Marvel Monday: I Was A Teenage Ant-Man

After a difficult, but definitely ground-breaking start, there were no new Marvelverse comics in 1961. But they made up for it in January of 1962 by publishing not one, but two Marvelverse comics... although one would only become part of the Marvelverse retroactively.

I am speaking of Tales to Astonish #27, which introduces fandom's favorite punching bag, Henry Pym. Wait, what's that? Referring to Pym in any way that mentions punching, striking, or hitting is in incredibly poor taste? Okay then.

If I seem to be harping on this for a bit, it is only because, as a non-Marvel reader, Henry's wife-beating was practically all I knew about him before reading this. Oh sure, I'd seen him in some episodes of Saban's Avengers, but he was so bland in that rather bland cartoon that I cannot recall anything about him.

So in many ways, this is my first introduction to the character. And it is an odd one.
Mostly because this is not a superhero story, really by any stretch of the imagination. Although Marvel's "Tales" lines were quickly taken over by superheroes, at this point they were just serialized sci-fi, horror, and fantasy tales told in short, and normally with a somewhat obvious twist ending.

To be fair, that is terrifying.

You can read the full synopsis of this tale over at the Marvel Wiki, but it follows the basic "Tales" formula of an overzealous scientist going too far, and encountering horror as a result. In this case our scientist is Henry Pym, ridiculed by his colleagues for "following his dreams" instead of using his scientific knowledge to do anything useful, who develops a shrinking formula that brings him face-to-face with the dreaded horror of... ants.

Yes, that's right. Having shrunk down to the size of a bug, Henry Pym somehow manages to stumble out his front door... despite it being relatively quite a distance away from his laboratory... and then when attacked by ants he discovers his only place to hide is... within the ant hill. Which, again, is presumably quite a ways beyond his front stoop.

Did he never think of just going back inside?

He gets stuck in honey, because these are apparently honey ants, and gets saved by a friendly ant, but then has to flee from all the ants who want to kill the clear intruder into their home. Ah, the circle of life. Finally the friendly ant helps him crawl up the side of his house, back to his lab, he takes the growth formula, and then destroys both formulas, too terrified by what he had seen to even dream of using it in a controlled environment where it could conceivably revolutionize human history as we know it.

Thank Thor he hadn't wasted his time with Taekwondo!

This is really a very poor story. Henry Pym is... well, he's completely bland. And the ants, while terrifying in real life, are simply not scary in the comic. Indeed, they're almost comedic, leading to the best two panels in the story, pictured at left.

Now of course this isn't the end for Henry Pym. He'll be back in a few months, having recreated his formula, to become the ridiculously-named Ant Man. But even though this origin as a horror comic protagonist isn't very good, it at least makes him stand out from his fellow heroes.

If you can call them heroes...

Actually I think the rights to the Skrulls are in dispute. So who knows?

The second issue of Fantastic Four introduced the Skrulls, who apparently are a huge part of the Marvel mythos, and whom I think are the aliens that showed up in Avengers, only under a different title because of copyright issues or something and I don't know, I can't keep Marvel's pimping of their licenses straight. As always, if you want a straight, non-humorous synopsis, you can get it over at the Marvel Wiki.

The Human Torch melts a solid marble statue. My lazy
research tells me marble melts at around 1350° C. What I'm
saying is I think those three guys are dead now.

Last issue I criticized Marvel's First Family by saying they acted more like terrorists instead of heroes. Well you'll be glad to know that, for a change of pace, they open up this issue by acting like terrorists instead of heroes.

Thing crushes an oil rig, Human Torch melts a statue, Mr. Fantastic stretches into a power station to shut off all power in the city... which is a pretty poor crime considering his amazing powers to fit through the smallest crack, but whatever... and Invisible Girl successfully steals a diamond.

And if you've been paying attention, that is where you will give pause. Invisible Girl successfully did something, without help? Clearly these aren't really the Fantastic Four. And sure enough, they aren't. They're a race of shapeshifting aliens called Skrulls, impersonating the Fantastic Four to make earthlings hate them!

