I Need To Work Through This In Writing

Or typing. Six of one, half dozen of the other. Reading through Avengers vs Atlas #4, I keep coming back to the point when Giant Man connects with the chronovirus. Not because I'm still confused by the temporal stuff, but because of something Tony Stark says.

Since it's a mindscape, Hank can assume the identity he feels best in, and so he regresses back to his Ant-Man form, complete with the cybernetic helmet, and he flies off through wherever he is on top of an ant. As he does so, Stark - who, along with the rest of the Avengers and Atlas, are linked into Hank's mind so they see what he does - comments that he thinks Hank's 'always felt more at home as Ant-Man'.

I suppose it caught my attention because I subscribe to the, let's call it Englehartian view that Hank's never really been suited for those sorts of costumed heroics. In that theory, Pym's never really been true to who he is when he throws on a costume and runs around punching people, zapping them with bio-blasts, or changing his size. So the fanboy part of me felt he should have traipsed about as Hank Pym.

Obviously, the fanboy part of me ignored these Avengers are from a time period 20+ years (our time) before Hank went the "scientist adventurer" route, complete with flight suit with dozens of pockets to carry gadgets in. The idea he could go on an adventure like this simply as himself, no codename or costumed identity, would probably never enter '60s Pym's mind. In the '80s, he had to come within seconds of blowing his brains out, and be walked through his history by Firebird to figure it out, so an earlier Hank wouldn't have the experiences to lead him to such a thought.

Setting that aside, visualizing himself as Ant-Man still makes a lot of sense. I still think Hank isn't well-suited for being a hero who punches things, which would seem to be the primary reason to become Giant-Man, rather than remaining Ant-Man. I think it's telling he found Pym Particles, shrank himself, was nearly killed by ants, and his solution was a helmet so he could communicate with insects. He didn't develop a suit of powered armor to blast the insects with, he instead came up with a way to talk with them, to convince them not to attack, and even to help him. It says something about Hank Pym as a character, such as that his solutions to problems won't involve application of brute force, but something more diplomatic, shall we say. Ant-Man is the identity that follows that works with that more readily*.

It would make me wonder if Pym wasn't having regrets about changing identities. One of my high school teachers said that when it came to multiple choice questions where we weren't sure, our first instinct was usually our best one. I guess the reasoning went, that instinct is informed by whatever little bit of useful knowledge we recall, and if we take the time to second guess, we get that info twisted around until we've confused ourselves.

I never took the opportunity to check my tests and see how often changing my answer worked out, but maybe this would be Parker's way of saying Pym should have stuck with his first choice. Giant-Man was a decision made out of insecurity, where he didn't think he could be useful on a team with Hulk (just for a minute), Thor and Iron Man. Pym decided to go the opposite direction from how he started, but did the team really need another strongman? That's something Parker did in this mini-series I enjoyed, play up Hank's brains. He doesn't have a lot of success at the physical stuff, but he's the one best able to comprehend all the weird time happenings. The other Pym was also the one who tried using Kang's machinery to keep his team of Avengers from being wiped out of existence. It's a nice reminder of where Pym's strengths lie.

* Not that he can't come up with clever solutions to problems as Giant-Man, but imagine when he's gone to the trouble of growing to 12 feet tall, it's easier to convince himself he ought to simply hit the problem. Otherwise, what was the point of growing to that size?