Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #137 (Ant-Man)
Cover Date: Sep 93
Title: "Giant trouble"
Credits:
Barry Dutter - Writer
Patrick Archibald - Penciler
Brad Vancata - Inker
Michael Kraiger - Assistant Editor
Richard Ashford - Editor

Review/plot:
Scott Lang has to get to his daughter's school play, but Goliath is on a rampage.

How can Goliath even see Ant-Man?

Ant-Man hits Goliath with shrinking particles.

I once again feel obligated to shout from the rooftops that Goliath is supposed to be ionically powered in addition to his Pym-particle enabled growing powers. So even at this size, he should be wiping the floor with Ant-Man. And, i mean, he is, but not nearly enough.

Ant-Man hits him with even more shrink rays and knocks him out.

However, he doesn't make it to Cassie's play in time and she's mad.

Ant-Man should take a cue from Spider-Woman and tell his daughter his secret identity.

Even ignoring my ionic gripe (Ionic Gripe: good name for a band?), Ant-Man's repeated use of shrinking fumes shows how easily they can over power a character with access to them. Goliath is a cool villain and should be a major threat, not someone that Ant-Man can beat alone in a couple of pages. I'd argue that his Pym-powers should enable him to counteract the fumes, but the truth is that it shouldn't be possible for any villain to be defeated so easily. At a minimum i'd say that the ability to shrink others should be limited to Henry Pym himself, and the heroes that have taken on his former identities (Scott Lang, Bill Foster, Rita Demara) should only be able to use them on themselves (just like the Wasp). In this case i'll write it off as Goliath having taken multiple poundings already this year.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This should take place before Ant-Man joins up with the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four Unlimited #5 & Fantastic Four #384. The MCP have this after Goliath's appearance in Wonder Man #25.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The order of Goliath's appearances are muddled at this point due to the dialogue in Avengers 382. Erik seems to disappear in Wonder Man 25. When we see him next in Avengers 382, he's a prisoner in the Kosmos dimension. So you might think that Erik went directly from Wonder Man 25 to the Kosmos dimension. Unfortunately, we get an explanation that Mockingbird's disruption of his powers in Avengers West Coast 92 enabled criminals from Kosmos to contact him in prison and he escaped prison and started growing. So you'd think that Avengers West Coast 92 was his last appearance before Avengers 382. But Wonder Man 25 CAN'T take place before Avengers West Coast 92, since War Machine is a member of the Avengers West Coast in Wonder Man 22-25, and he didn't join until Avengers West Coast 93.

I'm more annoyed by the depiction of Cassie in this story. Her character beat is that she idolizes her father. Her dialogue is totally off. It's the type of thing her mother might grip about, but Cassie would "understand." (It's like someone accidentally stapled a Thunderstrike subplot to this story.)