Humanity's Flaws: A Look at Marvel's Henry Pym

 Time for another parting look. I was struggling to think of who are next segment would be about. It’s tough to follow a God comparison of GlaDOS BUT we have to. Not only that, we’re following on the heels of three successful posts about strong female characters in film and games. This got me thinking of who I could follow all that up with and it hit me. While I might know enough to do him justice, only one character can follow up all that and still be someone related… today… we’re talking about Hank Pym (aka Ant-Man aka Goliath aka The Wasp aka Giant Man aka Yellow Jacket aka fuckwad).

I’m already hearing people tempting to scroll down and post nasty things about how horrible I’m being or already wanting to call me a troll. But hear me out. Yes, Ant-Man’s relation to these characters is mostly tangential at best BUT I want to discuss him because we have his movie coming in 2015 AND a recent discussion I’ve had actually helped me look at him as a much more complex character than I initially gave him credit for not all that long ago. Ant-Man is more than just an evil AI creating, wife-beating scientist… he’s THE evil AI creating, wife-beating scientist. A character so complex and misunderstood that I have to do a segment on him just to show how worthwhile his film will be and why YOU shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the notion of it being good… you stupid fucks.

Let’s start with a simple rundown of the character. The original character of Hank Pym (who was originally just Ant-Man) is a scientist of the Marvel Universe and (in all but the cinematic-verse) he is a founding member of the Avengers. That, alone, is fairly important, considering he was cut from the concept in the Avengers movie. There are a lot of reasons to speculate why from him needing a standalone movie (which was kind of difficult to conceptualize early on most likely) to his character having a lot of baggage and history that might not make for a fun and friendly super hero movie and more about strife and personal drama. All of which we’ll get into shortly.

His powers? Aside from his rather high intelligence he has the ability to change his body’s overall size. In short, through use of particles he concocted, he can shrink to the size of an ant while retaining his normal human strength or grow to the size of New York City Skyscrapers and more giving him super human strength in the process. In fact, the size increase allows him to do ridiculous bullshit that gives him the ability to confer with cosmic entities (which we’ll talk about more when we get closer to Guardians of the Galaxy).

In addition to that he also (formerly) had “Wasp” enhancements which were enhancements given to his former partner, the Wasp, who could shrink and grow as well but could also fly and shoot small bio-energy beams. We’ll talk about her more later… yes, her. He’s also a skilled combatant (to a degree) and, as stated earlier, he’s smart… Really fucking smart. An IQ to rival Reed Richards and even possess the title of “Scientist Supreme.” He’s may not seem like an overly dangerous person, but let’s continue, shall we? 

His joining of the Avengers (going strictly off the cartoon Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for this) was not necessarily his design. He wanted to maintain his work of scientific discovery and it was his girlfriend/wife/fiancé/partner Janet Van Dyne (the Wasp) that wanted to join a team of heroes. Hell, she was even the one who came up with the name (in multiple continuities). So he’s the boyfriend/love interest who is keeping close to her to be helpful when he can but do work in Stark’s labs when nothing’s happening. This almost gives the feel of a background role where he offers support while the team does the work, yet that isn’t always the case. He’ll throw his weight around just as much as Thor or Hulk.

One thing you’ll notice from introduction is the list of names that Hank Pym has gone through. I was not kidding when he really took the guise of all those different heroes. The personas of Giant Man and Goliath were when he utilized his growth ability while Ant-Man and Yellow Jacket (and temporarily Wasp) were all utilizing his shrinking ability. Though it’s weird since Hawkeye also used the “Goliath” name at one point and… you know what… not going to deal with that now.

The reason he went through this different costumes and personas was because he was basically suffering from identity crisis for a decade or two of Marvel comic history. Again, using the show as a basic reference, there’s a distinct difference in Hank between when he is in his Yellow Jacket costume and when he’s basically doing anything else. Think Spiderman in the black costume, but caused by actual internal mental problems and not an alien symbiote or a shit writing staff at Sony. Hank was normally a peaceful guy who wanted to just do his scientific work and help the Avengers during their less combat heavy missions. As Yellow Jacket, he was more of a shoot-first and ask questions later hero, one of which that got them into a variety of situations that were most unhelpful.

