Ant-Man is a character with a pretty turbulent history.
While the MCU’s Scott Lang definitely has a few metaphorical skeletons in his closet,
he doesn’t compare to his predecessor’s track record in the comics – Hank Pym has
done some PRETTY MESSED UP stuff.
Domestic abuse, betrayal, and whole lot of questionable behavior stemming from years
of poor mental health.
I mean, you’ve gotta feel bad for the guy – to an extent.
So today, we’re breaking down all of the unfortunate and cringe-worthy things Pym has
pulled off over the years with our list of the top 10 disturbing facts about Ant-Man.
And don’t worry, we’ll throw in a few crappy things that 3rd Ant-Man Eric O’Grady
has done too.
Cause he ain’t no saint, either.
10 Mutilation Speaking of, let’s start our list off with
O’Grady.
Eric became the third Ant-Man after finding Pym’s latest version of the suit at SHEILD,
where he worked as a low level operative.
He steals the suit, which his NOW DEAD BEST FRIEND/ROOMMATE CHRIS was guarding – and
wearing - when he was killed.
Eric decides to become a superhero in order to stalk women, get laid and use it to up
his thievery game.
Eventually, he denounces his old ways and vows to change, but the laundry list of terrible
things he’s done as Ant-Man is pretty damn long.
For starters, early on in his ‘superhero’ career, he ran into Mitch Carson – the man
SHEILD had meant to give the Ant-Man suit to as the new man to take on the alias.
Mitch tracked Eric down, and during Eric’s escape, he burned Carson’s face with his
jetpack, leaving the agent blind and deaf on one side of his face.
9 Suicidal As we mentioned, Hank Pym is a hero who has
suffered from poor mental health for the majority of his life.
His origin story is even steeped in it – his father is an asshole to him, his grandmother
is the only person who ever believed in him, and when he falls in love for the first time
and marries genius biochemist Marian Trovaya, she’s murdered during a trip to Hungary,
causing him to have a mental breakdown which gives him the drive to create the Pym Particles.
Yeah, pretty rough.
So Pym being suicidal in the comics isn’t a long shot.
After a stint as Yellowjacket had failed (more on that later), Pym heads over to the West
Coast Avengers to be an advisor, where he gets taunted by old adversary Whirlwind about
how much of a failure he is.
This leads to Hank deciding to commit suicide in issue 17 volume 2 of the West Coast Avengers.
He writes goodbye letters and is fully prepared to go through with it until Firebird sends
him off on a mission.
8 Bad Friend, Worse Boyfriend While mutilating and permanently disabling
a dude is up there in horrible things you could do to a person, turns out Eric O’Grady
isn’t beyond emotional torment, either.
Remember that dead best friend Chris who had died guarding the Ant-Man suit that Eric ripped
away from his cold motionless body?
Yeah, so Chris was dating another SHIELD agent by the name of Veronica King.
Eric had always lusted over Veronica, and now that Chris was dead, he took advantage
of her grieving to make his move.
The two almost have sex ON TOP OF CHRIS’ GRAVE, but Veronica stops, and the two eventually
do sleep together.
This leads to Veronica getting pregnant, and what does that cause Eric to do?
Abandon her, refusing to help raise the child.
After he ditches her, we never see Veronica again.
Man, at least Hank Pym has a reason to justify his poor behavior – O’Grady is just a
dick.
7 The Blob The Ultimate Marvel Universe introduced us
to many varying alternates of Marvel characters.
Unfortunately, Hank Pym is just as tragic – perhaps even more so – than his 616
counterparts.
This Pym not only had his mental illness and marriage problems to grapple with, but was
butting heads with his teammates, and the Ultimate universe turned up his cruelty several
notches.
Meaning he was unhinged enough to decapitate the Blob and spit out his head as Giant-Man.
To be fair, in the storyline, he, along with the remaining superheroes are looking for
survivors, including his wife.
He discovers the Blob eating the Wasp’s corpse, and decides the character deserves
some eye-for-an-eye retribution.
6 Yellowjacket One of Pym’s many aliases was Yellowjacket
– who, upon making his debut, was kind of a dick.
First off, Hank emerged as Yellowjacket after having his second mental breakdown after Ultron.
More on that later.
During his first Yellowjacket appearance, he gets real cocky, makes sure everyone knows
he’s the one who stopped a robbery, then goes to the Avengers and demands he be offered
membership.
He claims he killed Hank and has kidnapped Janet and everyone is like …sorry what?
He then heads over to his secret lair, the Hornet’s Nest, and makes out with Janet,
who realizes he’s Hank and sees him as a new and improved – and confident – version
of the man she once loved.
