ant-man – Page 3 – Coke & Comics

Tales to Astonish #41

Prisoner of the Slave World!
Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: December 3, 1962
Cover: March 1963
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Script: L.D. Lieber
Art: Don Heck
10 pages

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.

This is a pretty momentous issue. We’ve read a variety of Marvel comics together here. We’ve taken peeks into the past and the future, and checked out some of Marvel’s “weird tales” books with tangential connections to our superhero comics. But we’ve mostly been reading superhero series of the early ’60s. We’ve followed the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Human Torch, Thor, and Ant-Man. What have all these series had in common? They’d all been drawn by Jack Kirby.

Now, for the first time, Jack is going to take a break from drawing several comics a month and draw one less. This issue of Ant-Man will be drawn by Don Heck. We’ve met Heck once before. He drew a Medusa story we checked out in Tales to Astonish. A great artist in his own right. He’d been associated with the company that will become Marvel off and on for almost a decade at this point, drawing westerns, war stories, and sci-fi/fantasy tales.

Tales to Astonish #40

The Day that Ant-Man failed!
Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: November 8, 1962
Cover: February 1963
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Script: L.D. Lieber
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Sol Brodsky
11 pages

We’re 6 issues in to these Ant-Man stories, and it’s time to state the obvious conclusion: they’re not very good. Now, the first story in issue 35 was good. It was a clever story about a scientist quickly having to put his inventions to work to stop some Commies. But it then falls apart. Somewhere between issue 35 and 36.

In issue 35, Ant-Man is forced to be born by circumstance– he has hostages to rescue. The issue ends with him musing whether he will ever be forced to become Ant-Man again. Issue 36 begins some time later. Ant-Man is now a regular crimefighter, internationally famous, beloved by people and law enforcement, who has specially constructed an ant-sized headquarters in his home, and who uses his network of ant friends to help him find crime to battle.

That’s a pretty big leap. It’s possible there’s some interesting character development there– but we don’t see it. In that first story, Dr. Pym had lab assistants. We’ve since met nobody else in his life: no friends, no colleagues, no love interest. The entire story in each issue is devoted to the mission. We learn nothing about his inner life, nothing about his personal life, and get no good sense of why he is Ant-Man. He just battles boring villain after boring villain (plus one giant beetle— that was cool.)

Tales to Astonish #39

The Vengeance of the Scarlet Beetle!
Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: October 2, 1962
Cover: January 1963
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Script: Larry Lieber
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
10 pages

I read this comic in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.

Jack Kirby is a pretty great artist. But he’s also churning out a lot of comics, drawing all 4 of Marvel’s superhero comics to premiere this month. He seems to put most of his energy into making Fantastic Four as good as he can, and treating the others as after-thoughts. But this comic shows plenty of splashes of greatness, beginning with the cool perspective of the first panel, and continuing with Kirby’s depictions of a war with a variety of insects.

People are pretty quick to call superheroes cowards…

Tales to Astonish #38

Betrayed by the Ants!!
Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: September 11, 1962
Cover: December 1962
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Scrtipt: Larry Lieber
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
10 pages

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.

Johnny Dee is credited with the letters. I believe this is a pen name for Jon D’Agostino.

We open with a meeting of organized crime, who have been stymied by Ant-Man… I must pause here and reflect. We’ve seen Ant-Man triumph over villains so far by tying their shoelaces together and blowing dust in their face with a fan. We’ve seen Ant-Man almost defeated by a box and a vacuum cleaner. I have trouble believing he is so much of a threat that criminals haven’t dared pull a robbery in weeks. And if Ant-Man is this much of a threat, what will these same criminals do when–any moment now–the streets start filling up with costumed vigilantes, many much bigger than an ant?

Tales to Astonish #37

Trapped by the Protecter!/Face-to-face with the Protecter!
Release: August 2, 1962
Cover: November 1962
12 cents
Writers: Stan Lee and Larry Lieber
Penciler: Jack Kirby
Inker: Dick Ayers
13 pages

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1. I took the credits above from the collection. I see no credits within the story itself.

In his first outing, a difficulty Ant-Man had was that nobody could hear him in ant-size. They haven’t specifically addressed how he overcame that, but he clearly has. Perhaps speakers are built into his helmet.

