Worlds Of Wonder: Tiny superheroes set to get bigger

Pym party: Ant-Man is about to get a lot bigger when the Ant-Man movie comes around next year.

This week, those tiny comic heroes who dared to think big go under our microscope.

Size doesn’t matter. This adage holds especially true for microscopic heroes like Ant-Man, the Atom and the Wasp, who are some of comics’ most pivotal and longest-lived characters. These tiny titans of comics never seem to get the credit they deserved, though.

Well, that’s about to change soon, with the upcoming Ant-Man movie next year. Ant-Man’s relatively, er, low profile should have all the winning ingredients to become Marvel Studios’ next sleeper hit. Two versions of Ant-Man (Hank Pym and Scott Lang) will feature in the movie, underlining the rich mythos and history of the character.

With that, this week, we’ve decided to head to our microscopes to see what makes Ant-Man and the other miniature men and women of comics ... tick.

Scott Lang a.k.a Ant-Man #2 recently led a temp Fantastic Four team in the FF series.

Ant-Man
Alter-ego(s): Hank Pym (Tales To Astonish #35), Scott Lang (Marvel Premiere #47) and Eric O’Grady (Civil War: Choosing Sides #1)

Courtesy of a size-altering serum (aka Pym Particles), biophysicist Dr Henry “Hank” Pym joined the ranks of costumed crime-fighters as Ant-Man.

Equipped with a cybernetic helmet that helps him establish a rapport with ants, Pym started his superhero career against losers like Egg Head, before going on to establishing major milestones such as being a founder member of the Avengers and creating Ultron. Pym’s persona will always be overshadowed by the negativity arising from his meltdowns, domestic abuse episodes and his “killing” of Egg Head!

Pym’s loss is Scott Lang’s gain, as the ex-convict is also a thief of hearts, courtesy of his paternalistic sacrifices. He was an accidental hero – stealing Pym’s Ant-Man suit to save his daughter Cassie at first, but eventually acknowledged by Pym, and even Tony Stark.

This led to stints with the Avengers, and he was even installed as the temporary leader of the Future Foundation during Reed Richards’ exodus into the unknown universe.

With recent comic events portraying him as a grieving dad (Cassie sacrificed herself battling Doctor Doom), it makes Lang an ideal choice for the upcoming movie. Expect him to play a bigger role in the Marvel Universe in the future, whether on the page or on the screen.

If Pym is a hero-to-zero and Lang is a zero-to-hero, then Eric O’ Grady should be the ultimate zero, as Ant-Man Version 3.0 has no qualms about cheating, stealing, lying and manipulating for his own benefit! While O’Grady is not in the Ant-Man movie (thankfully) mostly because of his recent demise (Secret Avengers #23), both Pym and Lang have experienced “resurrections” before, which makes an O’ Grady return likely.

Ant-Man and The Wasp on the way to battle the Hulk in The Avengers 1 and en-route to becoming the co-founders of The Avengers.

The Wasp was actually the one that coined the name ‘The Avengers’.

The Wasp
Alter-ego: Janet Van Dyne (Tales To Astonish #44)

Leader, Avenger, fashionista and battered wife, Janet Van Dyne is one of those multi-faceted heroines whose life encapsulates the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the superhero business. Van Dyne was Pym’s ex-assistant, ex-wife and also a Pym Particles user. Unlike Pym, she boasts a much more illustrious heroic career – besides co-founding the Avengers, she was also the one who named the team “The Avengers”, and even led Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for almost five years!

She supposedly “died” during the Secret Invasion event before it was revealed that she was merely stuck in the Microverse. Ironically, her “death” resulted in Pym assuming the Wasp persona for a short period.

Rita DeMara a.k.a Yellowjacket 2.0 stole Pym’s Yellowjacket look.

Yellowjacket
Alter-egos: Hank Pym (Avengers Vol 1 #59) and Rita DeMara (Avengers: The Crossing one-shot)

Pym’s progression from Ant-Man to Yellowjacket was a result of his on-off mental health problems. The new identity offered him a form of swashbuckling escapism that he lacked as Ant-Man, but it also cost him his Avengers membership and marriage, and eventually led to a total breakdown.

DeMara shares a similar origin story to Scott Lang, as she too stole and used one of Pym’s Yellowjacket costumes. Her bad start continued when she clashed with the Wasp and joined the Masters of Evil.

A string of events eventually led to brief stints with the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, before an untimely “death” at the hands of a Kang-controlled Iron Man (Avengers: The Crossing). DeMara was resurrected during the Chaos War storyline, but has remained in limbo ever since.

Ray Palmer shrinks thanks to some white dwarf star matter.

The Atom
Alter-ego: Raymond “Ray” Palmer (Showcase #34, 1961)

Like his Marvel counterpart Hank Pym, Palmer’s experiences in the DC Universe have involved a lot of “growing pains” as the Atom struggled to assert his position among his larger counterparts. Courtesy of white dwarf star matter, the physicist-cum-professor is able to shrink anything ... though unfortunately, that includes his popularity as a character.

Despite serving several stints on the Justice League as well as mentoring the new Firestorm and super-teams like the Teen Titans, Palmer’s career will always be overshadowed by the infamy of his ex-wife Jean Loring, who killed Sue Digby (Elongated Man’s wife), and sparked the Identity Crisis event while revealing that certain heroes are willing to mind-wipe others to deliver justice!

While he hasn’t become the Atom yet, Ray Palmer has already made his live-action debut in the Arrow TV series, played by Brandon Routh.

Doll Man
Alter-ego: Darrel Dane (Feature Comics #27, 1939)

The honour of being the first-ever shrinking hero in comics goes to Doll Man, who also goes by the title of, er, “The World’s Mightiest Mite”.

Dane, a research chemist, invented a shrinking serum that allows him to shrink to a height of six inches while retaining the full strength of his normal size. His fiancée Martha later used the serum and became, what else, Doll Girl. The franchise then expanded with Elmo The Wonder Dog and the Doll Plane, completing Doll Man’s crime-fighting support system.

Initially published by Quality Comics, Doll Man found his escapades cancelled in 1953.

The company went bust in 1956 and Doll Man received a new lease of life under DC Comics, where he was reintroduced as part of the Freedom Fighters two decades later in Justice League Of America #107). This re-introduction did little to elevate Doll Man’s profile, permanently typecasting him as just another member of the Freedom Fighters and later, the All Star Squadron.

When some “depth” was finally injected into Dane’s character (in the pages of Uncle Sam And The Freedom Fighters #3), he was diagnosed as being mentally unstable – owing to spending so many years in a state of greatly compressed size. Hey, maybe that explains Hank Pym’s issues as well!

Shrinking Violet is no shrinking violet.

Shrinking Violet/Atom Girl
Alter-ego: Salu Digby (Action Comics #276)

Before the Atom, there was Shrinking Violet – a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes who hails from the planet Imsk. If you are not aware of her existence, it’s not surprising; she spent a huge part of her Legion career in bit-part roles or being “substituted” by a shape-shifter.