Ant-Man, The Wasp and...Mothman?

In the second issue of Tim Seeley's 2011 Marvel miniseries Ant-Man & Wasp (which I discussed at some length here), the title characters journey to "The Mindscape...a pocket universe bordering the minds of scientists."

The strange space is filled with bizarre hostile creatures that attack them. Note the trio of red-eyed, face-less, arm-less winged creatures along the top of this panel: Do they look at all familiar?

Here's an artist's illustration of Mothman from Orbis Publishing's 1984 prose book about paranormal entities entitled Creatures From Elsewhere (discussed in this post from last summer): Now, was Seeley drawing those creatures to resemble that particular version of Mothman on purpose? Or did he, like the anonymous artist responsible for that Mothman, come up with the same interpretation of the mysterious creature? Or, did Mothman itself somehow communicate with Seeley while he was drawing this panel, influencing the artist to draw him into the scene, consciously or unconsciously?

Another trade I waited for: Ant-Man & Wasp: Small World

Sometimes there’s just no way to win with Marvel Comics. I was mildly curious about 2011 series Ant-Man & Wasp, which teamed up the current Ant-Man Eric O’Grady, from the short-lived Irredeemable Ant-Man series, with the old and original Ant-Man, who is currently going by the codename of his dead-ish superhero wife, The Wasp.

It was a three-issue miniseries written and drawn by Tim Seeley, and artist whose work I like but whose writing I don’t remember ever reading. A miniseries about a bickering, shrinking, bug-themed superhero odd couple with nice art seems appealing enough, and would definitely be the sort of comic I would theoretically pick up on a light week.

Of course, Marvel priced it at $3.99 per issue, and, call me old-fashioned, but I hate paying 33% more than usual for something I might like, or am merely curious about, or wouldn’t mind reading. So I decided to wait for the trade, figuring that would make for a better value than $11.97 for 66 pages.

That came out last month, and was entitled Ant-Man & Wasp: Small World—and it cost $15 dollars, or $5 per issue!

Marvel did up the page count considerably, by adding over 70 pages of classic Ant-Man and Wasp adventures by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck and an H.E. Huntley from the pages of 1963 issues of Tales to Astonish.

Those are fine comics, but man, they sure are different in almost every conceivable way from the title story, the one on the cover and the one that folks who purchase this thing would most likely want to read.

Folks who want to read early sixties Ant-Man adventures could always just purchase one of Marvel’s collections of the same. This book here, for example, will get you over 570-pages of early sixties Ant-Man tales from Tales to Astonish for the price of Small World.This concludes the Caleb Is A Grumpy Old Man Who Obsesses Over The Price of Comics portion of this increasingly rambling “review.”

So, the first half of the comic two-fifths or so of the comic, the collection of Seeley’s Ant-Man & Wasp series? Pretty solid stuff.

It no doubt helps to know a little of the history of the two characters and their relationship to one another. For example, that Ant-Man O’Grady stole his super-powered costume from original Ant-Man Hank Pym, and used it to embark on a quest for self-gratification. Or that the pair are now both Avengers; Pym a founding member who now teaches at a school for young heroes, and O’Grady for one of the black ops type squads (Either Secret Avengers or the Thunderbolts at the time this was published; I honestly can’t keep up).

It probably helps, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Seeley does a nice job of introducing the pair and their history quickly and efficiently in the first few scenes, fitting in a lot of exposition without resorting to a straight info-dump .

Seeley works in a couple of pretty cool big, crazy comic book ideas—including Pym inventing an artificial “heaven” for his fallen friend Bill “Goliath” Foster and a visit to Ditko-esque “Mindscape” in which the heroes are “sheathed in the contents of [their] subconscious,” presented as semi-transparent comic book panel suits—in the process of a fairly basic plot construction.

The bad guys—A.I.M., who amusingly wear costumes that resemble those of bee keepers, here fighting a couple of insect-themed heroes—steal something from Pym, and he must team up with O’Grady to recover it.

Seeley’s writes both characters well, giving them both likeable and unlikeable aspects, and defining much of those aspects through their conversations and actions. There’s an awful lot of content in such a short, simply-plotted story, with plenty of the requisite fighting and action, but a surprising amount of melodrama and even some deeper questions (Does Pym believe in the soul or heaven? What if they do exist? And, uh, what do his beliefs mean regarding his wife, whom I think is supposed to maybe be dead? Her death scene at the end of Secret Invasion didn’t actually make any sense).

While I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by the quality of his writing, I expected the art to be pretty great, and it was. Seeley has a clean, smooth style of the sort that used to dominate super-comics, but is increasingly rare as photo-reference and computer-aided drafting and coloring become more common place. (Seeley is inked by Victor Olazaba and brightly, simply colored by Val Staples)

His characters and staging are somewhat reminiscent of John Romita Jr’s work, which is, of course, somewhat reminiscent of the old-school Marvel hosue style, but he has a rounder, less visceral line, which makes everyone look prettier or more handsome than they might in a lot of the other Avengers books.

Honestly, it was some of the cleanest, brightest, poppiest artwork I’ve seen in a Marvel superhero book in quite some time, and was a real pleasure to read.

