Following the defeat of Axis powers during the second world war, the Strategic Scientific
Reserve became the espionage agency SHIELD, with Howard Stark serving on the leadership
council as a founding member.
The brilliant inventor, engineer and scientist developed deep ties to the government throughout
the war and beyond, with his company Stark Industries becoming the nation’s biggest
supplier of weapons and advanced technologies.
As a result, SHIELD Agents often had access to the very best and newest equipment available.
However one of the most remarkable discoveries of the post war era, was made not by Stark
or his people, but by a SHIELD scientist and consultant named Hank Pym.
Discovering an extra-dimensional sub-atomic particle, which could expand and shrink both
in height and weight, he named it after himself and harnessed this technology to power the
Ant-Man suit which gave its wearer those same powers.
Despite his pride at having discovered something so incredible, Hank was concerned that it
would be used for nefarious purposes, and chose to keep his research hidden, refusing
to surrender the work to SHIELD.
Though Howard Stark and others tried to pressure him into giving up his findings, he was steadfast
in his refusal, trusting only himself with the technology.
As a result Hank Pym served as the Ant-Man for several years, going on covert missions
for SHIELD, aided by another of his inventions the EMP Communication Device, which allowed
to telepathically communicate with Ants, which could provide support in his shrunken state.
Eventually, Hank was joined on his missions by his wife Janet, who wore her own Wasp suit
they developed together, with wings that allowed her to fly.
However during a mission to stop a Soviet missile from reaching America, the Wasp sacrificed
herself by using the suits regulator to shrink herself to sub-atomic size, becoming small
enough to enter and disarm the missle and then continuing to shrink until reaching the
quantum realm, unable to bring herself back.
Hank, devastated by the loss of his wife, gave up his role as Ant-Man, hiding the suit
away, and eventually resigned from SHIELD , founding his own company Pym Technology.
The enterprise proved successful and made him a billionaire, but in truth he found no
happiness as he was obsessed with researching what happened to his wife to see if there
was any way to bring her back.
His obsession and long work hours estranged him from his daughter who he sent away to
boarding school.
As Hank grew older, he was betrayed by his protégé Darren Cross in 1989, who organized
a vote to oust him as CEO, with his daughter Hope casting the deciding vote against the
founder.
Retiring to his mansion, Pym stayed away for years but was at last called back in 2015,
when Darren Cross invited him to watch the unveiling of the Yellowjacket, a new battle
suit they had developed using Pym Particle technology which Hank tried to bury decades
earlier.
Cross took pleasure in proving himself to his old mentor, and informed him that he planned
to sell the suit, with various organizations like Hydra sending representatives to bid
on the item.
Knowing that he had to stop Cross from going through with the sale, Hank hatched a plan
to find a new Ant-Man, to break into his old company and steal the yellowjacket.
Although his daughter Hope trained for years to fight and use this technology, and agreed
that Darren Cross needed to be stopped, Hank did not want to risk her life, and sought
to find someone competent but ultimately expendable for the mission.
He also refused to take his concerns to the Avengers, because of their connection to the
Starks, who he felt could not be trusted.
And so through his research he found Scott Lang, an ex-convict with a degree in electrical
engineering and a selfless heart, who in his youth stole from criminals and returned the
items to their rightful owners.
When he married his wife Maggie and had their daughter Cassie, Scott gave up his life of
crime and went to work for Vistacorp.
Yet when he discovered that the CEO Geoff Zorick was purposely overcharging customers,
he took it upon himself to hack into their system and give the money back.
However he grew over confident, breaking into the CEO’s mansion, and was arrested after
crashing his bosses car into the pool.
Sentenced to three years in San Quentin State Penitentiary, his wife soon divorced him and
remarried, taking their daughter to live with a police officer named Jim Paxton.
When Scott was at last released from prison, he struggled on the outside, forced to stay
with his old cellmate Luis, while his wife refused to allow him regular visits with his
daughter unless he found a job and paid child-support.
However he was unable to find steady employment, even losing a position at Baskin Robbins because
of his past as an ex-con.
And so when Luis along with his friends Dave and Kurt, presented an opportunity for a big
score by robbing an old billionaire, Scott reluctantly agreed to take the job.
Using his skills as a burglar and engineer, he successfully broke into the mansion of
Hank Pym and got through its security only to find the Ant-Man suit, and nothing more.
Believing that he found nothing of value, Scott took what he thought was a motorcycle
suit and departed.
Back at his friends home, he tried on the suit and was alarmed to hear the voice of
Hank Pym in his ear, eventually learning that the entire ordeal was pre-arranged, with Scott
having been selected to be the new Ant-man in exchange for a promise to help pay his
overdue child support.
Though Scott found his new powers alarming and difficult to control, he was rigorously
trained both by Hank and his daughter Hope, eventually learning to control his ant army
and becoming proficient in suit combat, armed him with pym particle disks he could throw
to instantly shrink or grow random objects during a fight.
In order to go through with their plan, Hank sent Ant-Man to steal a signal decoy from
an old warehouse which they soon learned had recently been converted to a new Avengers
facility.
Despite the mission being called off when they learned of the increased security, Scott
choose to continue on, even defeating the Avenger Falcon in combat to successfully steal
the device they needed.
Now prepared for the main mission to steal the yellowjacket, Ant-man set out to infiltrate
Cross Technologies, but found that Darren Cross was prepared for them, having taken
various precautions which allowed him to initially capture Ant-Man, though he soon escaped resulting
in a battle erupting.
Putting on the yellowjacket, Cross engaged against Ant-Man in a momentous struggle that
soon endangered his daughter, and that only ended when Scott used his suits regulator
to shrink to the sub-atomic level, just as Hank’s wife had done years earlier.
By becoming so small he was able to infiltrate the yellowjacket suit, and destroy it from
the inside, before shrinking to the Quantum realm where he may have been lost forever.
Fortunately, he had with him a Pym particle disk, which he put inside the regulator and
used to grow him back to normal size.
After returning to his reality, Scott found himself in trouble with the law, as an Ex-con
engaged in vigilantism, resulting in the destruction of property.
But in the end his ex wife’s husband Jim used his connections to help him sort out
the issue, with Scott having gained the respect and admiration of his family and friends for
his actions as the superhero Ant-Man.
However, as Scott’s life was getting back on track, even starting a relationship with
Hope, Hank Pym was more interested in studying his return from the quantum realm, starting
to believe that it may be possible to bring back his long lost wife.
In preparing for this new project, he decided that it was finally time for his daughter
to take her place alongside the ant-man, inheriting the mantle of the wasp.