Why he never quite caught on with the Marvel readers of the day, I’ve never fully understood. Certainly, he wasn’t any more inherently implausible than, say, a man bitten by a radioactive spider, or an Asgardian deity spouting flowery, faux Shakespearean dialogue.

Yet…even granting his near-continual starring status (in one guise or another) within the pages of Marvel’s uberteam book, The Avengers… he remains (at least, in the eyes of most of comics fandom) something of a career second-stringer. It should go without saying, however, that ‘most of comics fandom,’ (pooling all available mental resources into a collective ‘hive mind,’ and working en masse) would probably lose a fast, spirited game of chess to Shari Lewis and Lambchop. Even if you took Shari Lewis out of the equation. (Ok… maybe that was just mean.)

Before his debut within its Silver Age pages… Tales to Astonish was one of the all-time lamest comic books to be found cheesing up the spinner racks of the day.

Given over entirely to the dispirited telling of relentlessly drab and moronic “monster” tales with “shock endings” so pitiful, they’d be hard-pressed to decently startle a particularly undemanding Girl Scout troop, the title was a joke: plain and simple.

There are, ultimately, some storytelling sins so monstrous and unforgivable, not even Jack Kirby artwork can save them.

But Ant-Man as originally conceived and executed… it was one of those lame-brained “monster stories,” itself.

“The Man In the Ant Hill” was never meant to be anything more than yet another entry in the seemingly endless parade of addle-pated shock ending sagas in which TTA so fumblingly traded. Scientist Henry Pym discovers a bio-chemical formula, by means of which he may dwindle himself to insectoid stature. And, oh, the hijinks and hilarity which ensue!

However: a funny thing happened, when the sales figures for TTA #27 finally rolled in, several months after said issue had hit the stands.

There was this huge, whopping spike on the sales chart.

Let no man born of woman ever, ever accuse Stan Lee of not being able to scent a dollar bill through several sheetings of battleship boilerplate. As soon as he could decently club a (doubtless) perplexed Jack Kirby into submission: the Ant-Man series took over the lead spot within the pages of TTA.

Now, granting that Our Diminutive Do-Gooder’s super-powers of choice were not precisely the stuff of terrified underworld nightmares, overall (“Stop! One false move, and I’ll make it infinitely easier for you to stomp my head like a grape!”)… he persevered, nonetheless, by striking up an alliance with some of the bravest, most selfless comrades- in-crimefighting-arms a plucky, vertically- challenged hero could ever hope to have.

No, no, ! Not The Justice League! The ants! The ANTS!!

Henry Pym communicated with his “little allies” by means of a specially constructed cybernetic helmet; the powers of which he scrupulously avoided utilizing in any way which might lead his multi-limbed muchachos into straits too perilous and awful to contemplate. Which for an ant has got to cover some serious situational “ground,” you gotta figure.

In all honesty, however, I kept waiting as a kid for the ants to one day rear back en masse at one of Pym’s “let’s-you-and-him-fight” mental commands and just… y’know… stare at him, or something.

PYM: “Quickly my little friends! WE are the earth’s last, best hope! Attack Galactus… NOW !!”
1ST ANT [derisive laughter]: “Shyeah! Riiiiiiiiiiight.”
2ND ANT [making rude gesture]: “Hey! ‘Doc!’ I’m yo mama’s ‘last, best hope’… know what I mean?”
3RD ANT [impatient]: “Oh, c’mon… let’s just eat him, like we all discussed at the meeting, f’corn sakes.”
4TH ANT [brightly]: “Ooooh! Ooooh! I brought the salsa!!”)

Eventually, the noble (but really nutty) scientist realized one of two things:
a.) ants do not, as a general rule, make for terribly effective “foot soldiers” against Mob torpedoes, would-be alien demi-tyrants and what-have-you;
b.) you’ve slept with one ant… you’ve pretty much slept with all of ’em, really.

To this end, then: Hank Pym hooked up with a curvaceous young heiress (and professional thrill- seeker) by the name of Janet Van Dyne; slipped her a variant on his own super-shrinkum potion; and… hey, presto! One winged, teensy-tiny sidekick, comin’ right up!

The Wasp brought immeasurably more to the series, however, than simply another spandexed mouth to feed. (Ouch… I hate it when a metaphor gets all vicious and turns on you, like that.) Alongside the stultifyingly sober and earnest Pym, the vivacious Van Dyne by way of comparison added a dash of much-needed humor to the storytelling proceedings, overall; always a nice “plus,” that, when your personal “rogue’s gallery” of recurring nasties is highlighted by the likes of Egghead and (*snicker*) The Porcupine.

She also, alas, provided Lee and Company with a convenient “dodge,” by means of which they could continue to pawn off those imbecilic “shock monster tales” of theirs, in the back pages of TTA.

Here’s how that scam worked:

Each and every month, the Wasp would wing her way towards the nearest veteran’s hospital or orphanage (on the grounds, presumably, that neither group had anywhere near enough anguish and/or suffering going on in their lives already) and regale her hapless audience (Did I say “hapless”? I meant happy. Obviously.) with some particularly dire Outer Limits reject Lee hadn’t managed to fob off onto the readership beforehand; her relentlesly chipper introductions and cappers serving as a maladroit form of framing device for same.

