Professional Insect Wrangler: ‘Ant-Man #1’ Reviewed
by Josh Davison
Mild Spoilers Ahead
Ant-Man and Stinger ambush an A.I.M. drug-running operation in the Everglades. It’s an easy sweep for our heroes, but Scott and his daughter, Cassie, still have a bit to improve in the teamwork department. Unfortunately, Ant-Man hasn’t had a paying job since joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, so he has had to live in an ant hill. However, Cassie arrives with a job opportunity. A woman named Dr. Sandra Stulley is working with the Florida State Beekeepers Association and all of their bees have disappeared. She promises a handsome paycheck for Ant-Man if he can track down the bees. Scott is a little embarrassed to take a gig like this, but he doesn’t have much other choice.
Ant-Man #1 finds Scott Lang once again down on his luck. He has no job or home and his partnership with Cassie is far from perfect. He finally finds a paying job, but it can be summarized as bee-herding.
Frankly, this is the kind of loser fail-hero story I adore. Scott Lang is easily among my all-time favorite Marvel characters and that is largely because he is a loser who has never been able to get his life together (see also Hawkeye, Johnny Blaze, Danny Ketch, and Kaine as well as, to a lesser degree, Winter Soldier and Venom). Scott means well and is a fundamentally good person, but he’s not been able to hold down a steady job or even team membership in a long time. As a loser fail-son myself, I find this incredible relatable.
Needless to say, the bee disappearance has more going on than migration or, well, real ongoing global extinction. No points for guessing the villain responsible though.
We get to read the dialogue of the ants and bees with whom Scott speaks, and that is a solid source of comedy in this book.
Dylan Burnett provides a fairly cartoonish art style for this book, giving the story an overall comedic feeling–which suits Scott Lang just fine. The action scenes are satisfying throughout. We also get to see some new villains at the end with particularly memorable designs. Mike Spicer gives the book an explosive color palette, well-suited for a superhero title such as this.
Ant-Man #1 is an endearing and genuinely funny start for this Scott and Cassie-led mini-series. We get a life update on Scott Lang and learn, unsurprisingly, his business prospects in Florida have not improved. It’s a delightful book and easily earns a recommendation. Feel free to give it a read.
Ant-Man #1 comes to us from writer Zeb Wells, artist Dylan Burnett, color artist Mike Spicer, letterer VC’s Cory Petit, cover artist Eduard Petrovich, and variant cover artists Marcos Martin; John Tyler Christopher; and Herb Trimpe with Morry Hollowell.
Final Score: 8.5/10
