Do writers hate Hank Pym Ant-Man?

[MichaelC]

Again, he was just reverse-engineering Dragon Man. He didn't really invent Ultron in the fullest sense.

[Michael Watkins]

Again, he was just reverse-engineering Dragon Man. He didn't really invent Ultron in the fullest sense.

Ultron disagrees with you. and Ultron is a supergenius.

[Skullkid]

just when i thought i was out, they keep pulling me back in.

Again, i never said that i didn't care or even implied that others don't. i said that i find him uninteresting. How can i like a supervillain and "vilify" Pym? quite easily. i have a different standard for characters held up as heroes and those rightfully labeled as villains. Magneto, the character, knows exactly what he is. he embraces it or did no one notice the "Evil" in Brotherhood of Evil mutants. And i'd argue that Pym has still done far worse than Magneto. the latter has been alive since before WWII. Pym, through Ultron, is guilty of mass murder on an epic scale. and he added a few thousand more before coming back to Earth as Pymtron. him being 65 on a popularity list is exactly why i'm not going to shut up about him being a wife-beating piece of trash. that just reinforces stereotypes about comic book readers.

You can keep trying to make it sound anyway you want but in the end all this comes down to is you want Pym to look worse because don't like him, and are fine if ignoring or justifying Magneto's worse faults because you do like him.
That's all it comes down to you know it and you just don't wanna admit it's exactly that shallow.

[Michael Watkins]

You can keep trying to make it sound anyway you want but in the end all this comes down to is you want Pym to look worse because don't like him, and are fine if ignoring or justifying Magneto's worse faults because you do like him.
That's all it comes down to you know it and you just don't wanna admit it's exactly that shallow.

thought you were ignoring me.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

No writer hates him. I assume they wanted him off the board so that they could match the movies with Scott in the suit.

Yes, it is a given that marvel comics want the comics to reflect the movies as much as possible...which is, to me, awful.

Ant-Man Hank Pym | Marvel 101

[Kaitou D. Kid]

As hated as 616 Hank is, I would be surprised if there are a lot of fans that hate the EMH version. That show arguably reinvented Hank for the better and turned him into a genuinely compelling character. There is no toxic stuff going on between him and Janet in it. Even the Science Bros angle is done better in EMH than it was in the MCU between Tony and Bruce. It could all just be my impression, but all the reviews I read said something among the lines of "I never cared for Hank Pym, but this version was amazing!" or "Hank Pym was the best part."

The real question then becomes "Why hasn't any writer taken advantage of what was clearly a liked and successful version of Hank Pym?"

I think it's because Marvel in general has this problem. For whatever reason, Marvel writers don't respond to successful versions of characters outside of the comics the way DC writers tend to do. You look at DC and they have a consistent history of doing this - Superman started flying in the comics after the success of Fleischer, Harley Quinn was eventually brought into the DCU, and Mr. Freeze was given a whole character import after the success of Heart of Ice. Marvel on the other hand? 616 Hank is still the same Hank after the reception to EMH, Miles Morales is still closer to Bendis' take than to the critically-acclaimed ITSV version, and Shuri is still generic female Black Panther compared to her superior MCU version.

Marvel would be wise to do more of these personality-imports at least in regards to highly-disliked comic book characters like Hank Pym.

[Hulkout42]

Marvel hates a lot of their heroes, they hate Hank, they hate Beast, they hate Wanda, they hate Peter...they are basically a show in for Sith Lords.

[XPac]

Marvel hates a lot of their heroes, they hate Hank, they hate Beast, they hate Wanda, they hate Peter...they are basically a show in for Sith Lords.

I don't think hate is the right word... I think some characters they just like to show as highly flawed.

[Will Evans]

Marvel hates a lot of their heroes, they hate Hank, they hate Beast, they hate Wanda, they hate Peter...they are basically a show in for Sith Lords.

Quicksilver and Wonder Man went through these kind of things too.

But they always come back from it. It’s no big deal.

[Mary Jay]

As hated as 616 Hank is, I would be surprised if there are a lot of fans that hate the EMH version. That show arguably reinvented Hank for the better and turned him into a genuinely compelling character. There is no toxic stuff going on between him and Janet in it. Even the Science Bros angle is done better in EMH than it was in the MCU between Tony and Bruce. It could all just be my impression, but all the reviews I read said something among the lines of "I never cared for Hank Pym, but this version was amazing!" or "Hank Pym was the best part."

The real question then becomes "Why hasn't any writer taken advantage of what was clearly a liked and successful version of Hank Pym?"

I think it's because Marvel in general has this problem. For whatever reason, Marvel writers don't respond to successful versions of characters outside of the comics the way DC writers tend to do. You look at DC and they have a consistent history of doing this - Superman started flying in the comics after the success of Fleischer, Harley Quinn was eventually brought into the DCU, and Mr. Freeze was given a whole character import after the success of Heart of Ice. Marvel on the other hand? 616 Hank is still the same Hank after the reception to EMH, Miles Morales is still closer to Bendis' take than to the critically-acclaimed ITSV version, and Shuri is still generic female Black Panther compared to her superior MCU version.

