The many names of Hank Pym

For all his scientific brilliance (the top biochemist in the Marvel universe), Hank Pym’s genius gets overshadows by his indecisiveness.  Within the first six years of his premiere, he took on four different superhero names, all of which stem from his naming philosophy of, “Eh, I could do better.”  So today we’ll take a look at all his different identities, starting from his premiere in Tales to Astonish #27, written by Stan Lee & Larry Lieber and drawn by Jack Kirby:

Hank Pym

Before he became a superhero, his adventures started the normal way: accidentally shrinking himself and fleeing from killer ants.  Though if you’ll notice, his self-esteem issues and mental instability seeds are thoroughly planted for later sprouting even in his first appearance:

I’m no Einstein like Pym, but wouldn’t it be unwise to escape from ants by running straight into their home?  But I do sympathize with our protagonist, if just because my own life choices have shown me that if I created a shrinking liquid, I would also 100% accidentally leave the antidote out of reach.  He returns seven issues later to emerge as a bonafide superhero, complete with that gigantic helmet and appropriate spandex, bringing us to his first superhero name.

Ant-Man

We jump to Tales to Astonish #35, written by Lee and drawn by Kirby.  Thugs break into Pym’s lab, not realizing that crazy scientists always have nine or ten back up plans in case of threatening. They should just be thankful that Pym’s a softie and not that a giant robot breaks through the wall and rip out their spines.

Isn’t it strange that while Nazis remain an acceptable villain today, commies seem wildly old fashioned?  They both still exist, both have killed millions of people, and both sound like breeds of adorable purse-sized dogs, but nowadays we just chuckle at the idea of scary communists.  Don’t any of us remember the horror of Vietnam?  I know the Punisher can’t be the only one.

Anyway, now Pym can control ants using his helmet giving him an actual superpower, which is far more useful than his previous ability of fighting rats with toothpicks.

Giant-Man

If Pym can shrink, shouldn’t the opposite work as well?  Unfortunately, Ant-Man won’t work as a name for a man capable of doubling his size — so Pym picks the most on-the-nose superhero name of the 1960s in the pages of Tales to Astonish #49, written by Lee and drawn by Kirby.

Take that Wasp, being in love with the idea of being in love.  Everyone in comics back then talked like a clunkier version of Mad Men.  Thankfully, Wasp doesn’t button those ruby lips of hers because we treat women as equals and certainly don’t tell them to zip it during science time.  They continue to adventure and fight crime until after the first year or so of Avengers comics when the pair leave the team for a brief vacation.

Goliath

When Pym rejoins the Avengers in Avengers #28, written by Lee and drawn by Don Heck, he does so out of painful necessity.  Y’see, Wasp has gone missing and only the Avengers can help him defeat The Collector, the Marvel universe’s premier hoarder.

The irony of Pym’s last statement is that Giant-Man remains his most commonly used superhero name over the past decades — including the one he currently goes by.  And honestly, Captain America is a way cornier name than Giant-Man, but we’re too blinded by patriotism and eagles soaring overhead to notice it.  Though not to be a buzzkill, isn’t Goliath the name of a bad guy who died from a pebble to the forehead?

Yellowjacket

I present to you quite possibly the strangest issue of the Avengers ever: Avengers #59, written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema.  Pym’s schizophrenia kicks in high gear as he creates a brand new persona and not just in name this time.

I’m no human resources expert, but I imagine announcing to superheroes that you’d make a good fit for their team because you murdered one of their members probably doesn’t give your resume a second look.  Because Pym has a slightly misogynistic streak to continue, he kidnaps Wasp against her will and shameless boasts his sex appeal.  Then the issue gets even stranger.

It’s revealed next issue that Wasp figured out Pym was suffering from schizophrenia the whole time (due to the scientific reason of a chemical spill).  But to readers, we just saw a random jerk claiming he killed Wasp’s boyfriend, snatch her to a deserted pervert den, sexually assault her, and she responds by immediately pulling a massive Stockholm Syndrome all within the span of four pages. The 1960s were a weird time for comics.