Because apparently the blatant acts of terrorism from the first issue weren't enough to get anyone to hate them. I mean, Johnny just melted millions of dollars worth of US military equipment and got a nuke launched at him. No biggie, right?

The Skrulls are obviously a product of the sixties. Scary aliens that can shapeshift until they look just like us? That sounds just like American fears of communist infiltrators and sleeper agents in their midst. I know I talk about communism a lot, but when dealing with comics and TV shows from the sixties, communism was the lurking fear behind just about everything. Stan Lee apparently was some kind of genius for tapping into the fears and conflicts of his era, and turning them into superheroes, and the Skrulls reflect that by turning the communist threat into literal shapeshifting aliens.

The world shall kneel before GRIMM!

So the Fantastic Four are forced into hiding in a cabin in the woods, and Thing boldly declares that if America sees him as a menace, then he'll be a menace! He promises to destroy anyone who stands in his way, and... yup, Ben Grimm's gone full supervillain again.

We're two issues in, and other than beating up some poor abused guy who lives underground and lashes out at society, I haven't seen the Fantastic Four do anything that could be considered even remotely heroic. In fact, it's a relief when the army special forces show up and take the Fantastic Four into custody. They show up prepared, too, machine guns, a bazooka, the works. They know they're dealing with dangerous terrorists.

And what happens? Does Reed Richards brilliantly prove that the Fantastic Four could not have committed the crimes? Do the Skrulls out themselves through their own greed and duplicity?

See that fire? That's a United States military base. The
comic does not bother to say how many servicemen
burned alive in the conflagration.

Of course not, this is the Fantastic Four we're talking about. They use their powers to bust out of a specially designed anti-Fantastic-Four military prison, causing countless dollars of property damage to a US military facility while they're at it.

Incidentally, to keep him from using his flames Johnny is placed in a cell completely covered in asbestos. Which makes me wonder if they ever did a storyline where he develops cancer later on. Ah, the sixties and their lack of decent medical knowledge.

So Johnny Storm manages to impersonate the alien impersonating him and infiltrates their base, then the rest of the team show up and beat up the Skrulls. The Thing nearly starts murdering all the Skrulls in a psychotic rage, but the rest of the team hold him back long enough for them to learn that there is a Skrull invasion fleet above earth, just waiting to hear of the demise of the Fantastic Four before invading.

Presumably their reasoning went something like, "Look, we're willing to take on the earth's military might, but those Fantastic Four? They are stone cold crazy! They're insane terrorists, man!"

BECAUSE THEY ARE CRIMINALS!
Did you forget the military base? The
property damage? The freakin' NUKE?

So the Fantastic Four once again pretend to be Skrulls in disguise as themselves, and fly up to the mother ship. Reed then shamelessly plugs Marvel comics by convincing the Skrulls that the monsters in Marvel's "Strange Tales" and "Journey Into Mystery" comic books are real. I've got to admit, it's a clever bit of advertising from Marvel, although if Marvel comic books exist in the Marvelverse, does that mean the Fantastic Four comic book exists too? Whoa. Scared out of their wits, the Skrulls leave.

On the trip back, cosmic rays once again affect The Thing, transforming him briefly back into Ben Grimm... but only briefly. They then tell the whole story to the police... who clear them of all charges.

Really? Really, NYPD?

And these are regular cops too. There's no mention of the military, or the US government, or Seal Team Six. No, that's all forgotten about, because gee, FOUR of the dozens of crimes and acts of terrorism committed by the Fantastic Four were really committed by aliens.

It all ends with the three remaining earthbound Skrulls shapeshifting into cows, and then being hypnotized to truly believe they are cows. As you do.

So I am still quite firm in my stance that the Fantastic Four are terrorists. Sure they stop an alien invasion in this one, but only to save their own skins. All of the FF are reckless, with no sense of consequences, and Thing is downright psychopathic.

And for that matter, Henry Pym spent about a page explaining how his shrinking technology would revolutionize the world, but he abandons it because... ants are scary?

I'm still holding out for a hero, Marvel. Let's hope you don't disappoint me.

Look at those blank stares. The stares of soulless killers.