It’s then later explained that the character’s alias as Yellowjacket was due to a schizophrenic
break that created that alias’ personality – which he blamed on working with dangerous
untested chemicals.
5 Sexual Harassment Taking one last look at the sleaziest of Ant-Man
characters, it shouldn’t be a surprise by now that Eric O’Grady has little consideration
for the opposite sex.
When your ability allows you to shrink down to a tiny size, that opens up a whole lot
of windows of opportunity to do some pretty cool things.
But what does Eric do with his powers, aside from fighting crime?
Use them to be a perv, of course.
Eric was quick to notice that being a superhero was helpful in the dating department, or rather,
getting laid department, and would often go on dates with women he rescued.
If he wasn’t able to get laid by them, he would follow them home, shrink down and spy
on them.
He even pulled this stunt with Carol Danvers, who at the time was Mr. Marvel, by hiding
in her purse and them watched her get undressed and shower.
Luckily, the character was eventually killed off and briefly replaced by a life-model decoy
named Black Ant.
4 Elfqueen Back to Hank Pym!
At times, it was apparent that Hank never felt super comfortable with the idea of being
a hero, especially around other super-powered individuals on the Avengers team.
This led to feels of inadequacy and pretty low self-esteem, which often resulted in the
character lashing out.
On one occasion, he went too far.
For context, at the time, he was under extreme stress, which was causing his marriage to
fall apart.
He and Janet got into an argument, sort of broke up, and then later, on a mission with
the Avengers, under his Yellowjacket alias, Hank lashed out at a foe who called herself
Elfqueen.
After the conflict had been resolved, Hank attacked Elfqueen, hitting her with his bio-stings.
Captain America launched a court-martial against him, and Hank was suspended until the hearing.
So what did he do in his spare time?
He built a robot to attack the Avengers in a scheme to save them, being the only one
who knew how to stop it.
This wasn’t the only time the character crafted a dangerous threat for the Avengers
though.
3 Created Ultron Creating one of the Avenger’s most fearsome
foes definitely deserved one of the top spots on our list.
In issue 54 of the Avengers in 1968, Hank created a robot intended to be a living robot
of himself.
But turns out Hank did too good of a job, and the robot exceeded his own intelligence
and rebelled – that robot was Ultron, and wipes his memory.
Ultron, operating under the name Crimson Cowl, recreates a new version of the Master of Evil
team, and reveals himself to be Ultron.
The robot then creates Vision, who attempts to kill Janet van Dyne, but is stopped by
the Avengers, and eventually helps them defeat Ultron.
Afterwards, Hank starts to get his memories back, and realizes he was the one responsible
for creating Ultron, which drives him into having a nervous breakdown.
If that wasn’t already bad, Hank was also brainwashed by the villain, and came into
conflict with the Avengers under Ultron’s command.
2 Attempted Murder Hank Pym doesn’t have the best track record
when it comes to the Wasp, his sometimes wife/sometimes ex-wife.
And while our number one spot is devoted to the most famous crappy Hank Pym moment concerning
Janet, our number two is pretty darn awful, too.
As we mentioned, the Ultimate version of Hank Pym is a piece of work.
He’s pretty cruel at times, and his behavior towards Janet is not out of character in that
respect.
In Ultimates issue 6, the character tries to murder Janet after they get into an argument
about her friendship with Captain America.
Wasp shrinks down to avoid her violent husband, who then gets his hands on a can of bug spray
and starts spraying her.
He also sends an army of ants on her, causing her to be hospitalized.
1 Domestic Abuse So remember a few numbers back when we mentioned
that Hank was suspended after striking Elfqueen?
And he built a robot to attack the Avengers?
Well his wife Janet van Dyne found out about that, and was not cool with it.
So Hank decided to show her how it worked.
Janet still protested, and this led to Hank slapping her across the face in what is now
one of the most infamous panels in comic book history – and also reportedly a mistake
drawn into the comic, which was later confessed by writer James Shooter who said the slap
was most intense than he wanted it to be depicted.
I mean, a slap is a slap, dude.
Janet filed for divorce, and had quite the black eye afterwards.
Because of this, Hank is often referred to as a wife beater, despite the numerous times
that Marvel has tried to write the character into better graces.
Makes sense why Scott Lang is the MCU Ant-Man, doesn’t it?
There we have it friends!
What made you cringe the most?
Do you think Hank deserves another chance, or that the character is forever tainted by
his past?
Let us know all of your feels in those comments below.
And hey, if you’re team Hank, why not tell us why you think he’s a character worth
your adoration.
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