Marvel's Identity Crisis

Since we're picking on Henry Pym today, let's look at an instance where he did his own version of DC's Identity Crisis...40 years early!!

We start with Pym being Pym:

Unfortunately, his above average oafishness was observed by "Second-Story Sammy," a loser of a burglar:


PRO-TIP: If you want to have a secret identity, don't carry around business cards with your real name on them. I'm just sayin.'

Well, after a rousing adventure wherein Sammy steals Pym's Giant-Man suit and engages in a series of growing/shrinking burglaries, he's caught. But given the chance, he doesn't spill Giant-Man's secret identity to the press. What gives?

"Just happened to have some memory-loss serum lying around"?!? Memory-loss serum?!?!?! So potent that it turns crooks straight??? Playing judge and jury on his own, just to selfishly protect the secret identity he would abandon eventually anyway?

Hank Pym--making Zatanna look ethical!!

From Tales To Astonish #62 (1964).

Hank Pym Was Always An Idiot

Yes, I've given Hank Pym a lot of crap for being a crap scientist and human being--inventing Ultron, multiple nervous breakdowns, generally being a stupid jerk. But well before Ultron, well before his first (of several) breakdowns, Pym was already an idiot, even back in his early days.

Here he is testing out his brand new formula to accelerate plant growth:


Twenty seconds, and already things are out of control. Typical Pym experiment...

But it's all in how you define the terms--it's not that's he's failed, it's that he's been "too successful"!!!

So, let's see...he tested this formula before he had thought about the possibility of an antidote...and now it's raging out of control and about to destroy the city. Yeah, doesn't sound like the Ultron situation AT ALL.

"Avengers-type karate blow"??

But once again, the line between brilliant scientist and raving lunatic who almost kills everyone is merely in how you define your terms:

Yep, it's not that he was terribly reckless and a crap scientist and jeopardized everybody's life in a dubious and uncontrolled experiment--nope, it's that he "succeeded too well."

Hank Pym--he was always an unstable putz.

From Tales To Astonish #62 (1964)

Marvel 1964 Week--Avengers #8!!

Ladies and gentlemen, you're about to witness--the birth of continuity.

Well, not literally. But certainly, you will see continuity take a huge step forward here.

Previously, Silver Age books hadn't been so much serials as sitcoms. What happened in one issue/episode had little or no bearing on what happened in subsequent issues/episodes, and indeed was likely never to be mentioned again.

Comics were disposable entertainment, like sitcoms. No one back in the early 60s foresaw collections of comic book runs being published, any more than people saw DVD season sets for I Love Lucy. Unless you had a reprint issue or a clip show, past events were almost never referenced. If Jimmy Olson turned into a giant monkey, it was forgotten by the next issue. If you wanted to have Flash fight Mirror Master but you just threw him in jail and broke his mirrors two issues ago, no problem--just bring him back without explanation. If Carol Ferris almost tricked Green Lantern into proposing one issue, he doesn't throw that back in her face next issue--it's forgotten as if it were an imaginary story.

[Editor's note: I am, of course, exaggerating slightly here, as some Silver Age mags did have some kind of carry over. Just roll with me, OK?]

Which brings us to:

Damn, September 1964 was a rocking month. Kang's first appearance (sorta)?!?

We begin as the Avengers are summoned to a video conference with Pentagon officials! Gasp--how futuristic!!

And our creators:

Look, right there is one reason Marvel quickly became popular--sharing it's creators names, and being playful...it made them seem like friends, while DC was still years away from giving us any credits whatsoever...

Right off the bat, we see that Tony Stark, proto-fascist, is unclear on the concept of democracy:

Dear Iron Man: taking turns ≠ democracy. Thank you.

Meanwhile, it appears that Stark was planning to have couples in the Avengers from the start:

A love seat for Avengers meetings? Really?

The military briefs the Avengers on a mean flying saucer that has landed in Virginia:



Action time!!!

Wait a minute--the Avengers had to fly out of JFK?!? You're kidding me. Ahh, life before Quinjets...