But Hank wasn’t always fucked up in the head (for the most part). In the early parts of Avengers history, he was fairly normal and kind of boring for the most part. What changed? You can point to the writers and pretty much leave it at that, but that’s cheating. Where in Hank’s history did things suddenly make him go coo-coo bananas? Most Marvel fans will be able to tell you really easily by pointing at the subtitle for the upcoming Avengers movie “Age of Ultron” and that’s pretty much your answer right there.

While the movies will likely tell us that Stark is responsible for Ultron’s creation, that isn’t how the original story goes. Originally, Ultron is a peaceful robot used to act as guards for the interdimensional prison created by Reed Richards, Tony Stark, and Hank Pym. The latter of which was the main designer and creator of the Ultron series robots. Going off the TV show, an incident happened of such great magnitude that the Avengers needed help fighting off an invading army (from the future). Against Hank’s better judgment, they activate the weapon systems on the Ultron robots and use them in their fight against Kang and his army. After all that, Ultron goes back to his normal routine, but it is hinted something different has occurred in it. 

A later episode has Ultron turn against the Avengers, first appearing to have killed Hank and then trying to kidnap Janet. Why? Because there’s a programming error that prevents Ultron from killing Janet. Why? Because Ultron’s AI is based off of a human mind, specifically Hank Pym’s mind. Thus, Hank’s love or desire for Janet prevents Ultron from being able to kill Janet along with the rest of the humans (which is a flaw he quickly overwrites for their next encounter). But why does Ultron want to kill humanity? It isn’t simply to rule the universe or the world. He simply is trying to fulfill his primary directive based off the programming made by Hank Pym, “Protect Earth.” The problem becomes humans are flawed creatures with their wars and constant conflict. Ultron’s goal was to erase humanity in order to keep the world safe.

As Ultron kept returning (yes, he finds ways to survive his losses, upgrade, and then come back stronger than before) he kept having one constant bug (for a while) which was his obsession with Janet (which was a reflection of Hank’s feelings of her and his obsessive nature). This manifested to a point where he even made another robot (like him) but tried to make it off Janet’s mind and likeness (which was inevitably going to kill her if successful). Fun guy, that Ultron.

Why is all that important? Remember the key bit there, Ultron is based off Hank’s design and his AI is based on Hank’s mind. Ultron was a creation designed for peace and it was turned into a weapon of unspeakable evil and then turned against not only himself, but all of humanity that he was trying to protect. You think Jason Todd’s death is a big failure for Batman? Hank looked back on this for years and considered it to be his biggest failing, allowing this to constantly haunt him for damn near his whole life.

After the early incidents of Ultron, Hank became withdrawn, quick to anger, and had very violent mood swings. As you can see, he developed a variety of alternate personas simply to try and distance himself from that failure (Yellow Jacket especially) and no longer be a failed scientist but a tough hero capable of defeating any foe. But his personality quirks also changed in his relationships, specifically with Janet. The two were a very close couple despite many differences but after Ultron, there was an incident where Hank abused Janet physically (only one shown in the comics, but there very likely could have been more). Then he basically disappeared for a bit while trying to reinvent himself. 

That’s a dark subject, domestic violence, you don’t see covered in comics that often. World destruction, universal conquest, bank robberies, assassinations, murder mysteries… but nothing that ever touches on more personal matters of domestic abuse, bi-polar disorder, personality changes, depression, and so on. Yes, Marvel had other comics that covered depression (Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle is a good example). But for a character to go from peace-loving scientist for the betterment of mankind to an evil AI creating wife beater is pretty shocking. But it also speaks volumes about his character and the various issues he represents.

He’s a statement about the advancement of science and how we may not be ready for certain aspects of it yet or know how to handle certain issues. He’s a statement about abusive relationships. He’s a statement about finding your identity and not letting your failures define who you are. He’s a statement about being true to yourself and not trying to distance yourself from the problems you create. Hank Pym is certainly one of the deepest characters in comic books with one hell of a complex background. So when Ant-Man does finally get his movie in 2015, don’t just write it off as a shit movie because of the title or because you think the concept of the character isn’t cool like Hulk, Thor, or Iron Man. Hank Pym’s film could very well be the best of the lot simply for taking on subjects that none of the others could come close to touching.

… Or they could use Scott Lang’s Ant-Man… which would undermine pretty much everything I just said and make this whole post virtually pointless…

…

So… yeah… see ya next time. :D