Ant-Man #1 - "Alone Against the Ant-Agonists!"

[laughing_tree]

I honestly don't know if it's possible to redeem Hank or if we should even want to, but I do think he's the victim of a weird kind of meta-commentary. He became Giant-Man because Ant-Man obviously wasn't cool enough, and then that wasn't quite there either, so he got a new hat, and then he got even bigger but with a problem. Then each evolution comes with ramping up his problems, and his problems become about not being enough as a character in-world as well as out of it, and that leads to him committing an act of domestic violence while building a robot to attack his friends and at that point, the casket is pretty much sealed.
So I guess when I think of the Hank Pym Ant-Man, I'm thinking of Hank before the editorial dissatisfaction with him really started to crawl into his guts. Marvel might not have been happy, but Hank was -- he was just fine talking to ants, solving small-time crimes, and having a ball with his sidekick-slash-maybe-more-question mark??? He was fine. He was happy. If I could bring Hank Pym back into the modern Marvel Universe, that'd be the Hank I'd bring back in. He'd be totally redundant, obviously, but this time he wouldn't care.
-- Al Ewing

Comments

[numeronone]

This is true about a lot of heroes though, isn't it?

[shakalooloo]

No other hero has been quite so villified as Hank Pym though. Honestly, fusing with his robotic son into an evil cyborg monstrosity may be the nicest he's been ever been treated.

[scorntx]

Wanda Maximoff's pretty close, though.
At least, in-universe.

Hank doesn't have people getting children chanting around the campfire about how evil he is.
(or if he does, they're being real quiet about it.)

[numeronone]

I'd argue Wanda Maximoff is a close second.

[shakalooloo]

Ah, but after she faked her death and sent an innocent man to the Hole for murder, Wanda created a soul-heaven for the mutants, and they like her now.

Is that what it'll take for Hank? He did create a digital paradise land for Bill Foster, so maybe if he made that available for a bigger audience he'd get a little more appreciation.

[scorntx]

Well, how many "Hank earns redemption / forgives himself for his screw-ups" stories have there been since the 80s? It'd never take, no matter what he does.

(actually that's not all rhetorical questioning. There's got to have been at least two of them...)

[beyondthefringe]

Easily more in the 5-10 range.

[mindsweeper]

Do fans have a problem with Pym or really care about his past actions? I feel like Pym and Wanda have/had opposite problems. Creators are the ones who wont buy into Pym’s multiple redemptions and move on while it was primarily fans who wouldn’t get on board with Wanda’s multiple redemptions until Trial of Magneto.

[b_i_beast]

I think the writers don't move on from Pym's mental problems because they believe fans don't buy it since the things he does are more likely to happen in real life. They don't seem to realize that we are thinking in terms of the consequences their actions have in-universe.

[windleopard2]

I've seen a few fan arguments that argue that Pym's multiple redemptions kind of resulted in Jan being put to the wayside so maybe it's a combination of fans and creators in regards to bringing up him hitting and wanting to move on from the incident.

[lordultimus]

Technically, wasn't it the Council that sent Toad to the Hole?

[shakalooloo]

Wanda did conspire with Magneto to have him take the fall. And never stepped forward to exonerate him.

[lordultimus]

Oh, but it's played for comedy, so that makes it okay.

[angry_marmot]

Nice homage to Don Heck's style as well.

[shakalooloo]

Preview for the next issue looks pretty spot-on for Phil Hester as well.

And today Marvel have announced that Al Ewing's doing a similar Wasp miniseries next year! Hopefully these will lead to a new ongoing or something!

https://www.cbr.com/wasp-teams-adopted-daughter-nadia-van-dyne-new-series-al-ewing-kasia-nie-marvel/

[scorntx]

Ooh, neat.
(Though if it's the same approach as a different era's Wasp per issue... wondering if they'll have to cheat.
There's Jan, Hank, Nadia... so who'd the fourth be? Or would they substitute in Cassie Lang?)

[numeronone]

Possibly another future Wasp?

[scorntx]

Well, it's unlikely to be Hope Pym, what with Marvel apparently trying to forget MC2 ever happened.
(Shame. Nadia meeting her other-self / inspiration would be interesting.)

[iamrman]

Always happy to see more Nadia.

[zachbeacon]

Same. I know Janet is decades overdue for a comic but I'd really rather have Nadia.

