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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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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