Stressing The Details
► I'm not looking forward to house sitting on the weekend. My nerves seem to be getting worse each day, and I'm struggling with a depressive spell too. Every time I have to house sit I dread going in the days leading up to it, but this time it seems a bit worse. Maybe it's partially because it'll be my first time at the house since before Bruce
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Hank Pym's history of spousal abuse is one of the most over blown characterizations in comic book history. In the entirety of Marvel history he backhanded Wasp once while in the middle of a complete manic mental breakdown in which he thought he was another man and had murdered himself. That whole storyline was so poorly handled and written it actually pains me that it's still held as his defining period. Especially since it does nothing but tarnish Wasp's image since she used his mental breakdown as a means to finally "trick" Hank into marrying her. The Avengers also came off horribly in it by decided to let a completely unbalanced member maintain leadership of the team and not trying to get him any mental medical help.
The idea of Hank as a chronic and evil wife beater is just insane. One single backhand. If I recall, Peter Parker had struck Mary Jane more often, and other male superheroes have struck their love interests. For some inexplicable reason it's hung like an albatross on Hank Pym only.
Most of my fondness for Hank goes back to my being a kid who loved the idea of 100 feet tall giants (likely caused by seeing Jason and the Argonauts and Time Bandits as a child). The idea of a superhero who grew 100 feet tall was incredible to me! I was just always drawn to Hank Pym's Giant-Man role.
To me Hank is the consummate altruistic scientist. Tony Stark always seemed to be more interested in the money and business, Reed Richards in pure science, while Hank's inventions and experiments were always with the aim of bettering society and life (if I recall, the miniaturization experiments were as a means to help transport food places to help global hunger). If you go back and re-read the earliest stories in Essential Ant-Man (particularly the wonderful Larry Leiber written ones) Hank was one of the few males heroes of the period who's female partner was a partner and not just a damsel in distress sidekick. Many issues had Hank giving Janet encouragement and pep talks about how she was more than just a bubble headed society and fashion maven. Now I don't mean to suggest Pym was written as a feminist, but he was definitely written as more of a equalist at a time when it was rare, which makes his "wife beater" reputation more disappointing.
I like Hank Pym. I've always liked absent minded professor type characters, and Hank is definitely that. At the same time he's also an adventurer in the Indiana Jones vein, one who was always willing to test his experiments on himself. And he was also a true hero, a character who'd sacrifice himself and even his sanity to help others. Since the original 70s mad Yellowjacket era, the character has usually been written as a good man constantly trying to make amends for his past. As someone who suffers from mental disorders it's nice to have a character who does suffer from mental disorders too but doesn't stop him from trying to do what's right, and from trying to help others.
It's just a shame to me that each time a written who genuinely seems to like the character and tries to rehabilitate him and move him forward, they're inevitably followed by a writer who thinks "lets get back to the wife beater stuff". I think a lot of that is the fault of Mark Millar, who basically salted and burned the character in Ultimates (or as I like to call that series, Asshole Avengers).
I think in the right hands Hank Pym can be a fun, compelling, and entertaining hero. I just wish more writers would let him be that.
p.s. People seem to forget that the entire Yellowjacket period of Hank becoming scizophrenic and unbalanced, the slap to Wasp, and Hank's eventual forcing off of the Avengers (heaven forbid the Avengers ever try to help any of their own members when they go through personal crisis, they just kick them off) was all the machinations of Egghead. Egghead was Hank's archenemy, and the entire 70s period was his plot to completely and utterly destroy his reputation and standing. The reveal was that Hank's madness and insanity were chemically induced and brought about by Egghead.
No one remembers that though. They just remember that backhand.
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Thanks for a full explanation of your perspective on Hank Pym. I'm at a disadvantage because I haven't directly read any of the issues in which he acted crazy and/or abusive, so I have to rely on others for that vintage information. However, I wouldn't solely blame Mark Millar for tainting Pym in recent years: before Brian Michael Bendis took over writing The Avengers, I recall Bendis saying in an interview that, although Pym only struck Wasp a few times, if you read the run in one sitting, it seems as though he hits her every ten minutes. That's an odd statement, since the rest of the internet seems to agree with you that there was only the one incident; that it occurred during an altered mental state; that Spider-Man, Reed Richards, and Batman have all hit their partners; and that even the writer who thinks that Hank Pym is a chronic and total failure clarifies that the nature of the blow was actually a case of artist error ( http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/03/hank-pym-was-not-wife-beater.html ).
I also hear what you're saying about writers constantly regressing characters and ignoring their development, and the issue is a big problem in comics. Every writer wants to be the one to kill this character, cure that character, or corrupt the other character, and they want to ignore it if a previous writer has already prevented them from doing so. Within the stories, it's what makes death so cheap, characterization so arbitrary, and marriage such a terrible, terrible fate, and it's what makes publishers and writers constantly want to kill their long-term readers/witnesses in real life.
The good news is that I can confirm that the Pym on Earth's Mightiest Heroes is the Pym that you describe, down to his debate with Stark about Stark's focus on profit (though Richards hasn't appeared to create an additional contrast). Perhaps he'll violate your expectations in some other way, but I hope not.
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In the late 90s there was a shortlived Avengers cartoon that had a heroic and noble Hank as the team's leader (I think it was set in the near future because everyone had cyber armor type attachments to their costumes). He was in his dual Ant-Man/Giant-Man role. It wasn't much but it was fun, and gave me another reason to like Hank.
Maybe my fondness for the character is my reading more into him than is there, but I suppose that's the case with all fans, and all characters they love. I just think the character has a lot of untapped potential. It really disappointed me that they're not including Hank and Janet in the upcoming Avengers movie too. I keep thinking Aaron Eckhart would make a great Hank.
I had read Jim Shooter's account of how it was an artist goof, and that the backhand was meant to just be Hank accidentally pushing her back while flailing his arms while manic. One goof with ripples through comic book lore.
I blame Mark Millar because he personally built up most of the Hank Pym Is A Wife Beater stuff in Ultimates and while promoting the series. He had the character an unrepentant bastard in the series (of course everyone is a bastard in Ultimates, even Cap is less the moral and idealistic hero and just a thoughtless Good Soldier marine jerk). Millar made much in interviews over his amusement at Hank being depicted in posters and statues of the Avengers while being a vicious wife beater. But that's Millar for you. The guy is incapable of anything remotely resembling subtlety or even-handedness. Also I can't help but think that there was a certain amount of planned character assassination in his take.
Ah well.
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