.

[stig]

"Hi, I'm Hank Pym. Some of you may associate me with certain 'Issues' I'm reputed for having with my wife; some others may see me as mentally unstable; others still will associate me with the frontman for the shadowy, shapeshifting aliens who stole the identities of many whom we loved and trusted.

"This is why I have decided to dispel these doubts by dressing up as Jan, stealing her name and identity, and maintaining a secret Avengers team built inside her gigantic half-dead body."

Additionally: Hank, you weren't actually there, but I'm pretty sure Jan regretted that she accepted that 'Giant-Girl' addition from your Skrull double? Yeah, I'd have presumed she'd be regretting that when they started turning her into a giant living bomb. Or maybe when Uatu turned up to go 'Whoah, finally something interesting on this channell...whoops never mind."

Additionally additionally: as with the Spidey editors, these people love to tease their readership. Why else name it 'Ant-Man and Wasp', so that anyone who's been out of the loop, or knows only some basic Marvel information, or is perhaps looking for a bit of nostalgia, will pick it up on the impression that it's about Hank and Jan, and get the superheroic version of The Other Guys. Not saying it's a bad title...just a dirty trick on the editor's parts.

[stolisomancer]

In this hypothetical scenario, did people pick it up without looking at the cover?

[psychopathicus_rex]

Am I the only one who thinks the Armadillo looks like he's got a beak?

[werehawk.livejournal.com]

Which is what armadillos look like - scales down their nose.

http://www.homepages.mcb.net/wormwell/9%20banded%20Armadillo260206a.htm

[neev]

"I'm Ant-man and I have a severe jaw disorder that prevents me from fully closing my mouth at any point."

[stubbleupdate]

Ant Man isn't there.

[proteus_lives]

Well Hank, this is a healthier way of dealing with Jan's death then that whole Mighty Avenger/Jocasta mess.

[tsunamiwombat]

When Hank Pym dies, right after he cures cancer and invents the orgasm pill, the epitath on his gravestone will read "He hit his wife once."

[thanekos]

We'll always remember that great man.. for his invention of the " don't beat your wife " drug.

[icon_uk]

Hi, I'm Hank Pym, you may be distracted from whatever it is I'm saying for the next several panels by my absolutely enormous goggles.

Seriously, what was a I thinking, these things are frigging ENORMOUS, I could probably fit an entire hand inside each lens. Lady Gaga wouldn't wear these on a bet.

When I pull these down I must look like Azmuth from Ben 10.

Oh yeah, and something about the dead horse flogging which is the constant harping back to an isolated incident which was utterly reprehensible, but not the estabishing a pattern of domestic violence which many writers keen for some easy angst seem to think it was... But whatever it is I'm saying, believe it, would these goggles lie to you?"

[psychopathicus_rex]

Actually, big goggles would probably be more practical than smaller ones in his line of work, as they'd allow for a wider range of vision.

[sir_razorback]

I like the new Hulks title. I hope it lasts for a while, it's actually giving me a reason to spend money on Marvel books. Too bad the comic book shop across the street from my house, Amazing Stories, had to close it's doors last month. =\

[halloweenjack]

Hi, I'm Hank Pym, and you may know me as the guy who's been the subject of some truly not not not not most heinous characterization, because the writers at the time wanted to inject some drama into Avengers, and they didn't want to paste wife-beating or robot-fucking onto the A-list characters. Anyhoo, I wish they'd just retcon that shit away, but in the meantime, I'ma do this charity thang which would be a good thing to do regardless. Dig it!

Also, Rio reminds me of Paul Pelletier in a way. His more grotesque characters (here as in New Mutants Forever are a lot more interesting than the more normal ones.

[stolisomancer]

I can see the Pelletier comparison as apt.

Mostly I'm impressed that he went from a pin-up guy to somebody who apparently has a fairly decent sense of framing and storytelling. You don't see a lot of artists who can make that leap.

[halloweenjack]

Also also, WRT Hack/Slash, I liked the first collection OK--although I thought that the story at the comic book collection was just a little too much inside baseball--but when I tried to get back into it a few issues later, it was in the middle of this arc and I had no idea what the hell was going on.

[stolisomancer]

I need to sit down with a full run of the ongoing and figure it out one of these days. When it was a series of one-shots and miniseries, it was decent if occasionally weird.

As an ongoing, though, it's like the book just got away from Seeley somehow.

[ormardu.blogspot.com]

I thought Armadillo was seen in The Raft during the opening pages of the current Thunderbolts series? So does this Hulk series take place before Heroic Age starts?

Also didn't Jen lose her licence to practice before the end of her PAD series?

[stolisomancer]

There's a guy who looks kind of like Armadillo at one point in Thunderbolts, but it's never explicitly identified to be him. The last time we saw him, IIRC, was in the MODOK's Eleven miniseries.

Jen got her license back in the last issue of PAD's run.