Eventually, of course the rosy-fingered dawn of Simple Common Sense broke over someone’s mental horizon, over Marvel Comics way… and the painful truth accompanying so heartrending a revelation had to be acknowledged, for good and for all:

Heroes the approximate size of dust bunnies and who, on top of that, are on a Christmas-cards-every-year basis with ants just don’t make the storytelling nut, readership awe- and inspiration- wise.

It was different for DC Comics’ Atom; he could shrink down to sub-atomic size, and was having his storytelling ashes hauled, monthly, by the single most engaging and inventive writer of the day (Gardner Fox), to boot. (Not to mention the added “perk” of having said exploits gorgeously rendered by a Gil Kane playing at the very peak of his respective “game,” as well.)

Held aloft alongside those storytelling “street creds”… a glib (but often shallow) Stan Lee and a seriously overworked Jack Kirby (the latter of whom was only drawing eight, maybe ten monthly Marvel features at the time, is all) simply didn’t rate, comparison-wise… and then, someone — either Stan or Jack (memories differ, on this point) — came up with the clever notion: “well… if he can get really, really itsy-bitsy… then who’s to say the character couldn’t reverse the process, and turn himself into a veritable behemoth, as well…?”

Enter the gargantuan Giant-Man.

This solitary change in the character’s conceptual dynamic paid off big storytelling dividends virtually instantaneously, as the much-maligned (to that point, I mean) Henry Pym was suddenly transformed into one of the premiere “power players” of the Marvel Universe of the day.

Gone, long gone were the ineffectual likes of Egghead, when it came to scheduled sparring partners for this fifty-foot fella; instead, he got to mix it up with more decidedly “A”-list opponents such as Attuma; The Mad Thinker; and even no less puissant a powerhouse than The Incredible Hulk, his own bad self.

No longer was an shamefaced and ineffectual Ant-Man forced to endure, during Avengers meetings, a sadistic Thor’s cruel, incessant demands to “pull my finger, Termite Boy. C’mon… I said pull it, you little wimp!” The size thirty-nine shoe was on the other foot, now; it was the massive and imposing Giant-Man who would drop his pants and command a panicky, shrilly-bleating Thunder God: “… no… you take a tug or three on this here finger. Ya hippie long-hair fink.”

Ummmmmm… well… I forget which issue number, actually. But it all happened, I assure you.

Speaking of Giant-Man’s long-time tenure with The Avengers: the character proved even more invaluable to the group, overall, when he became its chief powerhouse-in- residence anent the withdrawings of both Thor and Iron Man from the team’s roster, in the latter part of the ’60’s. With a “core” membership, at that juncture, consisting of himself; the Wasp; The Black Panther; and Hawkeye … the big man (now calling himself Goliath, incidentally) became the team’s linchpin and (unofficial) leader.

This was, undoubtedly, the character’s “golden era.” Valued and respected leader of the flippin’ Avengers (Marvel’s true “flagship” team title; unless you want to argue for the FF); Regular Saturday Night Thang for the lovely Janet Van Dyne… oh, yeah. He had it all, and THEN some.

Then, of course, came the nervous breakdown.

An amnesiac Hank Pym showed up in Avengers #59 as the insolent and vulgar super-hero parvenu calling himself Yellowjacket.

The size-changing, insect- controlling crimefighter (boy… talk about your tough mysteries to crack, huh?) was the inevitable end result of a man being spread too thin, for far too long. In addition to the gent’s multitudinous Avengers- related responsibilities, he’d also been wrestling with his own private inner demons, re: having (unintentionally) breathed life into the team’s deadliest and most unrelenting of nemeses: the artificial (and wholly insane) construct known only as Ultron.

This last, in particular, was no little “Whoopsie! My Bad!” laboratory screw-up, either. Aside from his being a raving, all-but-unstoppable would-be world-conqueror… the cruel-visaged Ultron had an actual, no foolin’ Oedipal complex working overtime, to boot.
To wit: the two things he most desired, in alllllll the world, were:
a.) the slow, gruesome death of his putative “father” (i.e., You-Know- Who); annnnnnd —
b.) the transference of Janet Van Dyne’s “essence” into the ambulatory shell of a calculatedly feminine metal “robot”-ess, with whom he could, ummmm, “marry.” The Wasp, being the closest thing on earth Ultron could reasonably claim as a maternal figure… well. You do the math. Icky, icky, icky.

In any event: Hank got his memory back, and decided to stick with the more dashing Yellowjacket persona, for the forseeable future. The Wasp, in the meantime, actually grew to surpass her one-time mentor in terms of character depth and complexity, overall. The (formerly) scatterbrained heiress stepped up smartly to the storytelling proscenium and became, in short order, one of the more assertive and self-confident super-heroines around… even (for a brief period) divorcing Henry Pym, after their marriage had taken on a decidedly Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-ish complexion.

He got custody of the ants, weekends and holidays.

The characters remain semi-active within the confines of the Marvel Universe, to this very day.