Wasp

We now jump ahead forty years to the end of the Marvel event Secret Invasion.  The Skrulls invaded Earth, lost, and left the planet with a superhero causality notched on their bedpost.  All big events cost us at least one superhero and in Secret Invasion poor Wasp bit the bullet.  Well, turns out she become trapped in the Microverse due to Thor’s hammer, but that’s a story for another time.  To honor her memory in Secret Invasion: Requiem one-shot, written by Dan Slott and drawn by Khoi Pham, Pym changes his name for the fifth time.

There you go, all of Pym’s name changes!  I take a sort of pride in answering questions no one’s asking.  On Friday, we’ll repeat this with Kitty Pryde — she’s can’t make up her mind either.

The fantastic Invisible Woman

Unlike every superhero ever, I’m in the beginning stages of a cold so I’m going to just schedule this to premiere at midnight and try to fall asleep before the sun goes down.  I’m just saying Batman could have had his leg blown off the night before and tonight he’d still be dragging himself to the Batmobile while incoherently growling to Alfred, “The Riddler is still out there!”  But our fictional characters exist as the best version of humanity (and aliens), so I figure what better way than to show that with a wildly underrated character (at least to casual fans): Sue Storm Richards, the Invisible Woman.

Sue didn’t gain her force field powers until Fantastic Four #22 and despite being a mother, didn’t change her codename from the Invisible Girl to Invisible Woman until Fantastic Four #284.  But unlike Thing’s super strength, Human Torch’s fire, and Mr. Fantastic’s elasticity, her powers come with a special ability — they’re only restricted by the writer’s imagination.  As you’ll see today, she constantly reminds her enemies exactly why she’s the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four, mainly because magic force bubbles have far more potential uses than self-made arson.

I want to start right off the bat with quite possibly one of the greatest Fantastic Four moments of all time.  Y’see, the supervillain Wizard and his Frightful Four ambushed and kidnapped the Invisible Woman.  In Fantastic Four #549, written by Dwayne McDuffie and drawn by Paul Pelletier, they find out that was a mistake.

That about sums up the gist of it.  Sue Storm is scary.  Like making grown supervillains wet themselves with just an explanation of what she could do — not even doing it.  In pages I didn’t show you, Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, Thing, Storm, and Black Panther battled the group all together and still lost.  So while it may have taken the Invisible Woman decades to hit her well-deserved stride, nowadays she may be one of the most powerful female superheroes in Marvel comics today.

Here she goes yelling at the robot Thor that Mr. Fantastic built during the Civil War in Black Panther #25, written by Reginald Hudlin and drawn by Marcus To:

And taking down that jerk Electro in Amazing Spider-Man #660, written by Fred Van Lente & Dan Slott and drawn by Mike McKone:

Let’s not forget the time she threatened Namor (the handsomest fish) in Fantastic Four: Season One, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and drawn by David Marquez:

But you know who never underestimates the family matriarch?  Doctor Doom, of course, because along with his scientific genius and accomplished sorcery, he knows the 30-something year-old woman who married his arch-nemesis (gross) can explode him from the inside with a well-timed flip of her wrist.  Though the writers wouldn’t implement that strategy to avoid a two-panel battle with Doom goo splattered all over the rest of the issue.

After Doom lost to the Fantastic Four (and gave Mr. Fantastic a half-melty face), in Fantastic Four #507-508, written by Mark Waid and drawn by Howard Porter, he escaped from his prison dimension with no physical body but something much better: possession magic.  Oh, and SHIELD wants to arrest the Fantastic Four for conquering and unlawfully ruling Latveria.  Long story.

A tactician like Doom now controls the most attractive member of the Fantastic Four (depending on what gender you’re attracted to and the intensity of your rock monster fetish), plus he can utilize all those force fields as weapons beyond blocking kicks and energy blasts.  Even worse, who better to counter how Mr. Fantastic thinks?

Nick Fury’s eye patch is like how Barbara Gordon’s paralysis used to be.  Easily cured by magic or medicine or some other miracle of comic book science, but kept for the symbolism (past mistakes/tragedy).  Look, more than one superhero who lost a limb replaces it with a robotic arm capable of crushing motorcycles, and Marvel can’t give Nick Fury a new eye that can shoot webs or speak Mandarin or anything?  SHIELD has flying cars but Nick Fury still has to look like an angry pirate.  If Batgirl can walk again, surely Nick Fury can regain his depth perception.

