The Unknown Side of Marvel’s Phase 2: Ant-Man

Max Breaks Down the Characters of Marvel’s Upcoming Phase 2 of Films

Marvel’s Phase Two is currently underway. With fan favorites Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man already in production/filming of their respective sequels, I thought I would take the time to introduce and talk about the new faces of Marvel’s Phase Two that are not typically well-known to the general public: Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and hopefully the villain of the 2015 Avengers film, Thanos.

Let’s start with one of the Marvel Universe’s most multi-faceted hero/villians -

Ant-Man

I figure I should start out with the member of Phase Two that used to be one of the major players in Marvel: Ant-Man, aka Dr. Henry Pym.

A founding member of the Avengers, Henry Pym is probably one of the more interesting characters in the Marvel universe. From the first issue of his titular series, far into the Avengers history, his life goes from one terrible mess to another.

Beginning his adventures in the Tales to Astonish comics series of the 60’s, Ant-Man grew in popularity and was featured in a number of appearances throughout the series. This also led to the debut of his partner in crime/girlfriend/future wife Janet Van Dyne (aka Wasp).

All of this popularity eventually led to them creating the famous team we know and love called The Avengers in Avengers #1.

They both were founding members and had many great adventures, but that was the match that ignited the flame of disaster for Pym.

His pacifist nature led to increased conflicts with his Avengers duties (since you know, most of their activities include kicking the shit out of stuff) which led to him creating probably the greatest and longest running villain in Marvel history, the robot called Ultron.

That wasn’t the beginning of his problems, though. Pym showed early signs of mental stress and trauma that caused a long period of identity crisis and anger issues that usually were unleashed on the team.

He’s been brainwashed, beaten, strangled, alien mind controlled and eventually he just snapped. Throughout his history he has taken on probably the most name changes out of all the heroes (Giant-man, Yellowjacket, Goliath, and Wasp).

Ant-Man is one of Marvel’s most tragic of heroes and it will be interesting to see how director Edgar Wright brings him onto the silver screen.

I’m hoping that we’ll delve into what made Ant-man such a hero in the first place and hopefully get a glimpse of the mental degradation that plagues him in the future, and it’ll be interesting to see how they merge him with the other members in the future.

Recommended Ant-Man Reading:

Avengers V.1 #1-84 & Avengers V.3 #1-85