Marvel Comics’ New Ant-Man

The Revolution hasn’t done a rant in a while, so we figured we would take a quick break from the reviews. As always, most Rants are done on pure gut instinct while the Reviews are done after actually reading and evaluating a comic book. Feel free to chime in with your opinion. The only rule here at the Revolution is that you have to be intelligent. Agree or disagree, the Revolution loves the exchange of different ideas. Just be intelligent when you do it.

All right, our Rant for tonight is about the new Ant-Man. Marvel released a while back that the new Ant-Man would be written by Robert Kirkman with the art chores being handled by Phil Hester and Ande Parks. You just knew after the unnecessary and pointless death of Scott Lang, that Marvel was just chomping at the bits to release a new Ant-Man character with his own title. Well, here we are. Evidently, the new Ant-Man will be long time friends and low level S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Eric O’Grady and Chris McCarthy, who steal the Ant-Man costume. Chris is the all-American kind of guy while Eric is rotten. The new Ant-Man will have mechanical legs to help him carry stuff. The legs will also have thrusters. His wrist armor will have mandible-like claws. Kirkman emphasised that there will be other gadgets since this will be armor not a costume like the old Ant-Man. If you want all the details then go check out Newsarama.com.

My biggest problem with Scott Lang’s death was that it served no purpose. It was so totally and utterly pointless. My other problem was that Scott was an unusual character in the Marvel Universe. He was a single father doing the best he could to raise his daughter while being a super-hero. Scott Lang was one of the very few truly good men in the Marvel Universe. His character and back story was so different from the rest of the usually suspects in the Marvel Universe. That is what endeared the character to me and made his death seem so ridiculous.

Anyway, what is done is done and we are going to be stuck with this new version of Ant-Man. I do like the idea of a suit of armor loaded with gadgets rather than a costume with a funky helmet. It is supposed to take place on a Helicarrier. I like that idea. Since Helicarriers are supposed as large as a city it should be pretty cool to have a comic set on one of them. Plus, it is easy for cross-overs with all the different heroes who work with S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Revolution will remain cautiously optimistic. The Revolution does not like the art team of Hester and Parks. I thought that their art on Nightwing was very weak. Their art kept Nightwing from being a great title. The fact that Hester and Parks are doing the art on Ant-Man gives me pause about collecting this title. However, I have always thought that Ant-Man was a pretty cool concept for a super-hero. Plus, Ant-Man has always had a pretty cool look and the new Ant-Man has a good look as well. The Revolution will give it a try, but the story had better be strong to make up for the weak art.