Legacy characters: Where's the outrage for Scott Lang?

[Iron Maiden]

The Ultimate Universe is where almost everyone has their negative traits dialed up to eleven or have flaws they didn't have in the mainstream continuity. Pym being infinitely more loathsome in that continuity isn't surprising. Quite frankly the fault is on Marvel for shamelessly milking that argument and refusing to let him move on from it.

All you need to know about Hank Pym in the Ultimate Universe is that Mark Millar wrote him. He also had a cannibal Hulk that raped women. Then there was the incestous offspring Bruce forced his cousin Jennifer to bear in Old Man Logan. Which is why I had my fill of Millar long ago and haven't bought anything by him in years.

[The Negative Zone]

Legacy character always cause a broken base. Some like them, others don't. It really depends on the character and the person.

For example my father finds it "crazy" that Marvel has all of these Spider-people.

Most people hate a lot of legacy characters, because they feel like it's forced political correctness.

In my opinion, it seems that Female Thor, and Captain Falcon all seem to be created to cause fan outrage, and so people can say Marvel is "diverse." However it seems a lot of these characters have good stories.

I hope you guys can understand this.

[Transmit Him]

This, it's the writers who decide if to let Hank and Jan move on from it or not, and it's because they consider it still a usable character element that it has become so engrained in Hank's story, same as Ultron. Even the EMH show knew how to write Hank and Jan's relationship and their difficulties without forcing the thing in there. And I'm sure the movie with older Hank won't either,

EMH had the best Hank and Jan of any medium. I miss that show.

It's possible Scott gets a free pass as a legacy character because Hank's abandoned so many identities over the years that there's less impact from someone else taking them up (in fact, I think pretty much all of his identities have been used by someone else now).

[Mark]

No time to read all of this, but I bought Scott's first story as it came out. In the story he was an ex-con who was going straight for his daughter, but she had a medical condition that required some special heart surgery. To pay for her medical bills he decided to go back to crime. He stumbled on the Ant-Man suit and used it to save the Dr who could save his daughter and in the end of the story Hank Pym (Who had seen him take the Ant-Man suit and had followed him through most of the adventure) said to keep it.
There was no anger from me at the time based on a number of factors that weren't there then but are here now. 1) Hank wasn't Ant-Man anymore (save for his Ultron controlled attack on the Avengers). 2) He had no intention of being Ant-Man at that time, he was stable, he and Jan were happily married and the Ant-Man days were behind him. 3) Scott didn't start out by saying that the Ant-Man suit was ugly or sexist and the artist/writer at the time didn't say that either. There was no 'hooker boots' comment. 4) At that time the marvel heroes hadn't devolved into the amoral ends justify the means bunch that we have today, the good guys were still pretty much the good guys, or at least you could tell the difference. There was no miasma of cynicism hanging over them and the company so I didn't see it as a cheap marketing stunt. 5) and perhaps most importantly it wasn't an ego trip for the writer. We didn't have a writer coming in and deciding that everything the old Ant-Man had done was wrong or ignoring it, there was no grand plan to strip the previous character down or put him through some kind of hell. Hank Pym didn't have to loose an arm, loose a good deal of his memory and there was no explicit or implicit grand message about diversity. It was just a straightforward introduction to a new character. The writers and editors didn't set out to whip up fan anger, to set one set of fans against another.

[AcesX1X]

hank pym, the title originator, also suffers from multiple personality disorder.

people don't regard him as ant-man simply because they also regard him as goliath, giant-man, yellowjack, and just plain dr pym.

scott lang, on the other hand, has embraced the ant-man identity fully and for a very long duration. more, he's been the ant-man longer than most of us have even been alive.

[Iron Maiden]

hank pym, the title originator, also suffers from multiple personality disorder.

people don't regard him as ant-man simply because they also regard him as goliath, giant-man, yellowjack, and just plain dr pym.

scott lang, on the other hand, has embraced the ant-man identity fully and for a very long duration. more, he's been the ant-man longer than most of us have even been alive.

Scott Lang was dead for almost 10 years on the publishing side of things.

[AcesX1X]

and so? he was made the ant-man in the 70s. for longer than many of us were alive.

he was killed in disassembled, which -- i'm sure to many dismay on this board, still remains the priority entry point into the avenger comics for modern and young readers.

[AcesX1X]

Scott Lang was dead for almost 10 years on the publishing side of things.

and your math is wrong.

scott lang died in 2005, and was returned in 2010. hardly the dramatic ten years you claim.

[Iron Maiden]

and your math is wrong.

scott lang died in 2005, and was returned in 2010. hardly the dramatic ten years you claim.

Checking back, it's more than the 5 years you claim. Disassembled Avengers #500 came out in July 28th 2004. Lang comes back in Children's Crusade issue #5 which was published in April 2011. So that's just short of 7 years not 5. I knew it was more than the 5 years but it seemed close to 10 off the top of my head, which is what I said. "Almost 10 years"

[Adjudicator]

and so? he was made the ant-man in the 70s. for longer than many of us were alive.

he was killed in disassembled, which -- i'm sure to many dismay on this board, still remains the priority entry point into the avenger comics for modern and young readers.

Not dismay, just fright. To this day the worst avengers story in my opinion

[Mark]

Scott Lang was dead for almost 10 years on the publishing side of things.

That's a long vacation.

[Mark]

Not dismay, just fright. To this day the worst avengers story in my opinion

At least in the top ten worst.

[Iron Maiden]

and so? he was made the ant-man in the 70s. for longer than many of us were alive.

he was killed in disassembled, which -- i'm sure to many dismay on this board, still remains the priority entry point into the avenger comics for modern and young readers.

Most of those fans dismay was how badly it was written and tossed out prior continuity. Pretty pictures though.

[Mark]

The OP won this argument with the very first post.

No he didn't.

[Mark]

Maybe not in this reality, but he was abusive towards her in the Ultimate universe, and smacked her around and bit her head off in the Zombie universe. So Pym's abusive nature must be an ingrained part of his personality if it keeps popping up in alternate realities.

Or it's the only part of the personality that the writers bother with. Lazy of them.