Though I'd also rather have Scott than Hank.

The first draft isn't always the best version.

[lordultimus]

This can't be early 60's Hank, he's not constantly insulting Jan's intelligence!

[akodo_rokku]

Well obviously, because there is no early 60s Hank. There's only roughly 13 years ago Hank. And anyone else.

Really thought you could just say "This can't be early 60's INSERT MALE CHARACTER"

[super_fly]

There was obviously a huge retro revival in style, technology and our entire way of life in 2009.

Plus y'know what they say, misogyny never goes out of style.

But man this comic is going to feel dated when they real year 2549 rolls around.

[lordultimus]

Also, I'm pretty sure Hank's best outcome is to become a non-hero super-scientist; it's unironically where he seems happiest. Jan's super science house husband, maybe.

[akodo_rokku]

Yeah, the West Coast, "Doctor Pym," phase and post-Secret Invasion, "Scientist Supreme," are probably the best and most stable periods of Hank's life.

[beyondthefringe]

I liked Doctor Pym with his shrunken arsenal of goodies. Not so much the suicidal version from the same time frame--Englehart was writing very Engleharty at the time.

I also liked the Scientist Supreme, even if that role was supposedly a Loki lie.

Really, Hank's had some good runs but a shitty overall history--the early Avengers issues were awful to him with the identity changes, mood swings, insecurities... he really should have been allowed to retire to his labs to tinker and experiment and support Jan as an adventurer, since clearly the superhero life was never all that healthy for him and he knew it. He'd have made for a great scientist support character always coming up with new, wacky ideas involving insects/size-changing/bio-engineering.

Unfortunately, between all that and the Ultron thing and the domestic violence episode, he was utterly broken as a protagonist, which is why he hasn't had a series of his own to any degree since... um... was it really the Tales of Suspense run that Ewing is even here referencing? Because Hank's otherwise been a cast member in Avengers/West Coast/Initiative/Mighty/Secret/A.I.--never a solo lead in his own right again. Hell, his successors, both spiritual and otherwise--Eric, Scott, Bill--all headlined their own series, however briefly. Even Nadia had a good run as a main character. (Not Janet... who's long deserved her own title as well!)

If Ewing were to actually bring a young, unbroken Hank into prime continuity, that would be good--the only way to "fix" Hank really is to roll him back to an earlier save point, an uncorrupted backup free from decades of shitty baggage. But of course who needs him when you have Scott, Raz, and Tom already holding the Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and Goliath identities?

[scorntx]

But if they brought in a Younger Hank (shades of 'Teen Tony'), sooner or later they would have to address the elephant in the room like they did with Nadia.
Or at least, someone would bring it up.
(And let's face it, the Ultron thing isn't the big stain on his record. It's the slap.)

Odd given the whole prevalence MCU synergy no-one at Marvel seems to have considered just going with the angle of aging him into Grumpy Old Man Hank.
Apparently it's a better idea to skin him, merge him with a killer robot and have his soul be eaten by a generic space monster than trying to move forward with the character.

[beyondthefringe]

I'd say that if they got a Young Hank who was free of all the later baggage, and got him proper help for his bipolar disorder... but honestly you'd have to go back to "pre-Avengers Hank" to really clear out the problems. But even then he's still chained down by the death of Maria and all of that trauma.

But even so, say you have a younger Hank in his... how old is he, anyway? How old was he supposed to be when he started out--already widowed, an expert in his field... mid-20s? Late-20s? 30s? Say you have an inexperienced Hank who's actually coping with bipolar disorder and reasonably untroubled, and you mention Nadia, so here he is also co-existing with the daughter he never knew and a superhero community who remembers everything Older Hank did and will undoubtedly tell him/keep an eye on him, and he still lives in a world where Ultron exists, and...

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my closing argument is that decades of mistreatment of Hank Pym, and writers unable to fully let go of his worst moments, have made him an untenable character in primary continuity and he should be allowed to rest in peace. Because otherwise, he'll never be allowed to properly change and grow beyond The Slap and Created Ultron, and his role(s) have been adequately filled in other ways since. Replacing him with a younger, untainted version, is just more trouble than it's worth at this point.

(Plus, I think readers are tired of "fix characters by rolling back the odometer" and that's a trend which had been going on for a rather long time...)

[jgraygaming]

I'll be curious to see what he does with Jan. Few writers really seem to understand how to write her as both a flirty fashion designer and socialite and one of the most effective leaders the Avengers have ever had.

[beyondthefringe]

I'd say that her depiction in the Unstoppable Wasp series was one of the best at balancing her various roles and strengths.

[scorntx]

He has written Jan at least once before, waaaaaaay back in Avengers Assemble no 15.
It made good use of her knowledge of shrinking and growing, at least.

Which ended with a little girl stomping on a Definitely Not Baron Karza Knockoff.

(can't recall if he's written her elsewhere. Avengers: No Surrender would be a safe bet...)

[donnblake]

I'm tickled by the idea that the movie Namor produced solely as a plot to destroy the Fantastic Four actually got cut together for a theatrical release.

[shakalooloo]

Studio needed to keep those rights.

[huntleyhaverstock]

I unabashedly love Al Ewing's work. He seems to understand that every character is someone's favorite, every story has some fun or interesting thing about it. He's not interested in mocking or deconstructing anything; he treats every story, character, and idea with respect and good faith, and sees what kind of fun he can have with them.

[justsotired]

Ewing is basically the antithesis of this horde of joyless "smart mark" writers. Even his most gonzo insane writing is grounded in SOMETHING and he has his genre tropes down to a t - so he knows when to subvert them. His intrigues are never empty, his horror is never banal.

He's just a good writer.

Marvel and DC should hire more of them.

[justsotired]

Thinking about Pym, it's very much a 'Johnny the Goat F--ker' problem. No matter how many times he saves the world, nobody will remember him as Hank the World-Saver. And then writers keep compounding it with him doing other terrible things.

Has there ever been a panel of him just apologizing to the Wasp for what he did? Just saying he was sorry?

Other characters have done similar things and for various reasons they've slipped the hook. I'd like to see Cypher get a chance to apologize to Roulette now that she's no longer dead or a zombie but I have no expectations that the current crop of X-Writers will acknowledge any pre-existing relationships between characters, for good or for ill.

[chalicother]

Has there ever been a panel of him just apologizing to the Wasp for what he did? Just saying he was sorry?

I feel that there has...but I could be wrong.

All I remember is of the Ant-Man and Wasp story,

Where Hank makes a women shelter in her name and indirectly admits he did wrong by her.

https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/7774168.html#cutid1

[shakalooloo]

In The Initiative, Hank apologised to Jocasta simulating how Janet would react. She reacted badly, so I'm guessing Hank didn't repeat his speech once Janet turned out not to be dead.

But he did at least write a little speech apologising.

[deh_tommy]

I think so. I don’t recall the exact issue, but he has apologised and they’ve had their reconciliations over the years.

Now, have the Avengers ever apologised to Carol Danvers for what they did to her? Or has Wasp ever apologised to Hank for taking advantage of his dissociative breakdown to get him to marry her?

[lordultimus]

The part where she gets welcomed back as Binary includes a long (off-panel) talk, so I presume an apology happened there.

I do recall them at least feeling BAD about it during Busiek's run.

[justsotired]

I mean it's a very real possibility that there has, and it just got lost, or writers decided to ignore it.

[justsotired]

But at the same time, this has me wondering, did a flat out "I'm sorry for what I did" without any grand gestures or test-runs or off-panels ever actually happen?

[windleopard2]

Dare I ask what Kohnny the goat f**cker refers to?

[donnblake]

The version I heard goes something like

"An old man named Johnny walking through his village with a visitor. He points to the village church and says "I built that church with my own hands, carrying the rocks from the quarry. Do you think they call me Johnny the church builder?" They walk on for a while, and Johnny points to a butcher's shop. "I worked at that shop for forty years, and every one in this village was my customer, but do you think they call me Johnny the Butcher? No." He sighs and stares at the horizon and says "I went to war and served my country, and came home with a chestful of medals. But do you think they call me Johnny the soldier? No. But you fuck one goat..

[justsotired]

Bingo. Short version, when you do something obnoxiously awful, no amount of good deeds seem able to eclipse it in people's minds, for good or for ill.

[bravest_spinja]

Tbh, I think Hank Pym had spent something like, fifteen years very much rehabbed, the incident not brought up. He was even the leader from that awful Avengers cartoon.

It was Mark Millar, when he launched The Ultimates, who was like "You know, Hank Pym is really only interesting as a character when he's doing domestic abuse", and then it became his hook.