Back to our topic, superheroes still lose tons of battles.  It builds suspense and whatnot.  But gorgeous moments arise from those losses like in Fantastic Four #603, written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Barry Kitson.  I should admit that I see everything Sue does through majorly biased rose-colored lenses.

And against evil Ben Grimm in Fear Itself: FF one-shot, written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Tom Grummett:

Jonathan Hickman added about two dozen supporting characters to the Fantastic Four and beautifully fleshed out Valeria and Franklin Richards, Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic’s two children.  Valeria has the intelligence of her father with the unfortunate downside of being a five year-old.  She can create the technology to destroy entire civilizations before she finishes a Gogurt, but the poor girl can’t see over the kitchen counter.  Her older brother Franklin has the same reality-warping powers of the Scarlet Witch without the downside of being sexually attracted to robots.  It’s unrelated, but the Richards have raised some amazing children, like this page from Fear Itself #5, written by Matt Fraction & Stuart Immonen and drawn by Wade Von Grawbadger:

We end today (mainly because the NyQuil is starting to kick in) with scenes from FF #2-4, written by Hickman and drawn by Kitson & Steve Epting.  To sum up recent events, a group of several dozen alternative dimension evil Mr. Fantastics are attempting to destroy Earth.  So to solve this problem, our good Mr. Fantastic gathers up a whole collection of supervillains to discuss debate-style possible methods to kill Mr. Fantastics.  It’s a genius idea, and any successful Mr. Fantastic-killing council needs the big baddie himself: our pal Doom.  You know who’s not happy with this?  Everyone. Especially Thing who still hasn’t really gotten over the Human Torch’s death recently.

The Invisible Woman won’t take crap from nor be provoked by Doctor Doom.  It’s not because she’s level-headed or emotionally stronger than the Thing.  Nope, because to sum up everything we’ve discussed and read today, Sue asks the question we all know the answer to — who the hell do these supervillains think they’re messing with?

May all young fictional girls grow up to be like the Invisible W0man.  On Friday, we’ll cover a Wolverine story, because there’s no better time to blatantly and shamelessly milk the new X-Men movie for an increase in hits.

Civil War: Iron Man & Kingpin

While Kingpin sat in prison for all of Marvel’s Civil War event, I’ve seen enough true crime documentaries to know that doesn’t mean he can’t contribute.  But the fact that he appears at all speaks more to the sad notion that superheroes have to scrape the bottom of the morality barrel. Captain America needs bad guys to flesh out his army and Iron Man can use his government influence if a baddie’s willing to beat up some of Cap’s guys.  Really, the supervillains came out of Civil War the best — all except those two that ran into the Punisher.  So with the stake of the costumed world at stake, today we’ll watch Iron Man play games with Kingpin in Civil War: War Crimes one-shot, written by Frank Tieri and drawn by Staz Johnson.

Kingpin, real name Wilson Fisk and the undisputed boss of New York City’s underworld, continually rises back to the top of the evil sludge pile despite having no superpowers beyond being five-hundred pounds of muscle.  But he does possess two qualities that propel supervillains to center stage: intelligence and influence.  That and a unrelentingly sociopathic brutality and a disposition towards uncompromisingly catastrophic violence.  Though mainly the first two.

Darn tootin’.  No dumb man could ever hope to control all crime in a city filled with three superheroes per square block.  Let Count Nefaria have Los Angeles.  That’s for wimps.  Though with rival Hammerhead released from prison, Kingpin’ll have to do more than rot in prison to keep his territory.

Y’know, Spider-Man webbing henchmen to the walls or Daredevil breaking their skulls with a billy club can be tough, sure, but Scarlet Witch?  That woman can cause you to live out actual hellish nightmares while your eyes bleed angry lava monsters.  Plus, you somehow manage to injure her? It’s only a matter of time before her daddy Magneto comes through your skylight to rip the iron out of your blood and use it as an anchor to drown you in the nearest river.  And Hawkeye with his adorable arrows.

Anyway, turns out Iron Man isn’t bought by the generosity of supervillains (probably because he already has billions of dollars).  Still, even with revenge on his mind, Iron Man has some new friends that Kingpin can use.

