Ant-Man #4 – The Future

Behold the Ant-Man of the Future.

The time-traveling mystery man that’s been appearing to all of our ant-based heroes throughout this miniseries finally has his backstory revealed, and it’s as on-brand as one might expect. After a future, Ultron is defeated, and the Earth that he conquered is freed, a child is born and raised by scientist parents and hopes to redeem the creator of his people’s former tormentor – that child is Zayn Asghar. Throughout this miniseries, Al Ewing has written Asghar as being something of a peculiar figure working in the background to stop some threat in his time period. He’s been shown to be incredibly intelligent, with moments of friendliness and smarminess with I’ve enjoyed so far, and this issue culminates everything that we’ve seen thus far with Asghar working alongside his hero, Hank Pym and the other men who have taken on the name of Ant-Man.

Ewing really does bring this miniseries together in this last issue and expands upon the endings of the previous ones by showing the battle against All-Father Ultron and how the Ant-Men come together to try and stop the threat while also serving as a great full introduction to a new hero that I hope we get to see more of. Every character is written as their personalities would suggest; Pym is hokey as he’s still in his early years of being a crime buster, but he maintains a glowing sense of positivity and heroism; Scott is the one who’s been around the block a few times and doesn’t shy away from punching Ultron in the face to save Hank and Zayn; and Eric O’Grady…is Eric O’Grady, cowering and selling out the other Ant-Men before taking credit for being a “distraction” when Ultron captures him momentarily, giving the others time to make a plan.

All of this shows how well Ewing understands and cares for each of these characters. He respects the history of Ant-Man while also giving all of them a high-level threat to give this book a sense of weight and meaning. Seeing all of them come together should warm the hearts of everyone who calls themself an Ant-Man fan, and knowing that there’s more to come with the Wasp series is even better!

Tom Reilly’s art in this issue is absolutely…astonishing. Throughout this miniseries, Reilly has shown his adaptability when it came to the various art styles of each era of Ant-Man, and that continues with this issue as well. Using more of a streamlined and crisp style, Reilly eschews thick lines in favor of nearly borderless characters and backgrounds, giving everything a sleek and futuristic look. This helps to build upon the world that Zayn Asghar lives in and gives it its own sense of identity, like the times of the other Ant-Men.

Reilly also shows a great eye for action as this book is just about non-stop. Almost every single page after Zayn’s character introduction is the fight against All-Father Ultron and Reilly uses a variety of angles to capture the fight and a variety of shots to keep the eyes compelled to keep reading – there are moments when Hank sends forth human sized ants to attack Ultron, wide angle shots of Scott growing in size to punch the All-Father, which looks like it’s full of impact, and there’s a even a few moments that Reilly injects with emotion when all seems lost. These latter moments are given close ups to capture the emotion on the character’s faces and they’re thoroughly effective.

Jordie Bellaire further uplifts the art of the book by utilizing a snazzy, flat coloring style that captures the eye with the way that colors are able to pop against the contrasting backgrounds. The best example of this is the entire composition of All-Father Ultron and the bright, glowing white and yellow that he’s colored with throughout this book. The term “white-hot” definitely applies here as it looks like he’s about to sizzle right off the page with how vibrantly Bellaire colors him, his tentacles and his hand rays. Of course, he is excellently contrasted by the various Ant-Men and their combined red, blue and black color schemes. 

But Bellaire best utilizes her skill for coloring in the lighting and shading of this book. When characters are near All-Father Ultron, their colors have the yellow added into them or are shadowed slightly when hidden away from the action or in background shots. This shows that Bellaire understands how to add emotion to scenes with the placement of lights and the angles with which they shine. Though one of the best examples of this is in the last few pages of the book with Zayn, Hank and Scott standing together with the Aging Ray featured in the first issue to defeat Ultron and the ray itself overpowers the rest of the page, shining over everyone and reflecting in Zayn’s helmet. 

Cory Petit’s lettering brings the entire book together! In the initial few pages, he does a great job of laying out the narration boxes that introduce Zayn in a manner that really insinuates a robotic narrator recapping the history of that timeline with nice red coloring against a pinkish background. Word balloons themselves are well placed and help to keep focus on the action while also making it so that readers can easily breeze through the dialogue while loving the art. And the sound effects themselves are a nice touch that gives some of the action a palpable sense of sound; From the WHAMM of Scott punching Ultron to the WHOKK of Eric punching Hank away in his shock and surprise, they give character to the scene and add to the cartoony feel of the book that I love.