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I never understood why Ant Man ever had a following. The original powers were not very exciting when compared to other heroes Marvel was producing at the time. The power set also limited the types of stories that could be told and the power level of the villians. The entire premise really shot itself in the foot as a concept from the onset.

Maybe the “popularity” of the character was skewed. Wasn’t Ant Man paired up in the same title with Iron Man? If so, that would give the illusion of a fan base, especially if they were sharing the title within a few months of each other.

Personally, I think Hank Pym is one of Marvel’s best characters. He’s not one of their best super-heroes by any means, but that’s what I like about him.

I’ll admit that there may not have been signs pointing to spousal abuse in his early days, but I wouldn’t say that this side of Pym comes out of nowhere. He was always unstable.

He started as a mad scientist. One who fell for a ditzy teenager because she looked just like his dead wife. Then he performed dangerous experiments on her. This is before the Avengers even existed. Later, he had many personality crises, and created a robot that became the teams worst enemy. Hitting his wife might be extreme, but it shouldn’t have come as a suprise to anyone that the guy was nuts.

avengers63: “Wasn’t Ant Man paired up in the same title with Iron Man?”

No. He was initially the only continuing feature in …ASTONISH, then subsequently joined by the Hulk (I believe that’s the order), and eventually replaced with Sub-Mariner. Shell–Head was in TALES OF SUSPENSE, shared with Captain America.

Yeah, Hank Pym is one of the few characters that I actually have a love for, based on their character. Not enough to make me seek out anything he’s appearing in, mind you, but enough to make me get into silly arguments on the internet about why Ant-Man is awesome.

The way I see it, it looks like Jim Shooter expanded on what was already there. In addition to the whole mad scientist dating a teenaged avatar of his ex-wife thing, Hank was always struggling with his adequacy. He started out as the least impressive hero in the Marvel Universe, with a gimmick even less convincing than Aquaman’s. Then he tweaked his powers to become Giant-Man ( later Goliath ), but becoming big without the enhanced strength to match wasn’t nearly as impressive as the abilities of Thor or Iron Man. And his powers were constantly in flux, like the issues where he’s stuck at a 10-foot height. I won’t even get started on the schizophrenic episode named Yellowjacket.

Basically you’ve got a man with feelings of inadequacy at every turn. Switching identities may have indicated that the writers didn’t know what to do with Hank, but it also indicated a very fragile ego, constantly trying to reinvent himself so that maybe he’ll like himself some day. This sort of inferiority complex doesn’t lend itself to healthy relationships, especially when you put yourself in situations where everyone’s better than you. Hank couldn’t match Cap’s skill, couldn’t build Iron Man’s armor, and was basically supported by his wife’s inheritance.

That said, the whole spousal abuse thing has been blown way out of proportion. We know Hank screwed up his marriage profoundly, but he was in the midst of a severe nervous breakdown and not thinking clearly. He made a huge mistake, but he wasn’t in control of himself. Clearly therapy would be in order, as opposed to the Avengers ignoring his symptoms the whole time and planning to kick him out because he accidentally shot a foe in the heat of battle. Do these people have any capacity for forgiveness?

Only if your already a villain.

Once you go hero, no more Hawkeye-treatment for you!

I think the subtitle is really good, Pym was the sacrificial character, Shooter wanted to twist the Avengers mythos and make them more complex with this tale of an Avenger gone wrong, but who was able for the treatment? only Pym, not Hawkeye, or Cap or Thor or Iron Man, who had more followers. so it was Hank, he was more or less screwed as a hero (although I believe Busiek kind of fixed him, but then along came Bendis)but he was really interesting now as a character and I really liked his development in the WCA that period is IMO the best of Pym both as a super hero and as a human bean.

too bad it dind`t take

the “wife beater” storytelling engine was an interesting angle, but it has become boring and repetitive, I mean, the guy did hit his wife, he got a divorce, he was disgraced and kicked from the avengers and he even went to jail. C`mon, give the guy a break, Reed Richards has hitted Sue several times and nobody tells him nothing.

poor Pym

“although I believe Busiek kind of fixed him, but then along came Bendis”

And then what? I don’t think Bendis has really written Hank for any more than a page. I hardly see where you could blame him for hurting the character.
I like Pym where he is right now, as a super-hero scientist with an emphasis on both. Come to think of it, his role with the Initiative right now is a lot like Beast’s role with the X-men. Thats funny actually.

On a side note, I like the Yellowjacket identity the least. I like the character the best when he grows as well as shrinks but I guess there isn’t really any identity that allows for that. When Busiek used him a couple of times he had Pym going back and forth constantly, I think that extra dynamic to his powers makes him a much better character.

I dig Hank Pym. And I think the Dr Pym, super-hero scientist role he had in WCA was the best persona he had. Busiek did do a good job with the character, and then it was really Chuck Austen who screwed him up again, having Hawkeye and everyone else all of a sudden look at him as a wife beating monster. Despite the fact they had been teammates and friends for years after the one instance. Bendis and Millar continued with this trend (Bendis more just made him a whiney loser than a psychopathic wife-beater.) Dwayne McDuffie actually did a good job with him, in the Dr Pym persona even, in his recent Beyond mini.

It also has annoyed me that the same behavior done by other Marvel characters has just been forgotten about, since the current powers that be like the other characters more than Pym.

The original Antman/Giantman series seems doomed to failure from the beginning, mainly due to it not being planned as a superhero book, or a series at all. (Also because of the changing creative teams)

The most glaring problem: ZERO supporting characters! For the first several adventures, its just Hank, talking to himself! The insertion of Janet comes off as a weak attempt to fix this.

Another problem: No good villains. The best ones are the Human Top and the Porcupine. That’s just sad.

And his ant communication/control powers would change every issue. No planning or consistency.

You do get a handfull of well drawn Kirby issures, though. And the book had its moments. I enjoyed newly-Giant-man smashing into buildings trying to catch the Human Top. Also, when fighting the Hulk, he finds the only effective thing he can do is to confuse Hulk by growing and shrinking quickly. That’s very amusing.

Oh, I can’t not mention the hilariously bad Wasp Tales, generic morality sci-fi stories, written and “drawn” by Larry Leiber. Yeech.

(Sorry, nobody wanted to read that, but I just read that Essential volume, so it’s fresh in my mind!)

What everyone forgets about the original Avengers story that cast him as a “spouse abuser” was that the story was never about spousal abuse. It was a story about redemption.

In that story, Henry Pym hit rock bottom. The whole incident where he slapped Janet was NEVER intended to show that he had a HISTORY of spousal abuse. It was intended to illustrate just how far he had fallen.

Everyone focuses on that one piece of the story when the story was actually pretty inspiring. After losing himself, Henry Pym had to find his way again. Which he did at the end of the story.

His joining of the Masters of Evil at his lowest point turned out to be a ruse. Using no powers and nothing more than his own brains and ingenuity, he single handedly defeated the Masters of Evil. And then told his defeated arch enemy that they hadn’t been beaten by Ant-Man, or Giant-Man, or Yellowjacket, or any of his other alias’. They has been beaten by Henry Pym.

This was the mark of a hero, someone who had lost his way, fallen as low as he could go, but still rose above adversity to show himself as a true hero.

I thought it was a great story at the time and I personally cheered for Henry’s redemption at the end of the storyline. It’s too bad that so many writers since then want to paint him as a habitual spouse abuser and focus on that one single aspect of a multi-issue storyline.