Plot by Stan Lee – Script by H.E. Huntley – Art by Don Heck – Letters by Sam Rosen
Tales to Astonish is becoming something a little different from the other Marvel superhero books.
Ant-Man and the Wasp are developing a kind of romantic comedy around their superhero adventures, although right now the relationship is played much more for humor than romance. Janet is openly pursuing Hank while Hank remains mostly oblivious, giving the book a running comedic dynamic that the other Marvel titles don’t really have. The stories are also starting to play with the expected roles of its male and female heroes, with Janet increasingly getting opportunities to be the one who saves the day.
The result is a book with its own personality. It still has costumed villains and ridiculous science-fiction plots, but there’s a lighter, almost Tracy-and-Hepburn quality to the way Hank and Janet interact.
We meet Alex Gentry, an engineer for the Department of Defense who has designed a new combat suit. Then Gentry discovers that his next pay raise is going to be pretty disappointing, so he decides to put the suit to better use by becoming the Porcupine and declaring himself the greatest criminal the world has ever seen.
I guess they didn’t have unemployment insurance in 1963.
The Porcupine is a wonderfully ridiculous Marvel villain, but he actually sticks around for decades, becoming mostly an Iron Man adversary. Not bad for a guy who looks like a pinecone.
Hank and Janet provide readers with another little taste of the book’s rom-com dynamic when Janet feels flushed and assumes Hank grabbing her hand is a romantic gesture. He’s actually checking her pulse.
Turns out superheroes in the Marvel Universe aren’t immune to the common cold.
When the Porcupine robs a nearby bank, Hank and Janet are overcome by his knockout gas along with the rest of the crowd. Later, while Janet recuperates, Hank goes after him alone and winds up caught in one of the Porcupine’s traps.
Marvel in the 60s is still figuring out its gender roles. There are few women featured in these early comics, and many times, they are mostly used as hostages. Sue Storm occasionally gets to be more of an active participant in the Fantastic Four, but it is inconsistent.
Here, we get a glimpse of what Marvel can do with a female hero. Janet eventually recovers and takes center stage, using Hank’s own technology and her knowledge of his abilities to track him down and rescue him.
You’d think Hank and Janet could solve most problems by simply changing size. They don’t.
When Hank gets trapped in a bathtub full of water, Janet recruits ants to help get him out rather than simply growing large enough to pick him up. Later, they have to work out an elaborate way to carry bottles of wet cement while they’re ant-sized.
This could be a result of the Marvel method, where the artwork and script aren’t necessarily tied together until later in the process. A scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp working at ant-size is simply more interesting to draw, even if the logic of why they don’t just change size doesn’t always hold up.
The Porcupine eventually retreats after the final confrontation, and the issue ends with one last rom-com moment between Janet and Hank, cementing the rhythm of the book.
Hank Pym was the second Marvel character introduced after the Fantastic Four. For most of his time as the feature story in Tales to Astonish, he was still capable of sliding back into the kind of goofy science-fiction adventure Marvel used to specialize in.
A year later, thanks in large part to the introduction of the Wasp, Tales to Astonish is finally starting to feel like its own superhero comic.
Marvel in the 60s – Entry #83