How come Hank Pym hasn't really been forgiven, but others have?

[SuperiorIronman]

I could understand his frustrations with Ultron and at the very least in Rage of Ultron it was framed as his relapsing had something to do with that particular incarnation of Ultron..., which would make sense. Hank does have some love for the robot considering how he came to like Ultron 12, and that probably carried over to his interactions with the Ultron at the start of ROU given the time frame. When he found out Ultron was back, that would've been the only loose end (considering the original prime was long dead as of AOU) so it probably brought up some bad thoughts in him especially considering how that Ultron saw little difference between Hank and itself. He's not sad because he messed up, he's frustrated with his creation and it's small degree of truth in what it's saying only made worse when it unintentionally overpowered him when it came to how much of Hank was left in it post-merger.

This is part of the reason why PymTron's return is so frustrating to me since it doesn't go anywhere with the concept. Hank and friends are, or at least should be over what happened between Hank and Jan and try to work past it. Hank's only loose end is Ultron and the lasting damage it has made on the world, so when it shows up and offers a different perspective on the relationship and the merger happens, that offered a chance for Hank to confront his demons by becoming it. See things as the devil would but realize that the devil is to some degree the good guy and use that to become a better person than the one everyone of his allies keep trying to force on him. Instead we got Ultron wearing Hank as a skin and Ultron not knowing if he is or isn't Hank when Ultron as of ROU didn't think it mattered.

[Sutekh]

Bringing it up by his "friends" is what really irks me. He and Hawkeye had been shown to be friends for years after the slap before suddenly making him do a 180 on him. It would be like Captain America going up to Carol or Tony and saying "why don't you go have drink you drunken piece of garabge" for no reason.

Hawkeye is written terribly inconsistently.

He's a rapid-fire joker and quip-machine, originally a circus-performer, trained to entertain, able to hold his own in 'mid-battle banter' with Spider-Man, until he's kind of socially awkward, or cast in the MCU as a very boring ex-assassin covert agent person.

He's a hyper-competent acrobat and archer, able to fight off the entire Thunderbolts team single-handedly, until he's the funny incompetent who has to be clued in regularly by the more sensible Kate Bishop or Red Wolf or frikkin' Pizza Dog, who may be a dog, but seems to have a better understanding of what's going on around him.

Hank suffers from the same story told over and over, and a lack of characterization diversity. Clint's got the exact opposite problem, IMO. Each new writer seems to think of him as a blank slate onto which they put a brand new personality.

The obsession with Hank slapping Jan seems to me like writers have no other idea what to do with him. For comparison, it would be like every single Scott Summers story was a guilt trip about leaving Madelyne and lil' Nate to re-hook-up with Jean. Or we had to re-litigate 'Demon in a Bottle' every time Tony Stark was on-panel. Each of these characters, including Hank, have a *ton* of stuff going on, over the decades of stories they've been in and it's kind of foolish for any one incident to be brought up over and over again.

[Frontier]

Hawkeye is written terribly inconsistently.

He's a rapid-fire joker and quip-machine, originally a circus-performer, trained to entertain, able to hold his own in 'mid-battle banter' with Spider-Man, until he's kind of socially awkward, or cast in the MCU as a very boring ex-assassin covert agent person.

He's a hyper-competent acrobat and archer, able to fight off the entire Thunderbolts team single-handedly, until he's the funny incompetent who has to be clued in regularly by the more sensible Kate Bishop or Red Wolf or frikkin' Pizza Dog, who may be a dog, but seems to have a better understanding of what's going on around him.

I think this is the exactly the dilemma modern Clint's been stuck in for the past few years or so .

[Mary Jay]

Read Avengers Academy, Avengers A.I. and Avengers Arena I & II. You have a mature Hank Pym who has gotten over his past mistakes and is successfully fighting his personality disorder there.

I would include Dark Reign: Mighty Avengers too, but he was a jerkhole to Jocasta there, which was a gigantic blunder on his part... Besides the thing with Jocasta, he did very well.

During AvX he was among the calmer, most rational characters, he managed well having the mutant kids in the Academy, and managed to avoid a lethal confrontation with Phoenix-empowered Emma Frost.

His part in Time Runs Out was small, but great too; he acknowledged his mental problems, but he didn't let them stop him ("damaged isn't the same as broken!") and did what nobody but he was able to do: He tracked the origin of the Incusions to the Beyonders, and came back to tell.

The problem is, Remender wanted broken Henry Pym for Rage of Ultron, and he undid a lot of his character growth, only to basically kill him in a tragic way and Duggan brought back Ultron wearing the skin of dead Hank Pym.

The reason I really like Avengers AI... it has Pym openly confront and define his problem. Both with himself and with his AIs. Then Rage of Ultron did a inversion on him.

Exactly. Everything that had been written after MA shows a Hank in full control of his moods and emotions. Remender undid all this just for the sake of telling a story about Pym merging with a machine (which he had already tried in Secret Avengers and it just didn't stick. Nobody caught up on that and they just continued using Hank normally. As good as the story itself might be, or the art, or both, it just doesn't make sense given the progression of the character and the place he was at by the end of Time Runs Out. It doesn't fit with the continuity and evolution of the character as he was written prior to that. And now writers can't really use him because they'd have to come up with a logical way to unmerge him, or figure out what to do with Pymtron, and there's just no story at the moment in which they can do that.

Maybe something will come out of Secret Empire. Maybe Spencer hasn't thrown Pymtron into the mix just for this issue alone. I doubt it, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe somebody has plans somewhere down the line, like Waid for instance, who has shown love and a great understanding of the character in the past. There's so much potential yet with him. Wait and see, as they say.

I too really liked Avengers A.I. and thought it was one of the best takes on Hank in a while. I wished we'd gotten more of that.

[Moriarty]

thus far the PymTron speech has been the only thing about Secret Empire i've enjoyed. PymTron is saying the same thing his fans have for years. why haven't people let go of the slap. i hope this isn't the last we see of PymTron. i'd hate to think he showed up, took over Alaska, had a weird dinner where he ranted and then left.

[QuinnFillory]

Here is an article: https://www.cbr.com/avengers-hank-py...e-struck-wasp/

[Xheight]

I think this is the exactly the dilemma modern Clint's been stuck in for the past few years or so .

Each has its own fan base sadly leading to the schizo profile (sorry Hank) we see and the MU does not. That goes for Wanda too as some people don't want to move on and waste what they see as interesting history.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/comm...a_wife_beater/

How much was Scott Lang created to save the concept of Ant-man w/o baggage I wonder.

[CosmiComic]

Each has its own fan base sadly leading to the schizo profile (sorry Hank) we see and the MU does not. That goes for Wanda too as some people don't want to move on and waste what they see as interesting history.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/comm...a_wife_beater/

How much was Scott Lang created to save the concept of Ant-man w/o baggage I wonder.

Scott came around before Hank hit Jan, though.

[Godlike13]

Here is an article: https://www.cbr.com/avengers-hank-py...e-struck-wasp/

And a poor one at that. Trying to further analyze the issue yet completely missing the context, and entire point of what is actually going on with Hank in the the story. Why he was acting like that and what was really going on with his abusive behavior. The problem with the panel is the aggressiveness of the slap distracts and doesn’t adequately convey the point of what was actually going on there. That the man was having a full on mental breakdown and not in his right mind.

Hanks diagnosis as bipolar is a retcon, but a really good one that better recognizes what we now know about mental health. The intent of the story was always that Hank was undergoing a mental breakdown there. Looking at it now though we can better recognize what’s going on with Hank in the story as not just mental breakdown but more specifically as a manic episode.
People still seem to miss the context and point of that story though because they are so taken by the slap and they don’t see whats going on behind the slap. They look at the story from the perspective of Hank’s an abuser, not recognizing what it actually is. Hank is sick.

[Commissioner Wayne]

thus far the PymTron speech has been the only thing about Secret Empire i've enjoyed. PymTron is saying the same thing his fans have for years. why haven't people let go of the slap. i hope this isn't the last we see of PymTron. i'd hate to think he showed up, took over Alaska, had a weird dinner where he ranted and then left.

Sadly, it's 4.5 years later and that's exactly what happened.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Pymtron showed up in Iron Man and was captured, IIRC.

It sure was odd as hell that he left the planet after Secret Empire, though. Spencer was not a great plotter