Now that Henry Pym, aka Ant-Man has found a partner in his effort to fight crime, he’s got an advantage. For the most part, ol’ Hank has been able to defeat villains with very little trouble, mostly due to his ant allies. But, there is one person who came pretty darn close to defeating Ant-Man. We last saw Egghead “wanted by the police and hunted by the underworld as he holes up in a dingy bowery flophouse…” in Tales to Astonish #38. Ant-Man has since had a few adventures and met Janet Van Dyne who has now become The Wasp.

Will this duo be able to stop the nefarious plans of one of the smarter criminals in Marvel 616? Let’s find out.

While the cover of this issue, created by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers is great, I think in this issue they missed out by not putting the amazing teaser panel from the first page drawn by Don Heck on the cover. It’s got an ant-eater and Egghead looming over Ant-Man and the Wasp and it better illustrates the dire position our heroes are in. And it makes you wonder why no other villain has tried this yet.

Just look at that! I’ve never seen a more menacing ant-eater in my life.

The issue then goes on to give us some narration about how Ant-Man defeated Egghead in the past and Egghead is looking to wipe out that defeat.

We are then treated to a long recap of what happened before. This is extremely common in early Marvel 616 for a number of reasons. First, since comics were only ever sold as single issues at the time, if a new reader picked one up they might be lost if they had not read a previous issue. But it was also a way to save time and money for Marvel. There was no need to create new art when you could simply reuse existing art. Sometimes new captions or narrations are added but a lot of it is simply the same panels over and over again.

Rather than summarize this section for you here, I’ll just refer you to my review of the issue where these events took place, Tales to Astonish #38. If you don’t want to read that to refresh your memory, suffice it to say, Egghead assumed the ants were the unwilling slaves of Ant-Man when, in fact, they are his willing partners and friends. Egghead was too narcissistic to realize people (and ants) can work together.

When we finally catch up to the present, two thugs happen to be in the same brewery flophouse (I still love the way that is phrased here) where Eggman is staying. These two thugs are named Twister and Ape. And much to Eggman’s delight they are talking about how they were lucky to get away from Ant-Man and The Wasp.

Egghead is smart enough to spark up an alliance with the two men. First, he asks for them to tell him all about The Wasp. For the recap of that, we only get a single panel where Twister says, “…And that’s the whole story! Ant-Man and The Wasp are partners now!” To be fair, this did happen quite recently so it’s probably still fresh in most readers minds so less of a recap was needed. Twister remembers hearing about Egghead nearly defeating Ant-Man so he and Ape agree to the alliance.

Egghead decides to take on a new identity and he says, “Every man has his achilles heel! We will strike at Ant-Man through his… The Wasp!” Yes, Ant-Man’s The Wasp. Well spoken Egghead!

Egghead who has been thoroughly defeated and was living in a “brewery flophouse” then gets a bunch of scientific equipment from… somewhere I guess? Outside of Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four, the issue of money doesn’t come up a lot in early 616. Especially not for villains.

Egghead makes a machine that can intercept and scramble the signals from the ants to Ant-Man.

Next, he creates a disguise and establishes himself as Professor Carl Striker, Zoologist. He puts on brilliant lectures about insects, well attended by the public. I would think it would be easier to just go on faking you are a zoologist and making some money that way than going up against a super hero duo, but Egghead really wants that revenge.

And wouldn’t you know it? In attendance at the lecture are Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. The zoologist seems kind of familiar to Henry Pym but he can’t quite place the guy.

And we get a fun panel telling any new readers who these two are.

Egghead’s next move is to lecture at the city zoo and build a fascinating exhibit about wasps. He figures Ant-Man and The Wasp won’t be able to resist showing up. But, as in all good villain team ups, signs of friction begin. Ape and Twister have been running around helping Egghead but not gotten much in return.

Egghead promises the crooks that once Ant-Man and The Wasp are out of the way, he’ll be able to cook up a bunch of perfect crimes that will make them all rich.

Construction on the exhibit begins and Egghead makes sure everything is as precisely detailed as it would be if a real zoologist did it. And we hear in the background a news item about a famous diamond which is about to be cut into a pendant for a priceless necklace.

Egghead plans to use this diamond as bait to capture The Wasp. As the zoo exhibit is being set up, a zoo attendant questions why the wasp exhibit is going into the reptile enclosure but Twister just snaps at the guy. Ape mentions the only thing he’s scared of is snakes.

As the professor Striker, Egghead has somehow obtained blueprints of the place where the diamond is going to be cut. Twister is supposed to take a “dewelding gun” which can cut the alarm wires while Ape is to bring along the insect message interceptor.

