Pop Nothings #1: The Man In The Ant Hill and Conjecture on His Place In Marvel Cinema

This genius has never been a star. He aspires to antdom, after all.

But Henry Pym is one of my favorite Marvel characters, because he is such a tragic disaster with unlimited but elusive potential and also because his original costume was the quintessence of Jack Kirby design. 

Unlike the other Marvel "Silver Age" heroes, he first appears in a one-off sci-fi installment. Already a failure in the tradition of flawed pre-superhero Marvel scientists of the time, he decides his size-shifting invention is too dangerous and he destroys it.

A few issues later, with Marvel's superhero revival underway,

Pym is back - this time in heroic fashion.

scientist in sci-fi comic

scientist in tights!

By the time I'm a reader, Pym's problems have become his defining characteristic. 

I met Ant-Man in Avengers #161

I first encountered the troubled inventor when I was a child, in a dark and heavy Avengers issue that I loved. It was creepy. For all I recall, it's the first Marvel comic I ever had. Pym has lost his mind and reverted to being Ant-Man after years trying on different guises and has come to take down the Avengers who he thinks are impostors! The art is classic "Bronze Age" Marvel with a Kirby influence, and George Perez was probably first comics artist whose name I knew. The cover depicts an awesomely alarming ant infestation (I had been attacked by ants as a child! ants in my pants, for real), and we see how tiny, often dismissed Ant-Man can shut down the invincible Iron Man. Though I don't recall if I quite grasped the postpubescent allure as a 7 year old, Pym's wife The Wasp wears a new over-the-top sexy outfit, specifically designed with Hank in mind "to keep him interested" per doctor's orders. We get Hank's background / downward spiral explained a bit. We get to see Wanda the Scarlet Witch unleash her vast power (with some Kirby crackle) and we get a glimpse of the utterly destructive, purely and completely hateful nature of Ultron, Pym's greatest scientific triumph and failure. And we get a great cliffhanger. And more. {When I finally read part two like thirty years later, it was a bit of a letdown.}

As I later began reading Avengers with some regularity, Henry's lot in life just worsened, and his deteriorating mental state dominated his appearances. Basically, he's insecure, fears inadequacy compared to achievements of his fellow Marvel Universe super-powered science whizzes (and compared to power-level of the non-genius heroes, too), feels financial indignity in light of his WASP wife's wealth, is overworked, can't settle on an identity, is edgy since murder of first wife, and his incipient mental problems (paranoia, depression, schizophrenia or dissociate identity disorder) are horribly exacerbated by his size-changing gasses. And, the giant robot he creates messes with his mind too and wants to kill everyone. The guy has a series of breakdowns. He's delusional at times, narcissistic. Approaching his nadir, Pym infamously hits his wife Janet. Though the writer now claims that detail was misconstrued by the artist, Pym was branded as superherodom's wife-beater. 
Pym eventually regained his mental health and rehabilitated his image in four color land, but for decades his had been a life of degradation, disappointment, shame, and despair. And now, in the 21st Century, the ultimate humiliation. He's been stepped on by Hollywood! Or, at least so it seems. Left out of the first Avengers movie despite being a founding member, he's reportedly being left out of the Avengers sequel even though the film's villain is the aforementioned fearsome Ultron. True Believing Merry Marvel Marchers might be miffed by his omission. Is Henry getting shortchanged because of his troubled past? I'd guess more likely it's simply because his superpower is being super-short.

Perhaps audiences might scoff

From the little I've read about this, Marvel Studios had always intended to introduce Ant-Man in his own movie. Movie kept getting delayed, so he was never in either Avengers movie. Now, I would guess some decision makers along the way always considered an Avengers Ant-Man too big of a risk. Marvel was trying to build their own cinematic universe, one excluding their most famous character (Spidey) because Sony has the film rights. And excluding their famed X-Mutants because: Fox (though the Maximoff twins exist in some shared-access agreement due to appearing first in X-Men comics but primarily over years as Avengers). And finally Marvel had to exclude their First Family, because Fox has them too (Roger Corman's involved along the way in maintaining that ©).

So Marvel's big bet was The Avengers: a team superhero movie that features the remaining franchise players. Risky proposition, or so it must have seemed at some point. Why make it riskier by including a founding member I suspect some may have feared as easily ridiculed, and whose previous introduction to mass pop culture was an SNL skit where he was the punchline? (Kudus to Garrett Morris. I could contemplate the irony of casting him as Ant-Man) He shrinks to the size of an ant, but retains full strength of a human! Wow, right?! And, the CGI challenge might be considered, he might look ridiculous standing on Thor's shoulder with a giant green cartoon Hulk already in the picture. Marvel wanted audience and critics to take their movies seriously. Ant-Man could derail that all on his little ol' lonesome.

Insecurity is a big character flaw of Henry Pym's anyway, in the comics. So damn I want Ultron to be his fault. But, in the movies we've already seen Stark has the genius to make Ultron happen, and the unfortunate tendency to let his tech get out of control. And Downey is their big star. So: easy solution.

Lang assumes the Ant mantle

That being said, the Ant-Man being introduced in his own feature movie is not comic Ultron's creator Hank Pym, but Pym's successor Scott Lang. And in this movie Pym won't be Stark's contemporary, he'll be his elder. It's Michael Douglas. So, to placate comics fans, honor the source material, and promote the upcoming Ant movie maybe, just maybe, the movie Ultron will have origins tied to past work by Pym. Work which may have discredited, demoralized, or otherwise defeated Pym back in whatever day he operated in. That would justify Pym having been out of picture all these years, by providing the most damaging blow to Pym's fragile personality and ego. Just like in the comics then, his greatest achievement is a horrific failure. Nothing keeps Stark down long, not even the bottle. His genius is only surpassed by his confidence. (And without Reed Richards in this universe, he's Marvel's greatest scientist / inventor). Stark's arrogance is his downfall, but he always recovers. Henry Pym though is repeatedly shown as mentally ill. So there is a way to work this all in and still take advantage of film audience's familiarity with the already-onscreen previously-introduced movie Avengers and love of Downey as Stark ( he's a big draw, deservedly so ). At least that's how I'd handle it.

I oughta get a Marvel franchise to handle on the big screen. Next up: my Great Lakes Avengers silent movie pitch. Or Moon Knight, if they can't take a joke.