Marvel would be wise to do more of these personality-imports at least in regards to highly-disliked comic book characters like Hank Pym.

616 Hank may be hated by some, but not as much so as the 1610 version, which can be regarded as an all-around despicable guy. One of the problems is that some people can't make the difference between the two universes and hate 616 Pym by transfert. Prior to the UU, there was not much hate for the character. He was included in a lot of story lines, part of teams, given as much spotlight as other characters. The UU has done more disservice to 616 Hank than anything else IMO.

I loved EMH Hank, that's what got me to be a huge fan of the character in the first place. He's not that different than how he was written in early comics, pretty much up to the 21st century. The only negative critics I ever heard about EMH Hank was that he was a bit boring. If people were to start reading older comic books, with an unbiased mentality, and put aside the freaking UU, it would be a nice start. Anf if Marvel was to stop painting Hank in a light that they THINK people see him and actually write him according to canon, that could also be a good idea. Humpfreys did this with his Avengers A.I. book, where he wrote Hank basically according to established canon (a flawed man trying to do the best he can and help others as much as he can) and, while the book didn't really sell great due to lack of MCU characters in it, I liked it a lot.

So I think saying Hank Pym is "highly disliked" is in fact part of the problem. Marvel sees this and think "Oh, everybody REALLY dislike Hank Pym, so we'll make him dislikable for ever"... when it's just not true.

[Dreaded Porcupine]

Poor Hank still getting the shaft. He’s a fictional character written by writers. How people lose their minds over him is beyond me. There are far worse written characters out there. Some of them get a complete pass by some of these people who hate Pym . A good writer could resurrect his character. I saw the word in one of the other posts. “Lazy.” Maybe someday a writer will come along and give it a whirl. He’s an original Avenger.

Steve, Tony and Bruce were all portrayed bad in the Ultimate Universe. I don’t see Bruce getting hated for eating bowels which is disgusting. I do realize it was meant to be darker than 616 and keeping an open mind I enjoyed the different universe. I didn’t go on a I hate Hank and Bruce rant. I took it for what it was. Fiction. A writers perspective.

Hank is #65 out of 100? Can someone direct me to the thread that has the rankings?

[Frontier]

I'm kind of amazed they've dragged out this Pymtron thing as long as they have. I guess they think it's an alternative to rehashing the same old Ultron drama (granted, it's kind of getting repetitive now) and Hank is more expendable.

[Mary Jay]

Poor Hank still getting the shaft. He’s a fictional character written by writers. How people lose their minds over him is beyond me. There are far worse written characters out there. Some of them get a complete pass by some of these people who hate Pym . A good writer could resurrect his character. I saw the word in one of the other posts. “Lazy.” Maybe someday a writer will come along and give it a whirl. He’s an original Avenger.

Steve, Tony and Bruce were all portrayed bad in the Ultimate Universe. I don’t see Bruce getting hated for eating bowels which is disgusting. I do realize it was meant to be darker than 616 and keeping an open mind I enjoyed the different universe. I didn’t go on a I hate Hank and Bruce rant. I took it for what it was. Fiction. A writers perspective.

Hank is #65 out of 100? Can someone direct me to the thread that has the rankings?

Not to mention Black Widow who was basically a child murderer in the UU.

It may be laziness. I could be an absence of desire to write the character, although I cannot believe that no one, not one single writer, could come up with an interesting story to tell, especially since all this Pymtron stuff happened, several good ideas have come out in these forums. It would be very surprising that we, as mere fans, can come up with ideas while Marvel writers can't.

They may think it won't sell, and that's a fair point. A Hank Pym book will never sell as much as Captain America or Iron Man. They could still do a mini to resolve the Pymtron storyline that, as Frontier said, has been dragged on long enough, and then stick him on a team book. He's the kind of character that does a lot better in team books anyway. But the fear of not selling well is no excuse IMO, as they have put out litteral crap in the past (seriously, books that have sold like 7000 copies and still got a second volume? Gimme a break!). Waid is someone who could make a great story out of all this, and I can't believe it has never come up at Marvel in the past five years. I realize Waid is not everybody's cup of tea, but he's proven he likes and respect the character and I would trust him with Hank. They'd also need a good artist. Avengers A.I. suffered partly because of the art. When Valerio Schiiti filled in for two issues, it was a vast improvement that made the story way more enjoyable.

[Hypestyle]

so is comics Hank going to be turned into MCU Hank? Maybe a trip to another dimension (quantum realm) to live out several decades, then come back to the 616 Earth a changed man?

[XPac]

I'm kind of amazed they've dragged out this Pymtron thing as long as they have. I guess they think it's an alternative to rehashing the same old Ultron drama (granted, it's kind of getting repetitive now) and Hank is more expendable.

I'm assuming if Rick Remender didn't leave marvel he would have resolved the story at some point.

But maybe the idea is to retire the character for a bit. Scott Lang is sort of taking up the slack as the growing/shrinking scientist guy... maybe they can temporarily retire Hank until someone has a new take on him. A break might be what he needs for the time being. A sort of reset.