Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1963-03-01 00:08:30 |
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Tales To Astonish #41 (Ant-Man)
Issue(s): Tales To Astonish #41 (Ant-Man story only)
Cover Date: Mar 63
Title: "Prisoner of the Slave World!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Plot
Larry Lieber - Script
Don Heck - Penciler
Don Heck - Inker
Review/plot:
Don Heck takes over for Jack Kirby, which might have been a disappointment except that Heck gets to start off with a bang, getting us into another dimension where we get to see some alien bugs.
The story starts with a rash of eminent scientist kidnappings. Pym reasons that he, too, will be kidnapped.
I actually think that Pym is being a bit arrogant here. In his first appearance the men of the Science Convention complained that Pym was always wasting their time with "ridiculous ideas" that "never work". I imagine he's been keeping his success at shrinking to himself, so i don't know how he would have reversed that opinion. Nonetheless, he's right and i'm wrong because sure enough the kidnapper shows up at his place a few days later.
The kidnapper is disguised as a window washer, and Pym accepts the idea that he's giving out window cleanings with no charge and not even a required demonstration. Privileged.
The washer uses a paralyzing liquid and then transports Pym across dimensions to the realm of Kulla, who is forcing the kidnapped scientists to work on an electro-death ray.
Pym doesn't want to give up his secret ID even in front of a few colleagues on an alien world...
...so he gets himself thrown in prison...
...and soon gets himself into a fight with the insects of Kulla's world. After throwing his fists around a bit, he figures out how to control them.
The battle against Kulla isn't all that exciting, but Pym does manage to send the villain to an electro-death. I guess it's ok to kill aliens.
A narration panel oddly says "The guards discover why Ant-Man is known by that name -- because he has the fantastic power to make ants other insects serve him". If that's true, it's the first time we've seen any evidence of it.
The window washer that was kidnapping the scientists is imprisoned with the rebels of Kulla's world since it wouldn't be possible to press charges against him back on Earth.
Pym has taken to wearing regular clothes made of unstable molecules and carrying his costume around in a tiny packet. The former is a development for super-heroes generally, and the latter is the beginning of a new use of Pym's powers that will be an important part of his character; in fact for a while in the 80s when he doesn't have a formal super-hero identity it'll be the primary use of his abilities.
Heck's aliens weren't all that inspired, but his bugs were cool.
Quality Rating: D+
Historical Significance Rating: 2 - formative Henry Pym story
Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A
References: N/A
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: Essential Ant-Man vol. 1
| Previous: Cable #-1 | Up: Main 1963 / Box 1 / Silver Age | Next: Strange Tales #107 (Human Torch) |
Comments
Considering how insistent he's been in past issues about how the ants are his friends who work with him willingly, it's marginally suspicious that he can turn aggressively hostile alien insects into similar "friends" simply by adjusting his "control" frequency.
Clearly, more proof that Pym is secretly a super-villain that refuses to admit (even to himself) that he's a super-villain.
Don Heck is one of those much-respected classic artists I just can't get into. Carmine Infantino is another. It's not that Heck's art is bad, it's just that I find his storytelling pretty stiff compared to Kirby and Ditko. Anyway, the best parts of these early Ant-Man stories (aside from the sheer silliness) are the cool Kirby drawings of ants and other insects. Take that style away and you're left with facing what a lame character Ant-Man is and how boring his adventures are. I think the same thing might be happening with the upcoming movie with Edgar Wright out of the picture. But we'll see.
Actually the movie turned out pretty good. Heck's problem was though he was a good artist his style never evolved. His Flash stories in the 80's look no different than this. Infantino was good draftsman but his work looked rough and was only good to look at when he had the right inker such as Murphy Anderson. This is why his early Flash work and Adam Strange was gorgeous and his late 70's and 80's work were crummy looking.
