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!
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.
This story seems like a lesson in being careful what you wish for. A continuous concern I’ve had with these rather bland Ant-Man stories is that Henry Pym has no particular character. We see nothing of his personal life and he is given no personality. An odd contrast with the reputation of Stan Lee and these Marvel Comics for injecting characters with real-life drama.
They seek to course-correct with this issue, but it’s an extremely odd fit. The comic tells us the origin of Henry Pym. It involves a dead wife that led him to a passion for justice. Except… that’s not his origin at all. We know his origin.
And there was no passion for justice there. He argues for imagination, for science, and also shows fits of ego, of a desire to prove his fellow scientists wrong. But his dreams aren’t about justice; they’re about shipping costs and military support. Then he decides his growth serum is too dangerous and must be destroyed. Then he changes his mind. But again, nothing about his motivation seems to be about love or justice. He is thinking about science and discovery. He is forced to become Ant-Man by circumstance, a reaction to an attack on his lab by Communist agents. When the threat is ended, he ponders if he will ever be forced to become Ant-Man again. Again, nothing about those thoughts suggests a craving to become a superhero. However, we jump ahead in time and learn he is a regular crimefighter, now quite famous, and actively monitoring for crimes he can help solve. No explanation is given for how he got to that point.
So, we do now get a motive. But it’s just so hard to reconcile with everything we learned about the character in his first two appearances. And it’s so stereotypical. Avenging a loved one.
We learn he is “driven to restlessness by bitter memories”. Yet we have seen not even a hint of that before. His wife was killed by Soviets, and this comic strongly suggests he developed the Ant-Man suit specifically to battle against injustice.
It was also well-established that his interest in ants comes from that time he got trapped in an ant hill and rescued by an ant. But this comic adds a new twist to that, suggesting his inspiration comes from a quote from his dead wife’s father, which is quoted three times in the issue in two different ways. Maria relates the quote to him as “Go to the ants, thou dullard”, but Dr. Pym repeatedly recalls it as, “Go to the ants, thou sluggard.” It’s from Proverbs 6:6. Most translations I can find use “sluggard”. The point is that ants work hard and lazy people should find inspiration in them.
One detail about Dr. Pym’s past can be easy to miss, but will be vitally important later. It’s an almost throwaway comment about a mental breakdown. Against the wishes of the US Embassy, Dr. Pym tries to track down his wife’s killers, but fails and ends up in jail. In passing, the narration tells us Dr. Pym is in jail on the verge of a physical and mental breakdown.
The story moves on, treating this as a small point, but later writers will not. Some mental instability will become a hallmark of Ant-Man’s character over the years.
Ant-Man seems very concerned about his secret identity, but it’s not explained why. It’s just accepted as a trope of the genre. Hulk is a wanted fugitive. Spider-Man naturally wants to protect his aunt, and Thor was commanded by Odin to keep his identity a secret. But Ant-Man? He’s well-respected, has no particular arch-nemeses, and doesn’t seem to have any friends or family for enemies to strike at. He goes around solving crimes, but so do ordinary police officers. And they don’t wear a mask. There are some obvious advantages to having a secret identity, but Dr. Pym acts like it’s some vitally important thing, without saying why.
It hadn’t been obvious to me before that Dr. Pym himself invented unstable molecules, as the Fantastic Four also make use of the material. But he did. It’s not clear if Reed independently invented it, or if the FF use Dr. Pym’s invention.
Besides getting a new shoed-in origin for Dr. Pym, they tie that into him getting a partner. He meets a girl who reminds him of his dead wife, just younger. When her father is killed by an alien, he hears her make vows about justice similar to what he once made.
This is the first issue where we really see the ants talking to Ant-Man. Usually, he talks to them and they seem to understand. Now, not only do they talk, they seem hyper-intelligent. They know what “formic acid” is. They make scientific deductions based on the presence of formic acid. It’s weird.
One other element the issue badly shoves in is FBI agent Lee Kearns. We learn he and Ant-Man are good friends and that he wants Ant-Man to work more closely with the FBI. We don’t meet him, but hear his voice on the phone.
So–rather quickly, having just met the man–she agrees to be subjected to weird untested experiments that will allow her to grow wings and antennae. And so is born the Wasp. The latest addition to our ranks of heroes. A partner and potential love interest for Ant-Man. Who will finally give him somebody to talk to who is not an ant.
An interesting trait of the Wasp is that she was willingly subjected to a weird experiment with the intention of becoming a superhero. Most of the other heroes gained their powers by accident. Those who are more self-made use inventions, like shrinking gas or armor, rather than any genetic modifications. There is a Golden Age character who was willingly subjected to an experiment similar to what Wasp undergoes here– that was Captain America.
