- Hank Pym has had a pretty terrible life.
We've talked about it before,
but some of the points of note include him creating Ultron,
becoming physically violent with his then wife,
Janet Van Dyne,
and spiraling out of control
to the brink of near suicide.
But hold on, go back.
That one, yeah.
Did that really happen?
(upbeat rock music)
Welcome to Comic Misconceptions, I'm Sc--
- [Voiceover] Scott.
- Hey, Hank, didn't know you were here.
- [Voiceover] I've been watching you for awhile now.
- That's a...
Alright, Marvel's "Ant-Man" is a movie
that I will be watching this week.
Maybe you will be too.
And when I was thinking of topics
to do for this video,
I remembered something quite a few of you brought up
on the last "Ant-Man" video I did
almost two years ago when I looked like this.
(buzzer)
It's the story of Hank Pym hitting Janet Van Dyne.
Did this infamous panel happen on purpose,
or was it completely accidental?
First, let's back up a little bit,
get some context here.
Hank Pym was a founding member of the Avengers
as Ant-Man along with Janet Van Dyne, aka the Wasp.
The two would later get married
under some bizarre circumstances
that I'm not going to get into.
But in Avengers number 12, or 212 rather, from 1981,
we see the Avengers attacking a villain
known as the Elfqueen.
They eventually get her to stop fighting,
but Hank Pym, who is currently going by
his Yellowjacket alias, attacks her anyway.
In the next issue he faces a court-martial for his actions,
and is temporarily suspended from the Avengers
until the team can reach a decision.
Hank knows that he's basically already been
kicked off the team.
The court-martial is simply a formality
that's gonna drag everything out.
But he uses this time to his advantage.
Hank locks himself away in his lab
and creates a robot named Salvation-1,
which he plans on unleashing against the Avengers
during the court-martial.
Sal, which is Hank's nickname for the robot,
was designed to be unstoppable,
except for one weak spot that only Hank would know about.
He wanted to stage a triumphant victory.
He would make it seem like some random robot
busted into Avengers Mansion
and started attacking everybody.
And then when defeat appears imminent,
Hank would blast Sal in its weak spot,
shutting it down, saving the say,
and proving his worthiness to the team.
But Wasp finds out about his plan
and begs him not to go trough with it.
Hank yells at her to shut up
as he violently strikes her across the face.
He believes that there is no other way.
He has to do this.
It's his only chance at redeeming himself.
At the court-martial, he tries defending his actions
he took against the Elfqueen,
and even starts attacking Captain America personally,
saying that Cap is only upset because
he thought Elfqueen was a beautiful woman.
If it were anybody else,
this wouldn't be such a big deal.
But Janet pleads with Hank just let it end
and accept the consequences.
She even reveals her black eye caused
by Hank's outburst earlier.
The other Avengers see this and are in shock.
Hank decides that there is no other option
but to release Salvation-1.
But remember, Wasp already knows about this plan
and quickly fills everybody in.
Not only that, but it is she who ends up
shutting down the robot, saving the day,
instead of Hank.
Hank knows that he has lost.
He quickly leaves,
knowing that his days as an Avenger are over.
And in the next issue,
Janet asks for a divorce.
This was a defining moment in Hank Pym's life.
When Hank reveals that he has bipolar disorder
in Avengers A.I. number 5,
Marvel released a video to go along with it
where they got a psychiatrist to explain
what bipolar disorder is.
In the video, they cite this entire story
of the excessive violence towards the Elfqueen,
the creation of Salvation-1,
and, of course, the hitting of Wasp
as an example of his illness.
They even brought it over to the world
of the Ultimate Comics in Ultimates number 6 from 2002
when we see Hank and Janet getting into a shouting match
that erupts when he strikes her.
This fight was taken much further
and ended up with Janet being hospitalized,
leading to Cap taking Hank down a short while later.
