The Challenge of Comrade X!
Inside a New York bank, Ant-Man is freeing some criminals. Some bank robbers were trying to steal from the bank's vault, but got themselves locked in. Ant-Man, along with the police, are in the process of rescuing them. Small enough to get inside the lock, Ant-Man uses his human-sized strength to manually turn the tumblers to open the vault door. The crooks pour out and are immediately taken into custody by the police. As Ant-Man rides away on his ant mount, the police praise his help.
Behind the Iron Curtain, Comrade X is summoned. News has gotten out about Ant-Man, so now the Soviets are determined to find out the formula for his shrinking. They have dreams of sending out tiny armies to conquer enemy nations. The mustachioed Comrade X is their best espionage agent, so they are sending him to capture Ant-Man and get his formula.
A few days later, back in New York, a young woman arrives at a police station. She frantically asks them to get her in touch with Ant-Man, for it is a matter of life and death. Although the police don't know how to reach the hero, some nearby ants do. They bounce the signal of Ant-Man's name across their antennae like a telephone signal until it reaches Henry Pym's lab. There he has a device set up to receive this signal. Henry Pym puts on his costume and uses his formula, now in a gaseous form for quicker use, and shrinks.
Ant-Man leaps into action. He inserts himself into a tiny catapult contraption. Then hits a button that shoots him out of the barrel, like a bullet. Flying out of the lab, he uses his helmet to contact nearby ants. Hundreds of ants come out to create a barrier between him and the pavement. Landing safely, Ant-Man mounts one of the ants. He sees the lady leaving the police station and follows her to a taxi.
Inside the taxi, Ant-Man sneaks inside the lady's purse. After the ride, the lady enters her apartment and puts her purse down on a counter. Ant-Man emerges and is quickly spotted by her. He asks her why she wanted to contact him. Through tears she starts explaining how she fell in love with a man who turned out to be a Soviet spy named Comrade X. She didn't care about that until he started cheating on her, she's getting revenge by revealing everything to Ant-Man. He wants to spy on him to get his secret shrinking formula. The crying lady tells him that Comrade X is hiding on a freighter at pier 89 at the docks. Ant-Man mounts up on his ant and takes off for the pier.
Ant-Man leads an army of ants up the freighter docked at pier 89. As they board the ship, they carelessly trip a light alarm. This alarm is seen by the crew, who prepares itself for the invasion. Comrade X grabs a glass container and forces it over the passing Ant-Man; now trapped like the bank robbers from the beginning. Noticing the glass container has pinholes so he can breathe, Ant-Man uses this to his advantage. He produces a signal to summon more ants outside of his glass prison.
The ants respond. They carry loose bits of wood from the pier to float over the ocean and onto the freighter. The freighter which is leaving the pier now that Ant-Man is trapped on board. The ants reach the ship and travel up the anchor chain to their captive leader. Running up a guard's leg, the ants make the man stumble and smash the glass container apart under his frantic boots. Now free, Ant-Man runs to a hole in a wooden wall before the guard can seize him again.
Searching through the ship, Ant-Man finds the communications room. From there he tells the ants to chew on a ceiling lamp wire so that it crashes down on the radio operator's head. With the operator incapacitated, Ant-Man grows to normal size. He uses the radio equipment to signal the nearby Coast Guard.
While Ant-Man uses the radio, the other ants under his command carry out his orders. They steal a key that unlocks Comrade X's room. Ant-Man receives the message from the ants that they have carried out this part of the plan and enters to confront Comrade X. Comrade X sees him first and whips out a container of DDT. As he threatens to spray Ant-Man with the chemicals, hundreds of ants travels up to the ceiling and blot out the overhead light. With Comrade X in a blind panic, Ant-Man ties his bootlaces together under his heels and pulls him down to the ground. Once there, the ants comes down to swarm towards his head. They grab his face and pull her mask off.
Underneath the mask is not Comrade X, but rather Madame X. He has been a female all along. The same lady Ant-Man had talked to from the police station. Ant-Man explains how him and the ants knew; When he was inside her purse during the taxi ride, he found the mask complete with a voice modifier to make herself sound more masculine. When Ant-Man is done explaining, the Coast Guard boats arrive. As they take her away, Ant-Man mounts off on an ant with everybody wondering who he really is.
Notes:
First crossdressing character in the Marvel Universe. There's nothing wrong with that if you feel that is a part of you. If you also happen to be an enemy government agent trying to steal secrets is where you'll be put in danger.
The only noteworthy change in this issue is that Henry Pym has changed his shrinking chemical from a liquid into a gas form so that it's easier for him to take while he is outside his lab.
The ants bounce signals from one antennae to the next in a "web of communication" as the narrator says. I'm calling it the Anternet.
The List
- Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
- Fantastic Four #1
- Fantastic Four #4
- Incredible Hulk #1
- Fantastic Four #5
- Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
- Fantastic Four #6
- Journey into Mysetry (Thor) #85
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
- Fantastic Four #2
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #36
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
- Fantastic Four #3
- Incredible Hulk #2
- Fantastic Four #7
- Incredible Hulk #3
- Strange Tales #101
No comments:
Post a Comment