Sure enough, the crooks get inside and send out the scrambled insect messages. Hank Pym figures out there is something wrong with the messages and he immediately calls up Janet.

The messages suddenly clear up and Ant-Man is informed by the ants there is a robbery at the diamond cutter’s. Ant-Man uses his catapult and The Wasp flies over to the address. But, it’s too late, the diamond is missing. Henry can’t find any clues to the culprit but he figures they are smart and will strike again.

Twister and Ape want to fence the diamond but Egghead is only using it for bait. The tension between the three increase but they ultimately decide to go along with Egghead’s plan. They rig the reptile enclosure into an elaborate trap which can send electrical current through every crack an ant can crawl through.

Ape wants to know why they don’t just step on Ant-Man and Egghead just replies, “He’s not that easy to step on, my friend!” I know Egghead is smart, but I think Ape kind of has a point here.

They set up the display so The Wasp will notice the diamond and enter into a trap they have created. Janet sees the diamonds in an oversized replica of a wasp’s nest and has a moment where she thinks through what to do. And, she pines for Henry in the process.

That night, Janet returns as The Wasp. She goes into the nest, without realizing bad guys are watching her. And inside the nest is some sort of strange maze. Egghead has made special shoes which won’t allow ants to crawl up on the crooks. He also tells Ape to put the iguana in the aquarium. Egghead figures The Wasp will have to contact Ant-Man.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what happens. Henry is annoyed because he told her not to do any jobs alone but of course, he’s really worried some harm may come to her.

The crooks wear magnifying goggles so they can see Ant-Man and trap him into the aquarium with the iguana. Egghead did allow Ant-Man a fighting chance because he left a pin there. Ant-Man uses that to defeat the iguana off panel. I feel bad for the iguana though, it didn’t do anything wrong.

Ant-Man uses springs in his shoes to jump out of the glass case. Meanwhile, Janet has figured out where Hank fell through into the cage. She’s able to fly to that opening to escape. The two are reunited but now is when we finally get the ant-eater.

Egghead tells Ant-Man there is no escape and tells him about the electric wire which will, “electrocute any insect or insect-sized creature that attempts to pass over it!” Diabolical.

But Ant-Man has a tiny lasso he created from “strands of steel-strong synthetic fiber.” He loops that around the ant-eater’s snout and tosses the ant-eater into the crooks. Again, I feel bad for the animal here. The Wasp disables the electrical wire.

Egghead tells his fellow criminals to use their water pistols filled with liquid gas to stop the heroes. But, The Wasp has recovered the pin Ant-Man used to defeat the iguana. She sticks Egghead who drops his gun and realizes she has found her sting, “The one thing, as The Wasp, that I had lacked!” She makes the other crooks drop their weapons as well.

Ape is trapped in his worst nightmare, surrounded by snakes. Egghead has somehow fled the scene before Hank or Janet noticed.

Hank lectures Janet saying, “As for you, young lady, don’t you ever try anything like that again! We’re a team— and we’ll work as a team! Understand?!” And Janet just wishes Hank could realize how in love with him she is.

And once again, Egghead gets away but from the last panel we know, he is still a threat and will be back. Thus ends the issue.

Tales to Astonish is still, at this point, an anthology series. But with Ant-Man consistently taking over half of the pages, having repeat villains, and a partner who is beginning to be established as a love interest, it feels like there is not much point to the other stories. It will still be some time before Ant-Man is let loose from these pages but it will happen eventually.

While I think there are plenty of egg shaped holes in Egghead’s plan, he did come up with something much more elaborate than any other villain in this series has. And he’s not done yet. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Next up on the reading list, put on your best armor because we’ll be catching up with Tony Stark aka Iron Man himself in the pages of Tales of Suspense #43!

Up to this point in the Marvel 616 comics we’ve had plenty of stories staring Henry Pym, aka Ant-Man. For the most part these have been short stories featuring our hero taking on crime of one kind or another. Quite often he has faced off against communists. We know he is a brilliant scientist who does secretive work for the government but it would be false to say we’ve ever gotten a full understanding of his motivations. There haven’t been any stories which really dive into his background, he’s just kind of there.

This all starts to change when Henry Pym gets his partner in peril in Tales to Astonish 44. This is both his first full length story and introduces The Wasp to the 616 universe.

Technically Tales to Astonish is an anthology series and in this issue there is a backup story after the main story of Ant-Man but as far as I can tell it does not relate to the rest of the 616 continuity. But this is still the most amount of pages dedicated to Ant-Man we have seen in a single issue. And, truth be told, at this point it was Ant-Man who was selling the magazine.