Maybe not $4-$5 worth of pleasure per 22-pages of story, but hell, I guess that’s what library’s are for—so those of us who aren’t rich can still read the best stuff.

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Some of those back-up stories are pretty awesome, by the way. There's one starring The Porcupine, a villain who dresses more like a haystack wearing a gas mask, a story where Ant-Man tries to shoot a monster in the face with a rifle that a bunch of ants hold up to him while he uses both tiny arms to squeeze the trigger and a sweet Don Heck-drawn story in which Egghead unleashes an awesome enemy upon Ant-Man,who retaliates by lassoing the anteater's snout and then hurling it at Egghead— That's gotta be the only time in a comics history that a super-villain gets taken down by being hit with an anteater, right?

The Worst Shrinking Superhero

It’s easy to see the appeal of a superpower like growing larger. It taps into children’s desire to grow up and gain more control over their own lives and their own destiny about as directly and visually as possible. When you’re a kid, you equate power with size, so seeing a surrogate character able to grow bigger than your older siblings, your classmates, your bullies, your parents, your teachers, and, of course, even his or her villains and the biggest monsters you can imagine, well, that’s pretty cool.

But growing smaller? What kind of cockamamie superpower is that?

Well, it’s actually a pretty common one, as lame as it is. And while each and every shrinky superhero has some understandable popularity problems, one stands head and shoulders above–er, below all others in his lameness, and he’s the subject of tonight’s post.

No, I’m not talking about Doll Man, a character I actually like a lot, despite never actually having read any of his original adventures. I mean, sure, his name is “Doll Man” and his costume resembles what Superman’s might have looked like if Superman were a little pixie more likely to help a cobbler finish up that last order of shoes than punch our a giant robot, but he came from a simpler, more innocent time (1939), when dressing funny and having a funny name was more a badge of honor than a black mark for a superhero. Besides, have you seen any images of Golden Age Doll Man? They’re really well drawn (Lou Fine, I think). (For a weekly dose of Doll Man, check out the arflovers.com blog, where every Monday is Doll Man Monday).

Nor am I talking about The Atom, who might have stolen the shrinking schtick and color scheme from Doll Man, but boasted one of the best of all Silver Age costumes, the ability to take shrinking to a whole new (smaller) level, taking it to the extreme furthest extremes. He also boasted a nerdy/cool secret identity of a college physicist that allowed his adventures to take on the sort of science fact-fueled fun that punctuated DC Comics of the era like The Flash, Metamorpho and Metal Men, and had a long life as a supporting player in the pages of Justice League comics. Also, he was always getting tied to grenades or stuck in light bulbs or finding himself in some similarly deadly but visually interesting predicament (Often drawn by Gil Kane, which sure goes a long way).

Nor am I talking about Ant-Man, who has one of the most complicated fictional histories of any superhero (although when he was still just plain old Ant-Man, it wasn't quite so complicated yet) and one of the ugliest of the pre-‘70s Marvel costumes (although he kept the red and blue color scheme which seems to be mandatory for shrinking superheroes). Despite these deficiencies, Hank Pym has the benefit of an unusual side power (he can control ants!) and a long, successful-(ish) history The Avengers and Marvel Universe in general. Plus that wacky helmet gives him a unique (although not all that ant-like) look, and an usual mode of conveyance—flying ants that don't really look much like ants at all.

No, I’m talking about Tinyman.

Yes, Tinyman.

Debuting in 1966, years after both The Atom and Ant-Man, Tinyman’s power was the ability to become tiny. Not doll-sized, nor ant-sized nor atom-sized, just, you know, tiny. He was one of the super-characters from MF Enterprises, starting out as a villain in the other other Captain Marvel’s comic.


That’s him in the upper right hand corner. The tiny one with the “giant ray gun.” (Does it shoot a giant ray? Does it shoot a ray that turns people into giants? Or is it just giant compared to him because he’s, um, tiny?).

His costume’s not so bad. I mean, it’s not good or anything, certainly the worst of the shrinky heroes mentioned, but much better than the rest of the Marvel rogues around him (Check out “Dr. Fate” there). He definitely has a decent, individual look. I particularly like his lack of mask and his reverse skunk hairstyle.

But still, his name is Tinyman. When your codename makes “Ant-Man” and “Doll Man” sound like cool codenames, you’ve got problems.

Jack Baker’s ability to shrink didn’t have a comic book science explanation, like experimental chemicals, or white dwarf star radiation or Pym particles, he could simply will himself to become tiny, although he retained the strength of a full-sized man, his street clothes disappearing in the process.

Baker’s crime career was pretty short (Ha ha! Short! Get it?), and the other other Captain Marvel tossed him in the clink. Perhaps realizing that shrinking-themed supervillains are even lamer than shrinking-themed heroes (I’m looking at you, Wonder Woman rogue Mouse Man), he turned his life around, not only becoming a good guy, but eventually becoming a district attorney.


Soon he was fighting alongside his former foe against his former foe’s foes, like The Ray (Who looks suspiciously like another other other Captain Marvel villain, The Bat).

Of course, that career was pretty short too, as Tinyman quickly disappeared into comic book obscurity.

Probably because his name is Tinyman.