Hank Pym was able to become a
whole new superhero just by adding two letters to his name.
In Tales to Astonish 49 (Nov. 1963), his 15th adventure,
Ant-Man became Giant-Man. I remember enjoying the story by writer Stan Lee and
artists Jack Kirby and Don Heck at the time. The switch seemed to give the
character a whole new range of powers and possibilities, and firmly differentiate
from DC’s Atom, who was busy battling a tiny phantom double that month.
The story opens with a literal
bang — Pym, experimenting with increasing his size, has burst through the walls
of his Cape Cod house on the New Jersey Palisades overlooking the Hudson River,
and must feebly ask his panicked gardener for help.
While Pym learns to control his
new powers with the aid of the Wasp, a menace arises from a desk at the Marvel
bullpen. Like Paste Pot Pete, the Eraser would seem to have been inspired by
artist tools. He’s a green alien invader who “erases” scientists into another
dimension, and the effect is made more intriguing and striking by one of Jack
Kirby’s signature multi-panel progressions.
Fighting to rescue the victims,
Giant-Man exults in his new powers, leaping from one futuristic rooftop to
another, manhandling a half-dozen alien troops at once and tearing apart a ray-gun
emplacement while sneering that it’s a “toy.”
Giant-Man’s next few adventures
provided a fresh angle on super-heroics by suggesting, logically, that super
powers might involve a learning curve. Pym proves awkward with abilities that
are the opposite of the ones he had mastered as Ant-Man. He finds himself
unable, for example, to defeat the mutant Human Top in repeated battles.
Yet the character somehow never
achieved the dramatic potential suggested in that debut, and in Tales to Astonish 70 (August 1965), his
feature was replaced by the Sub-Mariner’s, which I never much cared for.
Despite his status as a milestone hero of comics’ Golden Age, Prince Namor in
the 1960s seemed reduced to a tedious single note of haughtiness.
Ant-Man’s expansion would have one
distant, happy echo. Fifty-three years later, the surprise transition from
Ant-Man to Giant-Man would delight film audiences in Captain America: Civil War ($1.153 billion at the box office).
No comments:
Post a Comment