Issue(s): Tales To Astonish #54 (Giant-Man/Wasp story only)
Cover Date: Apr 64
Title: "No place to hide! / Conquest"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Larry Lieber - Script and Pencils on Wasp back-up
Don Heck - Penciler
Don Heck / Sol Brodsky - Inker

Review/plot:
In this issue, a shadowy government agency sends Giant-Man and the Wasp to topple the democratically elected President of Santo Rico.

In the end Giant-Man claims to find a document proving that the president, "El Toro" rigged the election. He is supported by an unnamed citizen who is apparently able to discern Toro's handwriting. Probably a CIA plant.

Meanwhile, what we're all here for... the bickering:

The pill popping:

Pym failing as a super-hero. He has no better luck as a giant than he did when ant-sized, the clumsy oaf.

It's really amazing how much support there is for Pym's eventual break-down. It's all here. I honestly don't go looking for it, but you can't avoid it. The irony is that while most of Stan Lee's Silver Age heroes are deliberately flawed, Pym is, in theory, a more traditional and heroic type of character. And yet Stan Lee's misogyny and the naive use of enhancement drugs coupled with the need to create some fake challenges to counteract the fact that Pym is fighting non-super opponents creates more support for a tragic character than all of Tony Stark's heart problems and Donald Blake's lameness.

The back-up Wasp feature has Janet trying to tell a young fan a story, but the fan would rather ask continuity-related questions.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Ant-Man vol. 1

El Toro returns in the same Englehart WCA arc that brought back the Voice and Madame X. At least that issue leaves no doubt that he was a Communist. In that arc, he has his horns coated with poison, which was an attempt at making him a halfway credible threat.

Thanks Michael. Added him to the Characters Appearing.

That last Wasp panel is most likely a reference to actual fan letters.

Note that Hank's pill-dispensing utility belt looks remarkably like a Twist-O-Flex watchband, (tm) Speidel, 1959. A similar look was already seen on the Legion Of Super-Heroes' anti-gravity belts in DC's Adventure Comics.

Once again I think this is the same Latin American country.

Pretty bad that they all congratulate themselves at the end for “making it a democratic nation again”. I mean, it was never not a democratic nation: the whole point of the story was an election. Surprisingly accurate rendition of US foreign policy in Latin America at the time!