Saturday, March 12, 2011

He's Not Building A Genocidal Robot, Trust Pym A Little

In Avengers Academy, Veil has the idea that if she does something heroic, she'll be forgiven for assaulting the Hood and recording it. To that end, she opts to throw the switch that will allow the Wasp to come back from the scattered energy form she is now. Considering Pym held off on this because he isn't sure how solid Jan's grip on reality would be after months at the level of Abstract Entities, this won't end well.

The thing that bothers me about Veil's reasoning is she seems convinced that if she gets thrown out of the Academy, she's doomed. Her atoms are losing cohesion, and one day she'll just drift apart, like Shadowcat's nearly done a couple of times. Now I've given Hank Pym a lot of grief over the years (not as much as the writers, mind you), but I don't buy for a second that he'd stop helping her just because she wasn't at the Academy anymore. I don't think Pym's problem has ever been a lack of desire to help others. It's usually that he's worried he's not strong/good/smart enough to help, and the poor decisions that insecurity leads to. I could buy Pym working his tail off, but not finding a solution to her problem, but that he'd simply leave her in the lurch? Short of another nervous breakdown, I don't see it happening.

Of course, veil's a teenager, and I remember enough about those years to know I didn't usually want to admit my concerns to others, especially authority figures. I have to think the fact the teachers haven't been forthright with the students about why they're really there (namely, concern these kids will go villainous) is the issue. Withholding that creates a tension and lack of trust that affects everything that's said and done, or how they're interpreted. If they fear Veil's going to go evil, why would they help her? We know it's because they're heroes and that's what they do. Witness Pym developing a way to keep Crusher Creel in prison that doesn't involve drugging him constantly. Creel's certainly never demonstrated the sort of altruistic streak that might encourage one to care about his plight, but Hank listened and helped anyway.

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