The Return of the Ant Man!
I bet you’re shocked to see Ant Man returning, considering the last thing he did was pour his serum down the drain. Well what can be made once can be made again, so this issue starts with a recap of the last story and then also has him creating more of the potion. He just decides to hide it really well this time just in case he would ever need them. I bet he never needs them ever. Since his adventures in pure stupidity, he has taken quite an interest in ants and has been studying them nonstop. Female ants are queens, and worker ants are smaller and wingless. Ants also have sense organs and a nervous system! He’s just learning this. He also decides to figure out how they communicate and then creates an entire outfit for when he shrinks to their size, although he has no intention of every using the serum again. But… just in case.
He then somehow gets a government grant and four assistants to help him, but lo and behold, the God damned commies come and interrupt his work. They want his anti-radiation formula! It’s a gas that makes people immune to radioactivity! They threaten to get the information from his assistants, but he tells them they don’t know anything! He’s the only one that knows! But then he tells them to go fuck themselves, and they agree to do just that, telling him they’ll just look around his laboratory for it. Of course, they’re going to blow it up later, so there’s no need to end Henry Pym’s life. Or even tie him up. They just let him wander back to his office, unmolested. Except they don’t realize that he’s mother fucking Ant Man!
He then says “they’ll be stopped… by a mere rubber band,” which would be impressive, but he continues, “and some thread,” which would still be impressive, but he continues further with, “among other things!” Oh. Okay. So his plan is to defeat them with whatever he needs to use to defeat them. That’s… well, that’s not really all that impressive at all. That’s pretty standard fare, really. Anyway . . . he wraps a rubber band around an ashtray (that’s one of the other things) and puts it on the floor. He shrinks himself then uses the contraption to launch himself up onto the window ledge with perfect aim! He really thought this plan through this time. Oh, except…
He didn’t think to open his window beforehand. Luckily, ants are basically microscopic, I guess. He then climbs down a thread to the ground. You would think he had set the thread there, but, no. As he’s climbing down it, he says, “I guessed right… the thread reaches right down to the ground!” There was randomly a thread dangling from his window sill to the ground below. How fortuitous! Then he sees his beloved ant hill. He goes and jumps right in and just kind of hangs out while he tries to figure out how to communicate with them. Not once did he try to perfect this when he had all the opportunity in the world. Probably because he figured he would never need to use it. That’s why he had it.
Big surprise, he figures out how to communicate with the ants perfectly, right away. Except… there’s one worker ant who attacks! Luckily for Henry, he picks the ant right up and tosses him aside like he’s a life-saving lasso. Looks like his new formula shrinks his size but not his strength! The ant returns to bite him, but his costume, made from unstable molecules, keeps the bite from penetrating him! Then one judo blow is all it takes to win the fight. Somehow the ant doesn’t explode upon impact of the full force of a grown man. He’s a bad ass ant, really. The rest of the ants just bend to his will after that.
Henry Pym and his ant army exit the ant hill only to meet… A BEETLE! Henry decides to use his full-size strength! Not to crush the beetle, or anything. That would be preposterous. No! Instead, he digs a hole and uses himself as bait for the beetle, and positions himself so the sunlight glares into the beetle’s eyes and then lures the beetle closer to himself then ducks at the exact right second for the beetle to fall into the hole, and then covers him up! WOW! What a fortuitous turn of events! That’s way better than just flicking him away with your fingers!
Ant Man hops on an ant, and they go riding up the side of the wall where he sees his assistants are tied up. Henry already told the commies they don’t know enough to help them, so he gave them zero reason to leave them alive. But they’re gonna blow the place up anyway, so might as well leave them alive for that fun. What a lucky break! Ant Man and his ant army climb through the unopened window and begin untying the men. Henry tries to speak to them, but nobody can hear him, because he’s so tiny!
Once his assistants are untied, he commands his ants to go right up the pant legs of the villains! This is honestly his best plan yet, because an army of ants running up anyone’s leg is going to freak them right the fuck out. And that’s just what happens. Why he drops his gun, I’m not sure, but I could honestly believe that would happen. Ants are fucking icky. Speaking of icky, he has honey ants clog up the gun. If you’re unfamiliar with honey ants, they gorge themselves with honey and then let other ants eat that honey out of their anus. Yes, I’m serious.
The assistants then get up and beat the shit out of the red bastards, and then they call the police. Hank scurries back to his laboratory and returns to normal size. He changes his clothes, and nobody wonders where he was the entire time.
Lastly, I leave you with Henry Pym taking a nice, hot growth-serum bath:
