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| Copyright Marvel |
"Ant-Man and the The Wasp battle "the Creature from Kosmos"!!" blares the cover, in a spray of extraneous determiners and punctuation. "Meet the flying Wasp, Ant-Man's gorgeous new partner-in-peril", because we might as well get it out of the way that the male gaze is the important thing here (though, thankfully, she at least has the body shape of a normal woman; rubber spines and gravity-defying tits not being a feature of female super heroes until much later.)
THE CREATURE FROM KOSMOS
The issue leads in with the usual splash page giving an extra visual introduction to the heroes and their foe. And we're treated to the longest blurb yet; waffling on about just how fucking astonishing and tortured the Ant-Man is. Given that Ant-Man has been running in Tales to Astonish for eight issues already you'd think they might have trimmed it down a little for brevity's sake.Anyway, Ant-Man is depicted riding two ants instead of just one because if you can control ants you might as well show off while doing it. The The Wasp is sort of floating with a wide-eyed expression, which I'm assuming means she's fucking caned, though because of the CCA she most likely isn't. And in the background, looking like the bastard love child of Mr. Stay Puft and a coelacanth looms the Creature from Kosmos, which apparently comes from beyond space and time, like all the best monsters do.
EMO EXPOSITION
The comic proper opens with Ant-Man arriving in Henry Pym's lab (as if we didn't fucking know they're the same person) and using his helmet (hurr) he communicates telepathically with his ant buddies, sending them on their anty way with the assurance he'll call when he needs them.Having abseiled down to the floor he releases his growth gas -- yes, really, we have gone from open test tubes of serum to gas -- to become Henry Pym, a man with much emo in his head. Without even getting changed he flops down on an armchair and begins emo-ing about his wife, Maria. See, it turns out Maria is from EVILFUCKINGCOMMIEland (The Hungarian People's Republic) and, for some fucking reason, they decided to go there for their honeymoon. After relaying a bit of fatherly wisdom about ants (I SEE WHAT THEY DID THERE) Maria is kidnapped by dodgy-looking men who know exactly who Maria is despite two assurances in as many pages that nobody will know she was Maria Trovaya because according to their reasoning marrying Americans magically renders defectors unrecognisable. HOW'S THAT WORKING OUT FOR YOU, MR. & MRS. PYM?
The EFCs leave Pym unconscious instead of kidnapping or killing him (narrative causaility again), and hours later he is at the American embassy, nervously awaiting news of Maria only to discover that she has been executed as a traitor AND her father's lab has been blown up. Pym swears revenge, but soon enough ends up in jail, exhausted and defeated, for it turns out if you're going to avenge your wife's death wandering around EFCland shouting at people with bandages on your head isn't the best way to go about it.
The flashback ends with a brief re-cap of Pym's first appearance, except the serum has been retconned into a gas because reasons or something. Obviously a gas will be much more efficient to use than a serum because there's NO DANGER AT ALL of it blowing away and affecting someone else. Though with all the Narrativum in Earth-616's crust that's probably exactly why it happened.
Talking to himself, Pym exposits further on his being Ant-Man, but it's not enough... he needs... A PARTNER...
ARSE DAGGERS
And then we're interrupted by a single page of a text story called Blueprint for Victory, so now we've established this is a thing that Tales to Astonish does and it can actually fuck off.
Dr. van Dyne has also brought his daughter, Janet, who Pym immediately starts drooling over because she looks a bit like Maria, except younger (I think we can see where this is going...), while Maria notes how handsome he is but laments how scientists are all boring*. Dr. van Dyne is more interested in Pym's assistance with his work at using gamma-rays to detect signals from space, so OBVIOUSLY the best choice to partner up with on this is a molecular biologist. Dr. Pym is all "no, I'm a molecular biologist" so Dr. van Dyne says "okay" then him and Janet take their leave. However, it appears (here it comes) that Pym has already fallen for Janet, if only she wasn't little more than a child... EW. EW. EW. FUCK. NO.
Later, as Pym is hearing from Ant-Man's Ant Friends that nothing really that interesting is happening, Dr. van Dyne is busy sending off gamma rays into space (what could possibly go wrong?), while Janet is preparing to go out clubbing. Little do Pym and the van Dynes know that they will all meet again "as they confront the most awesome menace ever let loose upon our unsuspecting world..."
Monitoring his gamma rays via some kind of periscope thing, Dr. van Dyne is astonished as they reach out beyond our galaxy and into the depths of space... but wait, something is coming the other way! It all gets a wee bit Lovecraftian for a moment as something "vast... shapeless, yet with form" appears in the room in a flash of light.
In fact, the Lovecraftian elements keep going and, if I'm honest, the descriptive text does a pretty decent job of it: "his senses reel, his face turns ashen and everything human within him cries out in agony against this alien thing... a creature so unearthly that it is almost more than human eyes can bear!"
Of course, as we've seen from the cover, the creature itself doesn't really live up to the hype, remaining as a sort of lizard Mr. Blobby. However, it is evil as fuck; revealing that it is the greatest criminal from the planet Kosmos, but where it couldn't enslave the whole of that distant planet it's going to have a damn good try and taking over the Earth!
PRINCE CHARMING
Janet returns from her night out to find a strange mist coming from he father's lab and finds her father dead, so in a panic she calls Henry Pym rather than, say, the police or an ambulance. Pym, having apparently stopped mooning over Janet, thinks she's playing a prank on him, and hangs up, only for his ants to report that Dr. van Dyne has, in fact, been killed... this, however, is not a job for Henry Pym, but for Ant-Man!Using his magic helmet to tell the ants to meet him at van Dyne's lab he climbs into a catapult and twangs himself over to the roof of the building.... just... fuck it, why not? And the ants are waiting to cushion his landing. Ant-Man goes into the lab and informs the distraught Janet that he's here to help! Confirming that Dr. van Dyne has indeed joined the choir invisible, Ant-Man also notes that his lab machinery has been smashed up and acting on a feeling of eeriness concludes that it was...
Janet pulls herself together and vows to avenge her father's death, while Ant-Man returns to wistfully comparing her to Maria, and using Women's Intuition(tm) she concludes that as her father was attempting to communicate with other planets, then that must be how the aliens arrived. Ant-Man secretly admires this newfound grit while telling her to call the F.B.I. and then go to Henry Pym's lab... while she does this Ant-Man notices that his ants have fucked off, but thankfully they haven't gone far and it turns out they were scared of the alien mist because it had formic acid in which means the alien must be kin to ants (by that logic, ants are kin to stinging nettles. If there's one thing I've learned here is that ants are bad at science.)
Ant-Man returns to his lab atop an ant (which makes me wonder why he didn't get to Dr. van Dyne's the same way) so he can embiggen himself back to being Henry Pym, ready for Janet's arrival. Wearing a purple dressing gown he answers the door and, valiantly preventing even more exposition, asks Janet how serious she is about her desire for vengeance; in fact, she is so serious she wants to avenge ALL the things.
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| Original image created by Allie Brosh @ Hyberbole and a Half |
Pym takes her to his lab and reveals himself (steady) as the Ant-Man, and tells Janet he has decided up on a crime-fighting partner... Janet herself! Janet readily agrees and Pym starts on his procedure to turn her into the The Wasp, through the use of specially adapted wasp cells that will cause her to grow wings and antennae when she shrinks. But no arse dagger, which is prob a good thing, really. Apparently this involves complex bondage apparatus, but I'm not judging (well I am, but more the part where he blatantly fancies her and she's REALLY FUCKING YOUNG).
Meanwhile an earthquake erupts near Dr. van Dyne's lab and from the rubble emerges Donald Trump in his natural form... getting reports from Ant-Man's Ant Friends they spring into action, Janet having changed into a costume that fits her perfectly. Because that's not creepy, Hank... Christ...
Anyway, Pym fastens a belt around Janet's waist that holds the cylinders of shrinking and embiggening gas and shows her how to operate it in a gesture that doesn't AT ALL add to the layers of creep this comic is giving off right now.
Aaaaaaaanyway... as Janet shrinks the wings and antennae grow as predicted (which is good, because in true Marvel style it's not like Pym fucking tested anything first) and as Ant-Man is catapulted into the sky she soars forth. And then declares that she's falling in love with him. Which he quickly deflects by telling her how young she is and that it's a crime-fighting relationship only, but as we're privy to his internal monologue we're well aware that he's a fucking liar; while being told she's "only a child" only emboldens the The Wasp to want to prove herself to him. And thankfully because we're under the CCA it will be by means of fighting the baddies and nothing else.
TRUMPZILLA
Military artillery opens fire as the creature from Kosmos, but to no avail; mere shells and bullets don't harm it. And Ant-Man's Ant Friends are unable to get anywhere near it (because, obviously, ants would be useful against a bullet proof monster), but the The Wasp still really, really needs to show Ant-Man she's not just some kid and ignoring his warnings she flies off towards the hulking green monster (not that one). Quickly she becomes caught under its mesmeric influence and it's only by leaping off the girder he's standing on that Ant-Man is able to grab her and prevent another death.Back at his lab Pym, having somehow worked out on the way that the creature is mostly made of formic acid, asks Janet to fetch his shotgun and empty out the shells (MURRICA) while he synthesises an ANT-idote (my pun) that will neutralise the monster's acidic nature. They fill the shells with the powder and with the aid of Ant-Man's Ant Friends they carry the shotgun and shells to where Trumppa the Hutt is rampaging through the city. Now, I get that ants are Ant-Man's thing, but at this point would it not be more practical just to fucking drive? Or even get the bus?
And indeed when it comes time to shoot the gun they stay small. Now obviously I've skipped a load of Ant-Man's adventures so I could introduce the The Wasp, so it's possible there's some reason why he's determined to Never Ever Be Big in front of other people... but I'm still going to call it fucking stupid.
The first shot does nothing, but with the second the ANT-idote begins to work and the third disintegrates the monster completely. Ant-Man and the The Wasp have saved the world! The The Wasp grabs Ant-Man in a hug but he admonishes her, saying it's improper... but she can see under his mask that he's blushing.
Back at home Pym calls the F.B.I. with the aid of a signal scrambler, preventing the call being traced, to notify them that the threat has been dealt with. The agent, Lee Kearns, thanks Ant-Man but warns him against continuing to work alone, but Ant-Man is sure to notify Agent Kearns that he will never be alone again, while the The Wasp looks adoringly into his eyes and vows that she will make him love her as much as she loves him. Barf.
Next week: Earth's mightiest heroes assemble for the first time in Avengers #1!
*It's worth noting at this point that in my last blog post I commented about how Marvel had long has a strong element of social conscience; this comic was published before that really got going and 60s the The Wasp is often an infuriatingly vapid example of a badly written female character.
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