Tales to Astonish 27

The Man in the Ant Hill
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

"How will I ever get back to normal?!!" -Henry Pym

To show up his naysayer peers, a blonde scientist named Henry Pym has developed a serum for shrinking things. His hope if his experiment is a success is to use this formula to shrink things from shipping items at a reduced cost to shrinking an entire army for travel in just one plane. After months of planning and experimentation, Henry successfully shrinks a chair. For the final test, the scientist tests the serum on himself which works too well. Faster than he was expecting, the scientist rapidly shrinks.

In his excitement, Henry Pym realizes he left the antidote to his serum all the way up on a windowsill in his lab that he is now hopeless to reach. Running outside, Pym contemplates loudly on what he’s going to do when some ants spot him. The insects chase the small man down into their ant hill. Henry manages to evade them, when he slips and falls into a puddle of ant honey. Another ant spots Henry who is now stuck in the honey and it helps him out of his sticky situation. Before the two can exchange pleasantries, the other ants rush after the tiny scientist.

Henry Pym escapes. After sighting an unused matchstick, Pym grabs a pebble and tosses it to strike the match head. The fire from the match keeps the attacking ants at bay long enough for Henry to fashion a lasso and climb his way up higher in the ant chamber. Higher up he is greeted by another ant’s pincers which grip Pym around his body tightly. Pym uses his judo skills to over power the insect and fling it down towards the flames. Reaching the surface, Henry Pym is still pursued by the ants, but he notices the nice ant who helped him out of the honey. This ant allows Henry to climb onto its back so he can ride up to the windowsill of his lab where he bathes himself in the antidote formula. With himself back to normal size, the scientist decides to dispose of the rest of his formula so this will never happen again. At the next meeting with his scientist peers, Henry admits that his experiment was a failure and agrees to work on more practical projects in the future.

Notes:

1st appearance of Henry Pym, who will go one to have many adventures as the hero Ant-Man and many other guises.