Featuring: Ant-Man and Wasp Release: June 4, 1963 Cover: September 1963 12 cents Story plot: Stan Lee Script: H.E. Huntley Art: Don Heck 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks:Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.
After alternating between crediting himself with either “story” or “plot”, Stan has decided to cover his bases and give himself credit for “story plot”.
Featuring: Ant-Man and Wasp Release: April 2, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: H.E. Huntley Art: Don Heck 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.
With the return of Egghead, Ant-Man gets his first recurring villain. We’ve only seen so many recurring villains, with many new (but often forgettable) ones cropping up. Fantastic Four recurring villains so far are: Namor, Dr. Doom and Puppet Master. Thor of course keeps fighting Loki. Human Torch has now fought Paste-Pot Pete twice and Wizard thrice. And I think that’s it. So far, no recurring foes for Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Hulk (unless you count the US military).
They dedicate 2 pages the recapping the last battle with Egghead. At this point, the writers have mostly seemed to pay little attention to details, continuity, or consistency. Yet here they stick pretty close to the actual story in the recap, including some dialogue. Mostly new art and script, but a very close retelling.
Yeah, yeah. We already read all this.
Remember that in the 1960s, comics weren’t yet published online. You had to find them at a local vendor, so it was possible to miss an issue. This recap would help keep readers of that era up to speed if this happened.
We now have a new status quo. Ant-Man and Wasp are teammates. She thinks they should date. He is stuffy. They are both eager to battle evil and such. Wasp is sometimes overeager to prove herself. Even though she’s the one who can fly. While he… catapults.
Featuring: Ant-Man and the Wasp Release: March 5, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: H.E. Huntley Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Don Heck 18 pages
This is the first we have seen of H.E. Huntley. It is a pen name for Ernest Huntley Hart, known as Ernie Hart. He is freelancing at this point, and will do only occasional Marvel work in the 1960s, but he was an active Marvel writer and artist going back to the 1940s, perhaps most famous for his funny animal comics. He created Super Rabbit in 1943.
In this issue, meet our next Marvel superhero star, the Wasp. In yet another moment of serendipity, she was introduced the same day as Sgt. Fury!
But we already know why he became Ant-Man…
For the last 7 issues, Ant-Man has starred in solo adventures in the pages of Tales to Astonish. Going forward, he will now have a partner. Wasp will be the second female star added to our cast, after Invisible Girl. Most women we’ve met are relatives or romantic interests. No females are yet lead characters, as Wasp seems to get second billing to Ant-Man. And Invisible Girl is the member of the Fantastic Four given the least focus and respect.
Featuring: Ant-Man Release: February 5, 1963 Cover: May 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: Larry Lieber Art: Don Heck 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.
Spiffy!
As with the Thor comic released the same day, this issue sports the spiffy new logo box with a picture of the lead character, the price, and the phrase “Marvel Comics Group”.
One of my gateways into the world of superheroes as a child was Batman: The Animated Series. A frequent feature of the show was villain origins that cast them in a sympathetic light. Often they were fired or otherwise screwed over by a corporate bigshot. Riddler, Clock King, Mr. Freeze… all were given origins where you could at least see why they were upset, even if supervillainy is rarely justified.
Professor Weems has such an origin. Fired based solely on his age. With the twist that he had been so excited to show his grandson his lab and his work. Not sure that would even be legal today. They’d at least need some better official story.
A man spreads lies and fear to a crowd of people who soak it up.
The Voice of Doom! Featuring: Ant-Man Release: January 3, 1963 Cover: April 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: Larry Lieber Art: Don Heck 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant Man vol. 1.
This is Don Heck’s second issue of Ant-Man. The art duties will be a mix of Heck and Kirby going forward.
An accident at an atomic lab sends some charged particles into Jason Cragg’s microphone that imbue him with the power to make people follow his every command. We have seen other radiation-based anomalies–notably the effects of a bite from an irradiated spider and being caught in the blast of a gamma bomb–and we will see many more.
Watch out for that atomic radiation
There is perhaps some political commentary in this issue. An orator speaks and sways the crowd with demagoguery and fear-mongering. Ant-Man tries to point out the orator offers no evidence, but his cries are lost on deaf ears. Perhaps the creators were thinking of some 1960s politicians when writing this. It certain applies seems to describe a 2019 politician or two.
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.
That’s not 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.
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.)
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.
Through the eyes of an ant…
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.
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.
I guess people can hear him now
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?)
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
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?
