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You know, Hank Pym’s a bit of a douche.
Look at the evidence. He falls in love with a pretty young socialite (apparently when she’s very young) who just happens to look like his dead/ex/spy/monster wife.
When her father’s murdered and young Janet Van Dyne decides to join the ant-powered Pym on his scientific adventures, he naturally straps her to a contraption to give her super-powers. Later on, he’d unexpectedly up her powers by giving her a ‘sting’ without telling her then later on he’d mutate her into a Wasp-like creature to save her life (but we don’t talk about that).
Long after, after three costumed identities, co-founding the Avengers and years of neglecting jan in favor of his lab, the repressed Pym has a schizophrenic break and marries her while pretending to be the man who killed Pym.
And Jan goes along with it. No saint herself, that one.
Ah, the Silver Age! (Yes I know that this has been revisted in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in an attempt to make it a bit more…realistic is too strong a word, but I’m going with the original intent here.)
Along the way in those years, Pym managed to create Ultron a maniacal killer robot with a father fixation. He also felt constantly overshadowed by the other Avengers, believing himself useless.
That led to a downward spiral where he had anothe semi-psychotic episode, creating another robot to attack the Avengers just so he could save the day.
And then there was the back-hander that has defined Pym ever since in the mind of readers and writers alike. During this semi-psychotic break, he slapped his wife when she tried to stop him, sending her flying across the room.
Pym hit rock bottom pretty soon after. Fired from the Avengers, he was soon framed by Egghead and imprisoned, although he was eventually cleared of the charges against him. After that, he retired from superheroics – only to be drawn back in to look after the West Coast Avengers’ compound by Hawkeye.
Of course, Hank still had issues…
…although he was persuaded not to commit suicide by part time Avenger Espirita. He stuck around with the Whackos, being studly with Espirita and Tigra before reuniting with Jan. The pair later ended up on the main team with Hank resuming his Giant-Man role (and, later Goliath) before being split into two people – meek, scientific Goliath and brash, reckless Yellowjacket.
They were eventually reintegrated, and Pym continued as Yellowjacket. Back with Jan, he indulged in quite a bit of kinky sex before she decided to uncharacteristically shag Hawkeye behind Hank’s back.
Shortly after, the Avengers Disassembled and Hank and Jan left for England where she drank a lot and he got involved with a pretty young thing who turned out to be a Skrull sent to replace him.
And that’s all she wrote. We still don’t know what happened to the real Hank…but thanks to this week’s Mighty Avengers we do know what happened to the Skrull who replaced him…
…he thought that the Skrulls would lose the war because Hank Pym’s mind started to overwrite his.
Dugan-Skrull of course thought he was just absorbing Pym’s batshit crazy complexes, but I have another theory.
I think that Pym’s a bit of a dick, by and large. He’s flawed, arrogant and generally a bit of an idiot despite being massively intelligent.
The thing is, his heroicness, his thinking the best of people, his smartness and willingness to defend people actually overwrote Skrull programming. His thoughts actually came to matter to the Skrull.
And he wasn’t the first…
It sounds like the Pym Skrull has been replaced more than once – so he has this effect on all of them. It doesn’t sound like this has happened to the other Skrulls, Mar-Vell aside, and I like that.
I like that Pym’s a hero in spite of his flaws. Yes, he’s got problems. Yes, he’s got a past that he regrets. Yes, he screws up.
But in spite of all of that, he’s a hero and that heroic nature even shines through the Skrull sent to replace him. That might not be how Bendis intended, but it’s what I’m taking away. Hank Pym is still one of my favorite characters…
…now I just hope he’s still alive somewhere.
You know who else backhanded his wife? Spider-Man. True. Look it up
I loved how his mental problems went from a flaw to a huge pain the Skrulls’ asses.
Hank’s my favorite character, I hope the movies help him redeem himself. He needs some more respect. I don’t understand why Marvel would let one of the original Avengers get trashed like that.