Friday, June 26, 2015

Ant-Man: Larger Than Life #1 (One Shot)

   As much as I've enjoyed the Marvel movies, I was surprised when it was announced that they were working on an Ant-Man movie.

   He's not exactly the most likely candidate for the spotlight.

   Of course, I had the same reaction to the Guardians of the Galaxy announcement, and that worked out well - so now I'm anxious to see Marvel's tiniest hero on the big screen.

   Naturally, Marvel is going to try to capitalize on it by releasing several Ant-Man tie-ins, including this one-shot special, Ant-Man: Larger Than Life.

   I snapped it up when I realized that it featured the original version of the hero, Hank Pym - but unfortunately, only half of the comic is really worth the price of admission.

   That's the second half, which reprints the first two appearances of the character in Tales to Astonish, including the Stan Lee / Larry Lieber story "The Man in the Ant-Hill," which introduced Hank (but not Ant-Man), and the sequel eight months later, wherein Hank donned the terrific Jack Kirby-designed costume for the first time (with inking by the legendary Dick Ayers).

   But the first half of this comic is a "new" adventure looking back at the early days of Hank's career (though oddly he wears the movie version of his Ant-Man uniform), as he tries to learn to control the ants.

   The story's very thin and paints Hank as the dimmest scientist around. The art by Andrea Di Vito is solid, but there's not much to work with there, aside from some menacing insects.

   It's not a bad introduction to the character for new readers, but for those of us who are big fans of Ant-Man, it's pretty disappointing.

Grade: C+

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