A 5-issue mini-series released in 2020, World Hive finds Scott Lang still in Florida, now living in an ant-hill, where he has lots of passive-aggressive conversations with the colony's queen, named "Pam." The security consulting business he had during the brief, Nick Spencer-written ongoings a few years earlier is gone. Instead, he takes jobs like locating missing bees for the Florida Beekeepers Association. He patrols once a week with his daughter Cassie, formerly the Young Avenger Stature, now going by the "Stinger" codename she used in Spider-Girl's universe.
In the TPB, Burnett says he used Chris Samnee's Ant-Man design as a basis to model Cassie's costume. I can see it, in how the purple sections are sharply defined by rigid sections of black, but it mostly looks like the MC2 version's costume, with the amounts of purple and black switched and some ankle bracelets I can't perceive a purpose for. Cassie's helmet does get an upgrade later that causes it to sprout Kirby Hat-style antennae that let her project commands to bugs more forcefully. Which someone, I don't know if it's Burnett, Spicer or Petit, depicts as big, brightly colored words that take up most of a panel background.
To Scott's dismay, Cassie wants to move to California to join Kate Bishop's West Coast Avengers roster. Because it's hard for young heroes to get respect, and no one in the hero community is respecting Scott Lang. Not even when his search for the missing bees leads to The Swarm, the Nazi made of bees, who's on the run from several other creatures made entirely of types of arthropod, acting on behalf of the "Bug Lords", who decided they've had it with these damn primates thinking they run the planet.
The Bug Lords look like something that might have crossed over from a kaiju flick, especially once they get some Pym Particles. So maybe it makes sense Scott looks vaguely like Ultraman when he's fighting them in the final issue. Spicer makes them bright, almost neon, colors so they jump off the page, or maybe just dominate it, since they take up most of the page. Their emissaries, Thread (silkworms), Tusk (beetles) and Vespa (hornets) are a lot cooler. Burnett gives them body characteristics and styles that fit the types of things they're made of, but also draws them so you can see how they're comprised of lots of smaller bugs.
It's funny to think Mike Allred did a Fantastic Four run that culminated in Scott Lang kicking Dr. Doom's ass and showing how awesome he was, and within a year, it might as well never have existed, because a movie came out, and Scott's been written as a well-meaning (if he's lucky) loser ever since. Thanks, Paul Rudd!
This story does not break that trend. Again, Scott's living in an anthill. Not some miniaturized science lab next to an anthill. Not even a miniaturized trailer next to an anthill. Just, in the anthill, storing his Pym Particle capsules with the colony's eggs, getting nagged by the queen. Burnett draws him with constant stubble and bags under his eyes, and Wells has Lang act awkward, panicked, or stick his foot in his mouth all the time. (Though Wells writes Spider-Man as even more of a goober, getting jealous and snippy because the Black Cat seems to like Scott, and not even because they bonded as fellow thieves, which I would have at least found sort of understandable. Clearly a guy Marvel should let write Amazing Spider-Man for several years!)
That said, Wells does play up one aspect of Scott's character I've always appreciated: he actually cares about the bugs he asks for help. I never saw much of that in Pym, who has a detached perspective that seemed to treat them as test subjects, and Eric O'Grady flatly did not care. Controlling bugs meant he had a ready supply of cannon fodder to die for him. Lang names them, worries when the ant he flew (Chumley) to track the Swarm disappears, gets angry when a bee he enlarged to close a cave entrance gets devoured from the inside-out. The bugs, even when Pam is frustrated with Scott, seem to like and respect him. Enough to help him against a would-be world conquering insect guy.
There's probably something in there about how the bugs judge Scott by what's in his heart, what he intends, possibly something they can pick via the nature of how the helmet allows him to communicate with them. Meanwhile humans are judging him by what he looks like and how successful he is at what he tries to do. Although you'd think insects, especially colony species where every member of a hive has a specific role to fill, would be less forgiving of, "I tried my best, but I failed."
Scott also lets Cassie face the main bad guy herself, because he swiped her helmet and she feels like she needs to be the one who gets it back. Scott is worried and keeps almost jumping in, but when she tells him to wait, he listens. He shows faith in her abilities that the Avengers don't show in him. But it impresses Cassie, which is more important to Scott. At least until the next time he starts feeling insecure.
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