Lost but not forgotten: Hank Pym Appreciation 2022

[chamber-music]

I think Eric had a pretty serious redemption arc over his time in comics. From scumbag in Irredeemable to dying trying to save a child in Secret Avengers.

Eric O'Grady had a good arc across the comics that had a beginning and end. Eric went from a borderline anti-hero to a full hero. Eric grew Grew into a good guy who got a heroic death. Black Ant works as a villain because he isn't the real O'Grady so it doesn't really tar his legacy.

[Kurt Busiek]

I don't really get why Marvel don't just put a editorial mandate to not mention Hank hitting Janet unless they have something new or interesting to add to that narrative.

Because, as noted before, Marvel doesn't do anything, people do.

If Mark Gruenwald had made such an editorial mandate, it wouldn't be active any more.

Joe Quesada has different ideas about what's new or interesting than the people before him. And he's made mandates about characters smoking, but whether those mandates will still matter after he inevitably ends his career as one of Marvel's PTB, who knows? [I'd bet they will, but who can say?]

Bill Jemas did make various editorial mandates (though not about Hank), and they all ended when he was gone.

People change. No mandate is permanent.

Used to be, you couldn't bring back Bucky. That changed. Ed Brubaker's argument might not have worked on other editors, but it worked on Tom Brevoort.

"Marvel," as a being that does things or makes choices, is a legal fiction. It's all just people, and who those people are changes.

kdb

[Mary Jay]

I don't really get why Marvel don't just put a editorial mandate to not mention Hank hitting Janet unless they have something new or interesting to add to that narrative. I'm sure Marvel doesn't want to overly dictate what their talent can and can't write but sometimes it is better for the characters if they do draw a line under certain things.

For some writers it has just been an albatross around Hank Pym characters neck that has used to make him a punching bag. It would be far better to just move on and tell new stories and create new insights into the character rather than keep travelling the same WELL worn territory. Spider-Man is not defined by hitting Mary Jane because other writers have created new interesting stories about Peter Parker's life as a superhero.

Exactly! That's why I mentioned Avengers A.I. It had the merit of being new and different. The infamous slap has been dealt with a long time ago, and writers who have brought it forward after WCA have not been very inventive in their narrative. Move on. Janet has, after all, no matter what newer writers say. You can't unpublish what's out there for the world to read

[Lukmendes]

And Shooter's idea was to turn Hank into a villain, more or less permanently. This was also the idea behind having Quicksilver do a heel turn during the Englehart FF.

Ooohhhh, I wasn't aware of that.

This does explain why he came up with a robot who can casually defeat the Avengers, while the context is to have Pym need to save the day so he looks good, this also makes him look like an Avengers level threat.

Wasn't aware of the Quicksilver situation too, but it does explain why he was making those evil and goofy facial expressions while talking in an over dramatic way that goes a bit too far even by silver age standards.

Neither of them stuck -- Hank just became a permanently broken character and Quicksilver's behavior got written off somehow (in part because he's always been portrayed as very capable of being a belligerent jerk).

I think what was missed there was that while people like to see villain-to-hero changes, because that's a story of redemption, they don't enjoy hero-to-villain stories anywhere near as much, because they're innately tragic, and tragedies work best when they have endings. In an ongoing serial medium, they just piss off the longtime fans, and don't seem to attract new fans who think "Oh boy, I want to see stories where Evil Yellowjacket tries to take over the world!"

Not to mention that doing this lowers the screen time the character gets.

Like, if you pick a random Avengers run from before 2000's, there's a very high chance that the likes of Stark, or Wanda, or Thor, or Pym will be in the team, and villains just don't show up all the time, going on the wiki shows that even someone like Doom has under 1000 appearances, and he's a pretty overexposed villain, compare that with Pym who isn't as overexposed, and has over 1000 appearances anyways, and that's because he's a hero and (at least was) a core Avengers member.

So yeah, a hero who became a villain not only has an increased tragedy that is hard to make interesting on long term as you said, it's also annoying for readers who liked to see the character show up more.

**** like this is likely why so few heroes became villains and it stuck... And it is noticeable that one of the few cases that isn't from an alternate universe that stuck from Marvel and DC are previously human supporting characters who were awkwardly retconned into villains (Maxwell Lord from DC, Moira from Marvel, although Moira is still "new" to the villainy and may be changed back, I have yet to see anyone liking her as a villain, but Lord likely won't since he's more popular as a villain).

They put the former hero into a position where the narrative (and audience) urge is to see the character struggle and redeem themselves, because that's a heroic narrative.

But sometimes the character gets broken too badly, and you wind up with a situation where they're not a villain but any redemption arcs don't last.

You gotta keep your eye on the short term and the long term at the same time...

kdb

Yeah it's a complicated situation to deal with, and it's why I find it understandable why long runners are so ardent to keep the status quo.