The Senior Vice President of Publishing
of Marvel Comics, Tom Brevoort, once said,
"We've spent years trying,
"but the audience will not forgive Hank Pym
"for striking the Wasp.
"That's the moment in that character's history
"that looms the largest,
"and probably will forever."
He goes on to say, "Part of that is because
"that was the most interesting thing
"that had ever happened to that character,
"and so that really cemented it.
"Any number of creative teams since then
"have struggled mightily trying to get that moment
"to be overcome, including myself,
"and nobody's been able to outperform
"the gravity of it."
So you get the idea.
This wasn't just some moment in Hank's career.
This was the moment.
But it wasn't supposed to be.
Avengers number 213 was written by Jim Shooter
who has a blog over at JimShooter.com, naturally.
In 2011, he finally set the record straight
about this seminal issue.
He noted that before he started writing the Avengers,
he went back and read everything that Hank Pym
and Janet Van Dyne had ever appeared in,
and noticed a trend.
Hank's career was filled with failure at every turn.
He was never particularly good at being a superhero,
and his scientific achievements
tended to lead to disaster.
And then you have Janet
who seemingly succeeded at everything she tried.
While on a five hour flight, Shooter just so happened
to be sitting next to a psychologist,
so they started discussing the storyline
that he had in mind,
and the sort of toxic relationship between Hank and Janet.
The psychologist said Shooter's story made total sense
given their history, so he wrote it up.
But the original intent for this scene
where he strikes Jan was meant to be shown
as an accident.
It wasn't supposed to be Hank intentionally
striking her across the face with full force,
but rather just an unfortunate mistake on Hank's part.
It was meant to be shown as him throwing his hands
up in frustration, and accidentally hitting her in the face.
Bob Hall, the artist for that issue,
explains that there were a few things
that may have led to him interpreting
Shooter's writing the way he did,
creating this infamous scene.
First and foremost, Hall didn't really like the story
in that issue.
It was sort of early in his career,
and he just wanted to draw the Avengers in action
instead of a character driven story
about a mental breakdown.
And that brings up another point.
Hall was relatively new at this.
At this point in his career he refers to himself as,
"Just a fan with some skill,"
also saying that it would not have been possible
for him to draw the panel precisely how Shooter wanted it.
He even remembers redrawing that particular panel several
times because he could never get it to look quite right.
By the end of it, he thought he might as well
make it Marvel action because that's what he knew
how to draw.
Another point I think is important is that Shooter
was using the Marvel method of synopsis writing.
Essentially, this is when you give the artist
a loose plot to work with,
and then you let them draw whatever they felt was best
to fit the story.
This meant that Shooter probably didn't give a lot of
direction to Hall about how exactly he should
draw that scene.
And lastly, Hall admits that he was an extremely slow artist
during this time.
He was constantly redrawing things over and over.
He believes that if he was faster and there was more time,
Shooter probably would have asked him to redraw it.
And actually, Shooter corroborates this by saying that
there was simply no time to have it redrawn,
and that's what led to this tragic story
that's followed Hank around all these years.
It was kind of the perfect storm of situations
that led to that scene.
It's a little sad maybe,
but really interesting to think about that
a character can be defined for decades
by Jim Shooter sitting next to the right person
on an airplane,
getting paired up with Bob Hall
who was slow and unsure in his work at the time,
and being hit with a rapidly approaching deadline
that made it impossible to redraw.
And now, it's a part of the character.
Probably permanently.
What do you guys think?
Are you a fan of how Marvel has since capitalized
on this accidental panel
and cemented it as part of Hank's legacy?
Or do you think it's an unnecessary piece of his history?
Let's talk about it all in the comments below.
And let me know what you think about the "Ant-Man" movie.
If you're watching this after it has already come out,
then please, no spoilers down there, guys.
I have to read all these comments.
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Once again, I'm Scott.
You can find me on Twitter and Instagram,
and I will see you right here on Friday
for a Tie-In video.
It's one that I'm actually kind of excited about.
So, I'll see you then.