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”.
Ahem.
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord…
That David played, and it pleased the Lord…
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth…
The minor fall, the major lift…
The baffled king composing “Hallelujah”…
Hallelujah!
Anyways…
Ant-Man is very concerned that he does not have his enlarging gas for his battle with Trago, so he must battle him ant-sized. But Ant-Man does everything ant-sized. He moves around ant-sized, even though he is surely faster full-sized. He talks to people ant-sized despite the inconvenience. And he battles all his villains while ant-sized. It never occurs to him to grow mid-fight to battle some villain. Until now, when he can’t.
I am extremely unimpressed by their handling of the story of Korr. They had an idea there. That Ant-Man would have a particularly loyal ant named Korr, who sacrifices himself to save Ant-Man. It’s a good idea with great potential for a touching story moment, destroyed by execution. First, we’ve never learned any ants’ names before. So it’s out of the blue that Korr has a name. We’ve never met Korr before. We only know of his loyalty from the narration. A clear case of telling, not showing. And then, after this newly introduced loyal named ant dies, Ant-Man just moves on immediately; by the next panel, he’s just riding a different winged ant! They attempt to redeem this story at the end, by showing that Ant-Man did not just move on.
I understand. In death, a member of project Ant-Man has a name. His name was Korr.
Hey… casual sexism and casual racism, all by page 2.
And even though it all went wrong, I stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.
Rating: ★½, 25/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
Characters:
- Dr. Henry Pym/Ant-Man
- Janet Van Dyne/Wasp
- Trago
- Ramond Theis
- Mr. Nehradu
- Mr. Cosgrove
- Ghazandi
- Korr
Minor characters:
- Harry (victim of Trago’s)
Story notes:
- Star of Ghana– largest precious gem in the world; also called Star of Ghama; Ghana is the name of an actual place, so I assume the second spelling is a typo.
- Janet wants to go listen to jazz; Henry doesn’t like jazz and wants to work; she wins.
- Janet compares Trago to Count Basie and Wild Bill Donovan; Hank doesn’t know them.
- Cosgrove buys Trago ticket for New Delhi, India — they misspell it as “New Dehli”.
- Time passes, months.
- Trago tests his powers in small Connecticut night club off Merritt Parkway.
- Trago plays on radio to hypnotize whole city; commands men to rob banks; commands reptiles to hunt Ant-Man; seems unconcerned with other superheroes.
- Korr first ant we’ve learned name of; immediately dies.
- Ant-Man expresses concern about battling Trago ant-sized; but he does everything ant-sized.
- The story is resolved because Ant-Man randomly stumbles onto the secret notes of Ghazandi.
#88 story in reading order
Next: Tales of Suspense #45
Previous: Journey Into Mystery #95
