Tales to Astonish 40

The Day That Ant-Man Failed!

by

Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky

As Henry Pym works to invent a new gas mask for the army, an armored truck company has been having problems. Howard Mitchell, owner of Mitchell’s Armored Trucks Co. is livid about it. His armored trucks have been targeted by an individual known only as “The Hijacker.” He steals the trucks full of money and leaves the private guards in a state of confusion, where they don’t remember what happened. As he chews out the latest guards over the latest incident, Mitchell mentions contacting Ant-Man to stop the thief.

Howard Mitchell’s plea is heard. An ant outside his window picks up the words “Ant-Man” on its antennae and then broadcasts it to other nearby ants until the signal travels to Henry Pym’s lab. Henry Pym is alerted by a device on his wrist that picks up the signal. Henry races to a machine in his secret communications room that translates the message to him. He inhales his shrinking gas and enters his tiny catapult.

With the press of a button, Ant-Man launches himself outside. Flung towards a pile of summoned ants outside Howard’s office, Ant-Man’s trajectory is off as he nearly smacks right into the brick wall. The ants shift just in time to cushion Ant-Man before he is seriously injured. Ant-Man mounts one of the ants as it carries him up the side of the building to Howard Mitchell’s window.

Inside, Howard Mitchell is startled, but pleased, to see Ant-Man. He explains the situation to the tiny hero. Ant-Man comes up with a plan. He wants Howard to announce that one of his vehicles will be carrying a huge payroll the next day. This will lure the Hijacker out to stop the truck, where he will find Ant-Man waiting. As the men agree to this plan, Ant-Man takes note of some Inca artifacts decorating Howard Mitchell’s office. Howard explains that he visited Peru the previous year where he spent some time with the natives there. Satisfied, Ant-Man takes off.

The next day, Ant-Man prepares his plan. The guards fill up the armored truck as he appears. They begin to praise his presence, when suddenly Ant-Man is struck ill. He topples over, clutching at his abdomen. Complaining that his appendix will rupture if he isn’t treated, the ants carry his limp form away. The policemen argue if they should cancel the plan, but they already have the truck all loaded up, so they carry on without him.

As the crew drives down a quiet highway route, they find a big moving truck blocking the road. The policemen drive cautiously closer. Suddenly, the back of the truck starts to open. The armored truck is pulled inside by a giant magnet. The back door shuts and out appears the Hijacker. He throws a gas bomb into the armored truck, knocking all of the guards out. Minutes later, the Hijacker is trying to weld open the locked door to the money inside the armored truck.

Suddenly, Ant-Man appears. Ant-Man announces that his sickness was a ruse to trick the Hijacker. Instead of going to the doctor, he had gone to a catapult he had set up in a nearby alley. From there, he launched himself to a rooftop where he had a working model of a tiny plane waiting. From the plane, he tailed the truck until it made its stop on the highway. He suspected the trap there, so he descended onto the truck where he put on his newly invented gas mask to protect himself from the fumes that knocked out the guards.

Angered, the Hijacker attacks Ant-Man. When he fails to grab him, he goes back to opening the armored truck with his blowtorch while Ant-Man hides inside the vehicle. Ant-Man send a signal to the nearby ants as he avoids being caught. He ducks inside the truck’s ignition, so the Hijacker stabs at him with the key. Turning on the ignition causes the area Ant-Man is in to violently vibrate. The vibrations toss him through into the engine block. This makes the Hijacker start honking the horn right in Ant-Man’s tiny ears. Ant-Man disables the horn before he is deafened.

The ants finally arrive. With Ant-Man trapped on the hood of the truck, he braces himself on a windshield wiper. The Hijacker attempts to grab him again, when the ants respond to Ant-Man’s commands. They turn a knob inside the truck to fling the windshield wiper up, so Ant-Man can use the momentum to get flung onto the Hijacker’s mask. Ant-Man rips the Hijacker's mask away, who quickly succumbs to the the fumes of his own bomb.

With the Hijacker defeated, Ant-Man commands the ants to remove his mask entirely. Hijacker is revealed to be Howard Mitchell all along, just as Ant-Man suspected. The police quickly arrive to take him into custody. Ant-Man explains to the officers that he figured it was Howard Mitchell because of the Inca artifacts decorating his office.  He had heard rumors that the Inca in Peru that Howard had visited had created a special vapor that causes memory lapses. Once he comes to and realizes the jig is up, Howard explains further: His company was losing money. If he was the one stealing the money from the trucks, people wouldn't have expected it and if he was the one to ask for Ant-Man’s help, they wouldn't suspect him. While the cops quip about him being "sick", Ant-Man takes off on his ant.

Notes

Ant-Man is very clever apart from being an intelligent scientist. No signifacant character development.

The Hijacker barely comes up again except I think he shows up later in a Marvel team up book. He is largely forgotten as just another Scooby-Doo villain, just like The Protector from awhile back.

Review & Rating

Another fake out ending for the Ant-Man. It’s a little better paced than the Protector story from a few issues ago which this one largely reminds me of. The villain makes a bit more sense, even if his methods are a bit lacking. It shows Henry Pym isn't above lying to everyone, including the police, in order to accomplish his goals.  Seeing Ant-Man get trapped in the hood of a car is a bit novel, and results in some entertaining panels. It was also fun seeing the creators realize how ridiculous Ant-Man’s catapult system is when he nearly kills himself against a wall.

It's still a pretty substandard Ant-Man tale, where the interesting bits are being dragged down by everything else. A boring villain, a lame plot, a troubling resolution. Anyone who reads this story knows that Howard Mitchell is the villain at the same time Ant-Man figures it out when he draws attention to the Incan stuff. It would be better if we just saw that stuff decorating the office without Ant-Man pointing it all out.

The thing with the Inca feels a little bit vicariously racist, but I feel like this one can pass because they never say that they directly gave the bad guy the artifacts, he could have just as well stolen them. The implication of native people having access to this magical vapor is a tad absurd, but this is the Marvel Universe where magic and strange science things exist.

I am placing this one between the Incredible Hulk #2 and Fantastic Four #7. Both odd stories featuring antagonists with very convoluted plots that are beaten in convoluted manners. But which have a few interesting/entertaining moments, like how that issue of Hulk opens up with him stomping around a rural town and the Fantastic Four’s visit to Washington DC in the other. Only to suffer from having a nonsensical plot at the heart of it.

Next Issue: The Human Torch quits the Fantastic Four!