The issue starts with a teaser page that looks a lot like the cover but basically acknowledges that we haven’t really had a back story for Hank Pym up to this point and promises us one here.

The story itself starts with Ant-Man coming back from some heroic mission to his lab where he tells his ants to return to nature and lets them know he will call them again when needed. Pym releases his growth gas and goes back to human size.

Ant-Man takes a break and laments how he must always be alone and can’t reveal his secret identity to anyone. And he mentions someone named Maria for the first time.

It turns out, Maria, was Henry’s wife. We see in flashback panels that Henry and Maria went to Hungary for their honeymoon where Maria and her father had once been political prisoners. Hank has some valid concerns about going there but Maria says they won’t know her since she is now Mrs. Pym rather than Maria Trovaya.

For a brief moment in time the two have a good time together and Hank wishes he could always be on vacation with Maria. She replies that he is becoming a lazy husband and tells him her father always used to say. “go to the ants, thou dullard!” I think that’s supposed to just be a way of saying don’t be lazy but it lays the groundwork for Henry’s future fascination with ants.

The bliss cannot last long as Maria is kidnapped at gunpoint. Although Hank tries to stop the men, he gets pistol whipped and goes to the American embassy. While he is there, the embassy receives a call. Maria’s body was found with a note which said, “This is what happens to those who attempt to escape from behind the iron curtain!”

Now all this communist hunting Ant-Man has done in previous issues makes a heck of a lot more sense. The dude is looking to even the score. But as if that were not bad enough, as they attacked Maria in Hungary, back in the states they also blew up the lab where Maria’s father worked.

Hank storms out of there furious and vowing revenge. But within a few days he ends up in jail,”on the verge of a mental and physical breakdown!”

Henry Pym was unable to track down and find the killers but the American embassy has arranged for him to be set free and sent back to America.

Not knowing what else to do, Hank thinks about the past and about his wife. And then he remembers what she said. The funny part of this is that he actually misquotes her from a few panels before as he quotes her as, “Go to the ants, thou sluggard!”

Henry then works tirelessly to invent his reducing gas, perfect his cybernetic helmet and become Ant-Man. It has a Batman feel to it as Henry is basically vowing to wipe out crime because someone he cared about was a victim of it. The difference though is that Henry takes a decidedly scientific approach to it.

Back in the present, Ant-Man decides doing this himself is not going to be enough. What he wants is a partner who can carry on his mission in the case of his death. But he doesn’t know anyone he can trust with his secret identity and who would have the attitude to take on the task.

Just in case he ever does meet this person, Dr. Pym studies wasps and realizes he can shrink a human and give them wasp-like wings and antennae.

At that very moment, fate steps in as his doorbell rings. A Dr. Vernon Van Dyne has come to see the famous Pym. Dr. Van Dyne is also a scientist and he has brought his daughter Janet with him. Hank lets them in and is struck by how much Janet looks like his dead wife. Although, he admits she is not much more than a child at this point. Janet, for her part thinks Henry is handsome but figures he’s a bore since he is a bookish scientist.

Interestingly, what Dr. Van Dyne wants sounds more like something that would be worked on by Dr. Bruce Banner. he is working on a gamma-ray beam to pierce space and detect signals from other planets. Henry admits he has heard of Van Dyne’s work but says his specialty is in molecular cell transition and cell specialization. Van Dyne wants the beam strengthened but leaves Dr. Pym alone.

Despite the lack of help, Dr. Van Dyne is able to get his beam to work. This turns out to be his demise. Some vast, shapeless, darkness comes at him and starts to take form. This alien thing comes into the lab and Van Dyne asks what it is.

It tells him, “I am from the planet Kosmos deep in space! We of Kosmos are a fluid form of life! I escaped down the path of your ray to this, your planet!”

Dr. Van Dyne keys in on the word escaped and the creature admits it is a criminal who nearly enslaved his whole society. And he figures if he failed there, maybe he can succeed here on Earth.

The alien commands the good doctor to look into its eyes. Van Dyne tries to resist but is unable to. The creature smashes the lab and Janet returns to find an awful mist and her father dead. Not knowing what else to do, Janet calls Henry Pym because she knows her father trusted the man.

At first Henry Pym doesn’t believe Janet and thinks she is just a, “bored society playgirl” who is trying to get her kicks by making up stories. But in short order, ants confirm the situation through Pym’s cybernetic helmet.

He goes into action as Ant-Man and shows up at Dr. Van Dyne’s lab where Janet is understandably upset. Ant-Man tells her he is there to help. She thought he was a myth, which is odd, since there have been literal newspaper stories about him in the past but we’ll let that slide for now. Janet explains the situation and Hank figures out right away it had to be some kind of alien force to have done the type of damage to the lab he sees.

