Hijacker's Hijinks
Tales to Astonish #40 "The Day Ant-Man Failed" written by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Sal Brodsky, and letters by Art Simek. No colorist credited.
Tales to Astonish #40, cover date February 1963, is the first issue to feature Sol Brodsky’s inks, at least since I’ve been tracking creator credits in the comics I’m writing about. Though he inked Jack Kirby’s early Fantastic Four work but went uncredited at the time.
I don’t honestly know much about Sol Brodsky. He was a freelancer at Marvel in the early 1960s, and in 1964, he became the production manager. He left briefly to start his one publishing company that folded. He came back to Marvel shortly after and Stan Lee convinced the company’s higher-ups to make him the vice president of operations, essentially making him Stan’s right-hand man.
The comic itself is…, I don’t know. It’s fine. It’s a goofy Ant-Man story, and honestly, I don’t think Ant-Man can get much better than these types of stories, which aren’t good. It’s hard for Ant-Man. He’s a crap character. At least Hank Pym Ant-Man is. We’ll see how Scott Lang fares when we finally get to him. For now, let’s get into it.
The day Ant-Man failed
Spoiler: he didn’t.
The comic starts by telling the reader a bunch of stuff we already know. Ant-Man is Hank Pym, and Hank Pym is Ant-Man. It also shows that Pym has developed a gas mask made of unstable molecules — this is the same stuff the Fantastic Four’s uniforms are made of, so Sue can turn invisible, Johnny can flame on, and Reed can stretch. Of course, many times in the comics, Johnny is wearing his dumb sweater vest and high-waters when he… flame ons? Flames on — I don’t know; when he turns into fire, and they don’t get destroyed, but whatever.
Meanwhile, the guards who work for this armored car service have been robbed by the Hijacker but can’t remember anything. The owner, Howard Mitchell, wants to talk to Ant-Man to try and get him to stop the Hijacker. The ants hear this and relay the message to Hank Pym.
He uses his gas to shrink — he hasn’t invented Pym particles yet — and launches himself with a catapult to talk to Mitchell.
Also, Mitchell is the Hijacker. It couldn’t be more obvious.
The two men talk and Ant-Man notices a collection of Peruvian art. He then devised a plan where Mitchell will announce a new shipment of money because that’s how armored transport companies work. So, when the shipment goes out, Ant-men gets appendicitis and can’t go along.
Naturally, the Hijacker shows up, but it turns out Ant-Man was faking his ailment. We need to talk for a minute about how how Hijacker stole this armored truck. He uses a giant magnet, like one of the cartoony U-shaped ones, to pull the truck into a van, where he throws a gas grenade that knocks out the guards.
So Ant-Man and the Hijacker scuffle, during which Ant-Man hides in the ignition and Hijacker honks the horn nonstop, almost rupturing Ant-Man’s eardrums. Eventually, Ant-Man wins by ripping Hijacker's gas mask (Ant-Man is wearing one made from unstable molecules from earlier in the comic).
Ant-Man reveals that he suspected Mitchell because of the Peruvian art. You see, Ant-Man knew that herbs native to Peru could produce a gas that knocks someone out and makes it so that can’t remember what happened. Additionally, Mitchell was the only person who knew all of the routes.
It’s revealed that the company was profitable, so Mitchell robbed his own trucks. Did I mention this was obvious? Yeah, couldn’t have been called out more clearly that this was going to be the bad guy.
There’s another story in this comic; remember, Marvel Comics produced a lot of anthology comics at the time, and there is a reason for this that I’ll get into in another post. Anyway, the story is called “The Worst Man on Earth” that’s pretty silly. It’s written by Stan Lee with art by Steve Ditko. It’s about this criminal in the future who is convicted of his crimes, but because the death penalty has been abolished, he’s sent to prison for the rest of his life.
But, unbeknownst to the prison, he has a micro-drill implanted in his finger and after a considerable amount of time, he’s able to escape from his cell, only to discover his cell is in outer space. Quite silly.
Final Thoughts
You know, this one isn’t too bad for an Ant-Man story. I kind of skipped over the dumbest part. There is a scene where Ant-Man is going to launch himself at the truck, and what precise equipment does he use? Is it an atomic catapult that uses cosmic energy to dial in on a target or a sonic slingshot that uses radar technology to ensure Ant-Man hits his target? No, he uses a rubber band. Yeah, OK, I get it; Hank Pym is the smartest person in the Marvel Universe, but come on.
Random Comic of the Week
We got two random comics this week. Uncanny X-Men #141 and Uncanny X-Men #142. This is the “Days of Future Past” storyline co-written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. It’s an all-timer.
I’m picking this one for a very specific reason that I will get into on my next post. The next comic book is going to be Journey Into Mystery #89, a Thor comic that has some problems. Until next time, don’t be a Howard Mitchell. Just embezzle money like a normal person.