Again, we see Ant-Man as the most active superhero, using his ants to patrol so he can find his way to crime scenes and help investigate. This will become an increasingly common practice for people in this world, but nobody else is really doing it yet.

Who just rents a jewelry store on a whim?

As part of a trap, Henry Pym rents a jewelry store. That doesn’t sound cheap, suggesting a certain affluence on Dr. Pym’s part. It seems like it would have been easier to have his ants stake out other jewelry stores.

This story introduces the evil Protecter, who is extorting jewelers by threatening to destroy their merchandise with a disintegrating ray. The story has a lot of beat similarity to the Human Torch tale we recently read. There is a villain, and it ends with an unmasking of the villain, who turns out to be the only other character the story bothered to name. We also learn other secrets of the villain, like in this case he didn’t really have a disintegrating ray. He just created a flash and quickly (and entirely implausibly) gathered up gems and sprinkled sand. (How long is that flash? This is a guy in a big mechanized suit– how fast is he?)

Tales to Astonish #36

The Challenge of Comrade X!
Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: July 10, 1962
Cover: October 1962
12 cents
Writers: Stan Lee and Larry Lieber
Penciler: Jack Kirby
Inker: Dick Ayers
13 pages

Some time has passed since the previous issue, which ended with Henry Pym pondering: “Will I ever be forced to become Ant-Man again?”

Turns out, it didn’t take much forcing. He immediately began positioning himself to find and stop crime, and has made a name for himself, trusted by the police and public.

The FF stories used a similar gap. Had their first tale tell of their first adventure, but jumped forward for their second tale, to where their heroism had already become routine and they had gained public acceptance.

Tales to Astonish #35

The Return of the Ant-Man

The Return of the Ant-Man/An Army of Ants!/The Ant-Man’s Revenge!
Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: June 5, 1962
Cover: September 1962
12 cents
Writers: Stan Lee and Larry Lieber
Penciler: Jack Kirby
Inker: Dick Ayers
13 pages

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Venus #1	PRELUDE
Journey Into Mystery #83	Reading order	Fantastic Four #6
	Tales to Astonish	Tales to Astonish #36

So great a discovery must not melt into nothingness! I must concoct the serums again!

The credits are taken from the table of contents for Marvel Masterworks Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1. The book’s table of contents gives the credits I put above. I don’t see any credits in the actual issue.

June 5, 1962. Marvel introduces Spider-Man. And their take on the mythological Thor. Also: their scientist Henry Pym gets a costume and superhero identity and becomes Ant-Man. A decent chunk of the cast of Avengers: Endgame was introduced on that day. Stan Lee was involved in all three. Jack Kirby designed Thor and Ant-Man and was involved in initial designs for Spider-Man, before Steve Ditko came on board. Larry Lieber was involved in scripting for both the Thor and Ant-Man stories. That’s a lot of simultaneous creativity going on for a small group of people.

To recap, in Tales to Astonish #27, we met Dr. Henry Pym. He was a mad scientist type, in a story that seemed similar to many others of the time, likely intended as a one-off. We get a recap in this issue, which describes it as a “nightmarish story”. I mean, I guess if you hate ants.

But 8 issues later, Henry Pym returns. At the end of the last story, he decided his shrinking serum was too dangerous and destroyed it. Here, we learn he had a change of heart a few weeks later. He decided to concoct a new serum and hide it away until the world was ready. Wait… if he still thinks the world isn’t ready for the serum, why make a new one only to hide it? Why not just wait to make the new batch? Unless you expect an urgent need for it?

Tales to Astonish #27, Story A

The Man in the Ant Hill
Release: September 28, 1961
Cover: January, 1962
10 cents
Story: Stan Lee and Larry Lieber
Pencils: Jack Kirby
Inks: Dick Ayers
7 pages

I read this in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1. The story gives no credits, but the collection does. Some online sources break that down as crediting Stan with the plot and Larry with the scripting.

The opening splash pages serves as a title page and cover for the story.

Marvel stands on the precipice between its era of short sci/fi tales and its era of superheroes. This comic comes out the same day as Fantastic Four #2 and fits squarely in the former category, a short cautionary sci/fi tale about a mad scientist. Not clear what the theme is. Be careful of inventing stuff, I guess.