And in what seems to be the first instance of an Avenger wanting to avenge something, Janet Van Dyne knows what she wants to do. She wants to avenge her father.

Hank tells Janet to call the F.B.I. and ask for Lee Kearns and tell him what happened. He then instructs her to go to the lab of Henry Pym. Janet agrees.

Oddly, the ants that accompanied Ant-Man have left him alone. He catches up to them and asks why they left. They tell him that whatever was in there secrets formic acid like the ants do but it is alien and they are afraid. Henry has them take him back to his lab and spread out to look for the monster and go to the F.B.I. headquarters to see what they find out there.

Hank grows back to human size and meets Janet at the door. He asks if Janet really would do anything to avenge her father’s death and risk anything for justice. She says not only that but she wishes she could help track down all criminals.

For the first time ever, Dr. Henry Pym reveals to someone else that he is Ant-Man and tells Janet he needs a partner. It’s quite a fateful moment in the history of the 616 because here we have the foundations for what will one day become The Avengers. We’ve been introduced to Thor, Iron-Man, Ant-Man, The Hulk, and now The Wasp. It will still take some time but these are all founding members of the super group and Janet Van Dyne should not be underestimated here.

Janet agrees to become Hank’s partner and The Wasp. Moments later, Dr. Pym has injected Janet with wasp cells, shrunken her down, given her an outfit which seems to perfectly fit her, and allowed her to grow wings and antennae which is only possible for her to have while she is small.

Meanwhile, Kosmos seems to be tearing up the city. He smashes the Van Dyne lab, destroys the docks and causes a general commotion.

Hank gets word of this from his ants and tells Janet to change into her new costume. We get confirmation for the first time that Ant-Man actually lives in New York as he sees Kosmos head towards the George Washington bridge and clearing out Manhattan.

Ant-Man gives some quick instructions to Janet on how to use the reducing and enlarging gas and how she can communicate with the insect world through her antennae. They launch themselves into the air with Ant-Man’s miniature cannon and immediately Janet is hooked on adventuring.

Not only that, she tells Hank, in case they are killed, that she is falling in love with him. For his part, Hank gives a pretty hard no here, although with his background we all know he can love someone. He says, “No! You mustn’t say that, Janet! You’re only a child! Let’s get this straight… I chose you as my partner simply because I thought you had a reason, as I have to fight for mankind! I never want to love again! I– I couldn’t bear it if I had to lose a loved one– twice!”

This basically sets up the relationship dynamic we’ll see with these two for years to come. It will come to be much worse than this sort of thing but we’ll review that when we get there.

Hank’s rebuke only makes Janet more determined to make him fall in love with her. And Hank realizes if he is not careful, he will fall in love with her.

Ant-Man then introduces his ants to The Wasp and the ants tell Henry they can’t confront Kosmos.

The military comes to try to stop Kosmos but they retreat in fear. Janet decides to tackle the problem head on herself. Janet seems to be drawn to the creature but Hank saves her. He realizes he can defeat this thing through science and the pair go back to the lab. Hank whips up the antidote to formic acid, realizing the creature is mostly made of formic acid. They become Ant-Man and The Wasp once more but this time they have the ants carry shotguns filled with pellets full of the antidote.

They make it up to a rooftop and fire the shotgun at the creature and luckily for humanity this does stop Kosmos. Janet cheers and puts her arm around Hank who tells her, “Er.. we— we’d better get back to the lab! And from now on you must not display such emotion! It– it isn’t proper!”

Janet seems to just be happy she made him blush. Back at the lab Henry calls Lee Kearns at the F.B.I. and tells him everything is okay. Kearns says he wants to meet Ant-Man because they share the same goals and Ant-Man can’t keep going it alone. Looking at Janet, Hank replies, “I’m not going it alone, Kearns… not anymore… not ever again!”

In her mind, Janet vows to always be beside Hank and make him love her but until that day she will be his partner as The Wasp. The issue ends here but we know we have a lot more in store for these two.

This is absolutely a landmark issue for 616. It introduces a backstory for Henry Pym, finally gives him some motivation for what he has been doing, and provides a love interest and important character in her own right. No matter the problematic nature of the relationship between these two, this is the most fleshed out, well rounded, and best Ant-Man story so far. It also starts to feel like the pieces are coming together to tell a much larger story, although at the time readers would not have known this.

This issue also finally puts Ant-Man in the same city as The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man so our heroes are beginning to gather.

Next up on the reading list we’ll be checking in with another character who has it out for communists as we read about Iron Man in the pages of Tales of Suspense #42!