I mean after all, status quo works, it sells, and comics are a business, and at their laziest, business don't take risks if it's still selling.

On the other hand, if an attempt at change is made, they may leave backdoors to be able to change back, or basically be YOLO and not even bother, and it can work, but if it doesn't it can hurt sales.

People can't make the difference between the main universe and the Ultimates universe... you think they're going to go along with a retcon?

I don't think retcons are the way to go. They could have retconned it when Hank was replaced by a Skrull, but they decided not to go that way. I'm glad for this, as it would have basically erased most of Hank's history of the last 40 years.

Yeah, Pym is known for that too much, like before I only really knew about the slap and wasn't aware there was an entire story arc surrounding it.

Researching about it gets a bit messy too, like, Shooter claims that Pym wasn't meant to slap Janet and the artist exaggerated too much what was going on, and there was no time to fix it, but the rest of the issue has Janet reacting like she got hit, her explicitly wearing sunglasses during Pym's trial, and Thor commenting on her black eye once she removes 'em...

So yeah, it's complicated, and unfortunately Pym is known too much for the slap, and as pointed out by Busiek here, even if an editorial is made to not talk or reference the slap, it may not last.

Austen's illogical hate for the character undid YEARS of positive development for Hank, without respect for what had been written before. This still gets me mad, 20 years and more after the fact. Not that long before that, Hank had come in 2nd place in a poll of the favourite Avengers, after Captain America. The fans who were raging were probably a very loud minority (or not even reading the Avengers book)...

Chuck Austen has an incredible track record from what I heard, like, worst X-Men run, maybe the worst Avengers run, bad Cap run, and had a really silly Action Comics run where he undermines Lois to push for Lana, and that's while Lois and Supes are married lol.

From what I heard he maybe had an alright US War Machine run with the Max Imprit (Or who knows, maybe it was good even), but how this guy kept getting jobs with big comic names even with that is beyond me.

[ARkadelphia]

KB for EIC!

[Digifiend]

I am hoping the Wasp series is just focused on Jan. Give her a serious current story without all the jumping through time and showing everyone who was (or will be) Wasp.

It's not - Nadia is co-starring.

[Nomads1]

Beautiful!

Peace

[Chris0013]

It's not - Nadia is co-starring.

But how much co-starring? All the way through of just 'hey..she's Janet's daughter so we are going to have her in it briefly before and after the adventure.'

[Digifiend]

She's on the second cover - the covers have the same style as Ant-Man's and issue 1's has Janet. Sounds like it's equal billing to me.

[H-E-D]

She's on the second cover - the covers have the same style as Ant-Man's and issue 1's has Janet. Sounds like it's equal billing to me.

I think Nadia is actually on the cover for #3; if we follow the Ant-Man series pattern, #2 could be Hank-as-Wasp.

[Mary Jay]

I think Nadia is actually on the cover for #3; if we follow the Ant-Man series pattern, #2 could be Hank-as-Wasp.

Interesting theory! I suppose everybody noticed that the styles of the covers for the Ant-Man mini and the Wasp one are the same aestetics. Hank's cover has a yellow background, like Jan's (past). Nadia's cover has a blue background, like Lang's (present). O'Grady has a red background, and we have nothing to do a side-by-side with, but the issue was set in the "recent past" (like Hank's Wasp). I will be interesting to see how that develops.

[Phoenixx9]

It's not - Nadia is co-starring.

I really miss these two side-by-side in action.

They look great here!

[ComicNoobie]

She's on the second cover - the covers have the same style as Ant-Man's and issue 1's has Janet. Sounds like it's equal billing to me.

Ooh! There is going to be a Wasp series like there was a Ant-Man one? That sounds great! I would love to read those too. Will Hank Pym be one of the Wasp? He technically was Ant-Man and a Wasp!

[Frontier]

It's not - Nadia is co-starring.

The OG's .

[Commissioner Wayne]

So, I'm a little confused by the ending of the Ant-Man mini-series. Doesn't it seem like something needs done with both Hank and Eric? I guess the reader is left to assume that they (and Scott) will be returned to the points in time when they were plucked from. Left on its own, it appears they're all just hanging out with Dr. Ashgar, like the end of an 80's sitcom where the credits roll over a frozen screenshot of the characters laughing. At a minimum, Scott should be wondering "Wait, we're gonna send both these guys back, knowing they'll end up dead? Isn't there something we can do??" Maybe the upcoming Wasp mini will pick up where this left off. With Hank at least, the ground work has been laid for him realizing how to separate himself from Ultron, if that's really him. Although who knows when they whole All-Father Ultron thing is ever supposed to happen. Just seems to me like the series ended with a loose end or two.