When they finally get there (after sitting on the tarmac for 5 hours), Kang is chillin':

And the Wasp shows why Henry Pym went insane:

Iron Man asks the stupid question, and Kang gives the obvious answer:

Dude, if he's named "The Conqueror," he's not here for peace.

The Avengers attack, but Kang bumfuzzles even Thor...


But wait...the day is saved!!

An undersecretary from the Defense Department!! An undersecretary from the Defense Department!! Oh, my!! Shouldn't we have saved someone so powerful for Galactus?!?

Mr. Undersecretary gets Kang to reveal his origins...

BAM!! There it is...the birth of continuity.

Kang is not only a previous villain who has morphed into a new incarnation. Kang is a villain from another Marvel mag who has morphed into someone new!! We've even got a footnote referencing Fantastic Four Annual #2--which was just out that month!!

It's tough for modern readers to understand how radical this was at the time. Cameos aside, events from one comic almost never carried over in to other mags. Villains almost never crossed over to other heroes books (except for Joker/Luthor team-ups).

Yet here is Stan, asking you to accept events from the Fantastic Four as binding on the Avengers. Here is Stan, assuming that you might want to read these other referenced stories, giving you footnotes to those issues. Suddenly, here is Stan saying this really is a shared universe, and if you read other of our comics, you'll be rewarded.

Yeah, I'm way overhyping the significance here, as other comics had done some of this before. But for my purposes, I chose to view this as kind of a watershed moment, the point at which events in one title could have serious repercussions for another. Comics weren't just isolated sitcom episodes anymore...

Anyway, back to Kang's origin:

Fact: this next panel obviously inspired Idiocracy:


Very stable and not-at-all-crazy Hank Pym has heard enough, and decides to crack Kang open like a crayfish:


Oops. Next lesson: never piss off Thor:


Or Captain America:

Dogpile!!

D'oh!!

Time...for...Shatner...acting:

Kang's demands?

Dear Kang,
You left the 40th century because the men were more primitive and presented you no challenge. Yet you go to the 20th century, were you constantly tell the people how stupid they are, and boast how much more powerful your weapons are...and you expect them to immediately surrender. Where's the challenge?!? According to your rantings, the 40th century was much more of a challenge...
Love, snell.

Well, surely, the undersecretary from the Defense Department can resolve this...

Too big a decision for the undersecretary from the Department of Defense?!?!? That's mind-boggling!!

After the obligatory ethnically-stereotyped UN meeting...

...Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade decide to prove that Kang is a complete dumbass with the old "we want to work for you" ruse.

Rick's idea of a rescue: go around Kang's ship randomly pressing buttons.

Hey, what do you know? It worked!!

Meanwhile, the Wasp and allies have gone to fetch a cool gun.

A special Slay Monstrobot moment: The Very First Geico Commercial!!

Again, Kang, if these guys are no challenge, what's the deal?

Fact: Thor is much stronger than a caveman.


Which allows Giant-Man to get a shot off...


Yes, the key to beating Kang was to mess up his wardrobe!!

Sadly, he escapes...


Oh yes. We'll see him. Again. And again. And again. And again...ad infinitum.

On the letters page, David Calise of Chester, Pennsylvania, is really ticked off at Rick Jones:

Hung from tree? Now, if you had done that, Earth would have perished in the Kree/Skrull war, David. You have to look at these things long term...

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Hard to believe that Giant-Man and the Wasp had their own long-running series, but it's true. Of course, it's also interesting to note that, technically, none of the Avengers at this point had their "own" books: Giant-Man and Wasp were a co-feature in Tales to Astonish; Iron Man was a co-feature in Tales of Suspense; Thor was appearing in Journey Into Mystery (although that was merely a fiction for the U.S. Postal Service, as the mag was now Thor wall to wall); and Cap didn't even have a series (although in two months he would start sharing TOS with Iron Man).

Tales to Astonish #59 saw the Hulk return, and this was the set-up for his run co-starring in TTA. Sadly, because this story technically wasn't part of his own series yet, GITCorp doesn't include this issue on the DVD-Rom set. Grrr.....