Ant-Man #2
Recap
It’s the 60th anniversary of the Miniature Marvel and what a celebration it has been! After the first issue put a spotlight on Hank Pym and the mysterious Ant-Man of the future, this one shifts its focus to The Irredeemable Ant-Man, Eric O’Grady. What nefariously idiotic plot does the anti-heroic shrinker have cooked up in this fork of the road? Find out in this issue of Ant-Man!
Review
Eric O’Grady is awful.
There’s a reason his series tagline is “The World’s Worst Superhero” and if you need to catch up on who the character is and what some of his misdeeds are, then I say you should read the Throwback Thursday we did right here on Comic-Watch about the Irredeemable Ant-Man series to figure out why I love the character so much, despite his many – MANY flaws. But given he’s the third in line to take the Ant-Man mantle, there was no doubt that he’d show up in this mini-series one way or another and true to how Robert Kirkman wrote him, Al Ewing makes sure to keep O’Grady every bit the low life that we love.
With the entire purpose of this miniseries being to shine a spotlight on the various Ant-Men throughout Marvel history, Al Ewing does a great job at capturing the character of Eric O’Grady by having the entire issue focusing on him being despicable while also showing a good knowledge of Marvel history by intertwining it with Hank Pym being replaced by a Skrull during this time period. As O’Grady attempts to rob the grave of a recently exploded Scott Lang for Pym Particles, the Skrull-Pym shows up and attempts to regain the suit as it was made with Skrull technology.
In a fun way, this foreshadows and references the first meetings that Eric had with “Hank” as Dr. Pym would have a hand in training Eric at the end of Irredeemable Ant-Man and was later one of his teachers during The Initiative Era, still having been replaced with a Skrull at the time. And later in the issue, O’Grady would knock Pym out after being startled, similar to how he reacted in the beginning of his own original series.
Tom Reilly continues to amaze with how seamless he is at capturing the style of the artists that came before him. While the last issue had Reilly homage Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby, this one shows his ability to capture the angular style and comedic paneling of Phil Hester. His lines are crisp and heavy, giving characters well defined outlines that help them stand out from their backgrounds; which themselves are rarely used in order to focus on the characters and actions. He also makes great use of sequential panels using the same pose in order to emphasize comedic moments by holding on to the beat of the joke before the final panel punchline.
But not only is the book absolutely hilarious, it’s also action packed as well. Reilly has an eye for combat and scale as the fight between Skrull-Pym and O’Grady begins with Pym giving Eric a pint-sized punch to the jaw in a beautiful double page spread with inset panels on the second page showing Eric swatting Pym away. When the fight kicks off proper, Reilly shrinks both characters down and has them fight amongst the well detailed ant army standing by and gives us a variety of shots and angles of Pym putting the hurt on O’Grady.
Jordie Bellaire is some kind of coloring wizard as her colors in this book are so very intense yet eye catching on every page. With the book taking place mostly during the late afternoon, the sky and most of the backgrounds are given this dark orange coloring – this can be seen as a double meaning for O’Grady’s crassness and Skrull-Pym’s deceitfulness, two bad guys fighting against each other for their own nefarious means. But much to Bellaire’s talents, the backgrounds never take away from the awesome coloring of O’Grady’s costume. Accentuated by Reilly’s heavy inks, the deep red of O’Grady’s metallic costume draws the eyes whenever he’s on the page and contrasts well with the less shadowed cloth costume of Pym. It’s very pretty to look at and really works well with the art of the issue which is already awesome.
Cory Petit’s lettering is absolutely fantastic throughout the entire issue. From the use of different colors for the AI voice of O’Grady’s helmet to the green bubbles and white letters of Skrull-Pym for a few pages, there’s a definite variety in terms of visuals for dialogue. It makes everything seem dynamic and that’s on top of Petit already making use of empty space and a few nice sound effects. His WHAAAAMs! Both red and blue, pop off of the page – its makes for a very fun reading experience!
Final Thoughts
All in all, this miniseries is all kinds of fun. Al Ewing is a fantastic scribe, Tom Reilly is an artist extraordinaire, Jordie Bellaire is a colorist whiz and Cory Petit brings the dialogue together and I can’t wait for more!
ICYMI! Ant-Man #2: Irredeemable
- Writing - 8.5/108.5/10
- Storyline - 8.5/108.5/10
- Art - 9.5/109.5/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 8.5/108.5/10