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.
Let’s talk about the editor’s notes. They pull you out of the comic a bit, but have been used to reference previous issues. Also to dispel confusion they think the comic was creating, like in case readers were confused by Johnny having a secret identity. Here, it’s used to convey a basic plot point, that the ants don’t follow Scarlet Beetle and remain loyal to Ant-Man. That seems like it deserved a “show-not-tell”. At the very least, let the normal narrator tell us. We don’t need the editor stepping in to reveal plot points. That point was anyway made clear enough in the story when the ants rescue Ant-Man.
In almost every issue, I’ve scratched my head over how much fear of Ant-Man criminals seem to have, given how not-that-powerful he seems. For example, here, he is defeated by beetles. The narrator clarifies it’s a lot of beetles, at least.
Ant-Man battles the Scarlet Beetle, a beetle given human-level intelligence by atomic radiation, who leads bugs in a war against humans. It’s not clear how much brain-power fits in so small a frame, but enough I guess. The Scarlet Beetle eventually steals Ant-Man’s enlarging gas to become a human-sized intelligent beetle.
This opens up some possibilities. Ant-Man has two serums, reducing and enlarging, both in gas form. It would be reasonable to assume the “enlarging gas” is more of a neutralizing agent, to undo the effects of the reducing gas. But we learn otherwise here. The beetle is naturally bug-sized and the enlarging gas makes him human-size. I wonder what would happen if a normal-sized human inhaled that same enlarging gas…
In the end, Ant-Man cures Scarlet Beetle of the effects of radiation, returning his intelligence to ordinary beetle levels. Others might have just squashed the beetle, but Ant-Man is too humane for that.
This issue also includes the following stories: “Ozamm the Terrible” and “The Toy Soldiers”.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 50/100
Signifiance: ★★☆☆☆
Rating this higher than the average Ant-Man story for particularly strong art by Kirby. And a pretty cool villain. I mean, he’s a giant beetle leading an insect army.
Characters:
- Scarlet Beetle
- Henry Pym/Ant-Man
Story notes:
- Beetles serve as bodyguards; termites take out telephone poles; spiders poison politicians; bees attack police; grasshoppers also involved
- Ants remain loyal to Ant-Man during bug rebellion
- An officer muses about whether Ant-Man is in league with the insects.
- Ends with Ant-Man curing Scarlet Beetle
#34 story in reading order
Next: Fantastic Four #10
Previous: Journey Into Mystery #87