Maria Hill nailed the theme of the Civil War: the ends justify the means no matter how many marriages, relationships, friendships, or blurred moral lines need to be shattered.  I know that the Marvel universe doesn’t live in black and white (the gray area helps keep it so great in the first place), but if Tony had spent more time punching bad guys and less time negotiating with supervillains to capture his best friend, the Marvel universe would have been a much better place.  And that applies for Captain America too.

Fisk is not a super genius.  He can’t master nuclear biology or understand the technology used to create web shooters, but the dude has street smarts the size of his dinners.  And we’ve all seen enough movies or played that one Mass Effect DLC to know that the information trade will always be more valuable and dangerous than weapons or superpowers.  I wonder just how sleazy Iron Man feels every time he breathes in that greasy Kingpin air.

There you go.  Witness the end of the Civil War as Iron Man and friends ambush Captain America’s team and bring about the justice they declared in the Superhuman Registration Act.  Lesson learned? Sometimes small compromises can lead to bigger successes, like the Kingpin released from prison and freed from all charges to once again rule his violent and destructive criminal empire.  Well, y’know, except for this:

That’s right, my friends.  Kingpin just had Iron Man take out Hammerhead for him, clearing the way for an underworld rebuilding once Fisk gets out of prison.  And yes, Kingpin won’t get that early release Hill promised him, but he accomplished his main objective beautifully and masterfully: vengeance.

That smug jerk Tony Stark, sending in that punk Hawkeye and basket case Scarlet Witch to raid Kingpin’s warehouse after he accepted Kingpin’s gracious gift.  And good riddance to Hammerhead too.  From three conversations in jail, Fisk compromised both sides of the Civil War, destroyed all possible competition, and regained his position at the top of supervillain food chain.

Yeah, Kingpin smiles now, but a few months later Spider-Man beats the ever-living daylights out of him in front of all his little criminal buddies.  Still, for the rest of Civil War, victory tastes sweet and savory, much like his many, many, many meals.

Civil War: Thing

The Marvel event Civil War remains the quintessential summary of comics during the 2000s.  Lots of government politics, wildly blurred moral lines, and more superheroes hitting other superheroes than supervillains.  Hell, Iron Man became the Marvel universe’s main bad guy for two years.  But some amazing stories came out of Civil War and the aftermath (plus who doesn’t want an answer to who-can-beat-who arguments? Spoiler alert: Thor) and I’m always a supporter of writers trying to shake up the status quo a bit.  Though through ll the emotional torments and ruined friendships, no one came out of Civil War worse than the Fantastic Four — I mean, besides Goliath and Captain America because of their whole dying thing — and this week we’ll take a look at some of their moments during this crisis.  Let’s read some scenes from Fantastic Four #538-541, written by J. Michael Straczynski and drawn by Mike McKone.  Heads up, the Thing may have been the only level-headed superhero in the entire event.

Just in case you aren’t familiar, I’ll quickly summarize the issues up to this point.  The New Warriors, a brash group of young superheroes, ambushes supervillains Nitro & Friends in a populated suburban area.  They soon realize that Nitro’s basically a living bomb and he wrecks the whole town, killing hundreds of people, and causing the country to go into an uproar.  A bill gets passed in Congress that all superheroes must de-mask, register with the government, and quit all that vigilante stuff.  Iron Man becomes the leader for the pro-registration team while Captain America goes into hiding as the anti-registration leader.  Cue mass fighting in the streets for months.  We pick up here.

Y’see, in the wave of anti-superhero actions, some jerks beat down the Human Torch outside a club. Using clubs.  As for Yancy Street, they’re like the drunk cousins you see every Thanksgiving: always causing trouble and the Thing’ll have to shove them into a cab ride home, because y’know, they’re family.

I would say that the Thing lies between a rock and a hard place, but he’s already both of those.  Mr. Fantastic sits as Iron Man’s number two while the Invisible Woman seeks to sabotage and ruin the government’s plans.  With the Human Torch in a coma, the Thing’s torn between two (subjectively) awful sides.  And truthfully, both sides have faults the size of Fin Fang Foom — a practical lose/lose for poor Ben Grimm.

No more shrugs and watching from the sidelines for the Thing.  Clobberin’ time has made way for decision time.  By midway through the event, the anti-registration side comes off as the good guys if mainly because the good guys are always whatever team Captain America fights on.  But let’s not forget that both teams engage in some morally ambiguous actions.  Iron Man imprisons captured superheroes in the Negative Zone.  Captain America openly boosts his manpower with known supervillains.  So as the Thing gets forced into a corner, it’s essentially picking the lesser of two spandex-wearing-laser-eyes-zapping evils.