There are a lot of questions here, though. Ant-Man didn’t undergo an experiment like this, to get wings and antennae. He uses artificial antennae. Why couldn’t he give Wasp artificial antennae? If her Wasp powers are somehow better than his Ant-Man powers, then why not subject himself to the experiment? Why test it on her? I can only think of sinister motivations for such actions. Perhaps Dr. Pym is not as altruistic as he appears. Perhaps there is a risk he was willing to subject her to, that he wasn’t interested in himself.
Now, it’s a little confusing how Hank had a costume ready for her. I get that the unstable molecules mean that the costume will shrink and expand, so he didn’t need to worry about sizing it. But is it an all-gender costume? Would it have fit a man just as well? Did he have two costumes made, depending on who he chose as a partner? Or did he always plan on choosing a female partner? Rather cheeky, if so. My suspicion is that he purposely made the costume in Janet’s size when he first met her. That, consciously or otherwise, he’d picked her for a partner even before her father was killed.
Together they battle the acidic Creature from Kosmos that killed Wasp’s father. Part of her motivation is about proving herself. She doesn’t like being called a child and takes rash actions to prove she isn’t one.
The Creature attacks Manhattan. Where are the FF? This is the first hint Ant-Man lives anywhere near Manhattan. We only knew before he lived in Center City.
The depiction of the Ant-Man/Wasp relationship in this issue is frankly creepy. Dr. Pym is clearly attracted to her right away, but dismisses the idea because he’s not over his dead wife. His comments are always about how young she looks and his thoughts are always about how she resembles his dead wife. This would all be fine if it weren’t clear they’d be hooking up soon enough, he and this girl who is too young for him but who reminds him of his dead wife.
All of this is weird, right? That he had a costume ready for her. That he subjected her to this untested genetic modification experiment. That she agreed to it so readily. How he took advantage of her grief to talk her into this. How often he comments that she looks like his dead wife. He begins the issue reflecting on how great it would be if Maria were his partner, and by the end has transformed this young girl who reminds him of Maria into a human wasp. I think they both have some serious issues.
We’ve talked before about how much of my vocabulary came from reading comics in my youth., and how much still is. “Hymenoptera” and “hexapoda” are good words.
Rating: ★★½, 47/100
I want to give the story credit for introducing the Wasp and fleshing out the character of Dr. Pym. Both key milestones. But it’s all just so poorly told. And it remains true that all these writers seem pretty terrible at writing female characters.
Characters:
- Dr. Henry Pym/Ant-Man
- Janet Van Dyne/The Wasp
- The Creature from Kosmos
- Maria Pym (in flashbacks)
- Dr. Vernon Van Dyne
- Lee Kearns (voice on phone)
Story notes:
- Flashback: Henry Pym and wife Maria Pym vacationing in Hungary; Maria Pym formerly political prisoner in Hungary alongside father; Maria killed by Communists in Hungary, with a note saying this is what happens to those who escape the Soviet Union; Maria’s father killed in laboratory explosion; Soviet sabotage suspected; Dr. Pym fails to track down wife’s killers in Hungary and suffers a mental breakdown.
- Maria Pym’s maiden name is Maria Trovaya.
- “Go to the ants, thou dullard” — saying of Maria’s father, remembered by Dr. Pym as “Go to the ants, thou sluggard.”
- Maria repeatedly describes America as wonderful.
- Maria’s death explained as motivation for developing shrinking formula in the first place. It’s implied he developed it in order to use it to become a superhero.
- Story takes place over course of weeks as Ant-Man perfects Wasp formula, just in case he finds a suitable partner.
- Janet Van Dyne looks like a younger version of Maria Pym.
- Dr. Pym views Janet as a child, implying she is much younger than he.
- Dr. Pym describes his field as molecular cell transition and cell specialization, so he cannot help Dr. Van Dyne strengthen an energy beam.
- Creature from Kosmos unnamed: a fluid form of life; rode to earth on communication beam; communicates telepathically; a criminal on Kosmos; attempted to enslave Kosmos and will now enslave earth; destroys work so he can’t be followed and kills Dr. Van Dyne to take care of the witness; composed mostly of formic acid.
- Ant-Man makes very fast decision to make Janet his partner.
- Ants can communicate in pretty full sentences to Ant-Man.
- Hank’s experiments give Janet wings and antennae; these are known as “specialized cells”.
- Janet confesses her love for Ant-Man, but he cannot bear to love again.
- Creature attacks Manhattan; it is suggested this is where Ant-Man lives. He previously was described as living in Center City.
#69 story in reading order
Next: Fantastic Four #15
Previous: Sgt. Fury #1
