Can't A Scientific Adventurer Be A Super-Hero Too?

Talking about Avengers Academy #7, I don't agree with Pym's (or Christos Gage's if you prefer) assessment of Hank's stint as Dr. Pym. Hank describes it as 'Trying to deny I was a super-hero while on a team of them.' I don't feel like, at least during the Engelhart issues, Hank denied he was being a super-hero. The whole point of that arc with Firebird, was about Hank coming to grips with his past missteps, recognizing he still had it in him to be a hero, then figuring out what method was right for him. Hank and Bonita's conclusion was that rather than being a guy who gets big and punches stuff, Hank was better suited to carrying a vast array of devices, which he could shrink or grow as necessary. He'd rely on his ingenuity, rather than his fists.

Admittedly, his options were somewhat limited. At that point - even though he'd somehow internalized Pym Particles so he could make himself (or anything he touched) change size - his body couldn't handle the strain*. That ruled out trying something along the lines of Ant-Man or Giant-Man. Still, Pym's never struck as a particularly good fighter, so an identity that emphasizes brute strength and hitting people doesn't seem like a wise course. I guess he could have gone back to Yellowjacket, minus any shrinking hijinks, but things hadn't worked out too well for him in that identity, and the personality he adopted wasn't right for him either. Being Dr. Pym keeps him from having some excuse to go charging into battle, so he could hang back and assess the situation instead. Come up with the right tool for the problem. The team already had Iron Man and Wonder Man. If what they were up against was too strong for those too (say Count Nefaria), then it's doubtful Hank would be much good as Goliath.

I don't know why I like the Dr. Pym identity so much. It's the one he had around the time I started reading comics, but the only West Coast Avengers comic I had for years was #6, and he was still inactive at that point. The next issue I had was after they'd switched the title to Avengers West Coast for some reason, and involved Immortus*. He was still Dr. Pym at that point, but didn't get a chance to do much that explained how he was approaching heroing. I might have even though he was just some poor support staff guy that got sucked into the mess. I wasn't very impressed.

I didn't go back and start buying the Engelhart issues until after I had this blog. By then I'd read some of Busiek's Avengers, so I'd seen Hank as Goliath and Yellowjacket. Still, I prefer him as Dr. Pym. Engelhart took Pym right to the brink of killing himself, but Busiek wrote a story where Hank's difficulties reconciling the parts of himself nearly killed him, so I'm not sure it's that Dr. Pym was the result of Engelhart breaking Hank down so he could build him up.

Some of it's Dr. Pym's a very different way of doing things from any of his other identities. It's interesting that he can't use his powers on himself, because of the health risk, but he doesn't retire, he just alters his approach so they help him have a utility belt of sorts. He's the guy who relies on gadgets and brains, but unlike Batman, he's not much of a fighter. He didn't develop his fighting skills along with his scientific ones, because he was a scientist first, a super-hero later. It makes sense for Hank to rely on smarts. Reed Richards has powers, but often, they're a way to restrain a foe, or keep Reed out of reach until he devises the means to win. The powers support Reed's intellect, and Pym's ability to shrink objects does the same for him. He can devise all sorts of helpful tools, and the powers give him a way to carry those along without it being unwieldy.

* #62, with a mentally manipulated Wanda. So it's one of those issues we can probably blame for giving Bendis the idea of the whole Disassembled/House of M mess.