Luckily before he needs to choose a direction to throw his punch in, a more important situation arises. When superheroes are busy fighting superheroes, that leaves supervillains free to enact their own dastardly plans unhindered.

Drunk cousin analogy or not, Grimm’s Yancy Street family just lost one of its own.  I’m sad too. You figure that the Thing would have enough frustration seeing the Fantastic Four break apart, watching his friends combat each other, being an orange rock monster, etc., so as the pot boils over, the Thing makes the only logical choice.  The decision that he should have made a long time ago.

We forget that despite 99% of superheroes living in the United States (and 98% in New York City), other countries must have their own radiation accidents or chemical spills or mad scientist experiments creating their own superheroes as well.  So when the Thing flies to France to enjoy some baguettes and xenophobia far away from any internal punching conflicts, he soon finds himself obligingly helping out Paris’ version of the Avengers.  Because why not?  Still, at least for a few issues, the Thing has a happy ending:

On Wednesday and Friday, we’ll look into how the Civil War Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman fractured their marriage and the subsequent repairs.  Get ready for some heartbreak.

Norman Osborn’s recruiting drive: Mystique

Norman Osborn’s X-Men team completes its roster today — a team assembled full of morally ambiguous, lied to, and unwillingly-forced-into-servitude superheroes/supervillains.  The full group led by Emma Frost consists of Namor, Mimic, Dark Beast, Cloak, Dagger, Weapon Omega, Daken, and finally our wildly unpredictable shapeshifter Mystique.  Y’see, recently Wolverine and Mystique settled some differences (bloody, explosive differences) and the encounter left Mystique dying and abandoned in the desert.  She survived.  Let’s not worry about how.  Now that she’s unemployed, Osborn figures she could use a gig obeying his every command as part of his pseudo-PR-stunt X-Men.  At least he doesn’t have to manipulate Mystique — there’s a respect/open rudeness between supervillains of their caliber.  Today, we’ll take a look at a scene from Dark X-Men #3, written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Jock.

Makes sense Mystique would want to sully Wolverine’s reputation after the hell he put her through (and he does eventually come back to finish the job he left a few years after this).  But how much more damage could Mystique inflict?  Wolverine’s mental state holds up about as well as tissue paper in a rainstorm.  He snaps and massacres groups of innocent people at least once a solo series, blaming everything on mindwipes or memory repression or no more beer.  The superhero community just accepts that all the good Wolverine does is worth him flying off the handle and killing bears with his bare hands while he runs around the woods naked every once in a while.

It’s almost impressive how long Osborn held onto his sanity during Dark Reign.  The dude handled nonstop problems and issues — the same issues that undid Iron Man’s rule — and yet until Siege he never reverted into his Green Goblin crazy pumpkin-chucking persona he triggers as quickly as stepping on Bruce Banner’s foot turns him into the Hulk.  Well, I don’t think he Green Goblin’d publicly.  I mean, not around cameras and stuff.  So Mystique, who battles foes mainly by immediately detecting and hitting all the right emotional nerves, now gets to argue with a man as uncaring and vindictive as herself.  In a sick way, it’s refreshing to see a completely honest Osborn.

Y’know how I mentioned earlier that Mystique defeats her opponents with emotional manipulation?  I’m sorry, I meant kung fu.

The problem with an extended lifespan, like Mystique possesses, is that after her hundred plus years of life, not much is left on her bucket list.  She reverts back to a teenager whose iPad broke: she just sort of wanders around, joins random groups of dubious people, and finds out what trouble she can get into.  Her current goal?  Totally murdering Wolverine for leaving her for dead in the desert tops the list. And what’s the best way to get to Wolverine?  Besides free back hair waxes?  His family, of course.

To be fair to Mystique, Wolverine has lots of sons.  Most he doesn’t know about.  But the Japanese name could only indicate the mother’s identity being Itsu, the woman Wolverine loved with all his heart and soul.  Osborn just uttered the magic words.

With Osborn’s team now complete, it’s time for him to begin the mission: annoy the real X-Men.