Anthony Bergamini
Ant-Man was originally created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby in 1962; back when all a new character needed was a unique power and a catchy name. I have been familiar with the Ant-Man character since my first venture into comics in the early 2000s. While Wikipedia and YouTube helped me learn more about this character, I wanted to start from the beginning. I picked up the first two volumes of Marvel Masterworks Ant-Man. These books were good old classic fun; yet, they definitely read like most comics of the 60s. I decided to jump to the future and read some more modern creations. To my surprise, there were very few Ant-Man series that I could choose from. While the character’s history was expansive, most of his appearances were in team books like The Avengers. Needless to say, Ant-Man has always been a niche character that doesn’t sell well alone.
Back when Ant-Man was created, it was enough to have “sciency” powers and an animal-themed name. The issue was that as comic books started to tell more mature stories, the idea of “Scientist Hank Pym shrinking to the size of an ant” didn’t live up to other heroes like Spider-Man and Batman, who have always been relatable and interesting to readers. I have to give it to Marvel, they did a hell of a job trying to reach audiences with the Ant-Man character. Over the years, Marvel would give Hank Pym new aliases to try and make him cooler to audiences. The most well-known alias is Giant-Man; however, Marvel also tried new aliases like Yellowjacket and Goliath that only lasted a short while. Needless to say, none of this worked. Marvel saw this character’s loss of popularity as a never-ending slope and decided it was time to create a new Ant-Man, one with the emotional depth that kept more popular character’s afloat.
This brings us to the introduction of Scott Lang. Lang was immediately introduced as a relatable character with a dark history. Lang is an ex-con who was forced to steal the original Ant-Man suit from Pym in order to save his daughter. Around this same time, Marvel began taking steps towards pushing Hank Pym to the backburner. They used the concept of Pym feeling inferior to the other superheroes to create a story in which Pym creates a villain for the team to fight, in an attempt to defeat it and show his worth. When this doesn’t go as planned, his wife, The Wasp, confronts him. This results in the infamous panel of Pym striking Wasp across the face. After this, Pym is kicked off of the Avengers. While this is all going on, the new Ant-Man gains popularity by joining popular heroes in team-up adventures and he soon becomes the only Ant-Man anyone cares about. It should be noted that while he was more relatable to readers, this new Ant-Man was still not popular enough to lead his own series.
This all brings us to the introduction of the third Ant-Man, The Irredeemable Ant-Man, Eric O’Grady. O’Grady was introduced by Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester in 2006. Following the 12-issue run of this comic, O’Grady went on to join the Avengers, and eventually was killed and resurrected as the Black Ant. O’Grady is a deeply perverted, unlikeable, and morally compromised character. Throughout the series, O’Grady lies to his closest friends, steals from his job and civilians, kills his best friend, lies about his identity to sleep with women, and spies on several women in the shower. O’Grady is like the high school bully who somehow ended up being a super successful person later in life. Kirkman writes O’Grady as a character who is so deeply flawed, that even the readers don’t root for him in his own book. So why does this character exist and what makes him compelling enough to lead his own series?
Robert Kirkman’s two most popular series come from Image comics, The Walking Dead and Invincible. These two series are both pretty bare bones when it comes down to how they are summarized. The Walking Dead is about a band of characters who have to figure out how to survive a zombie apocalypse. Invincible tells the day-to-day adventures of a kid who develops the same superpowers as his superhero dad. The thing that really makes these series worth reading is how the characters are written. The world around these characters always stays static, it’s not like the characters in The Walking Dead are ever going to escape the apocalypse. What really changes in these series is how the characters change from issue to issue. Kirkman is not interested in expansive world-building, but would rather show readers how seemingly one-dimensional characters can grow and change due to the environment they are placed in. It’s fairly obvious that gaining superpowers or living in a zombie apocalypse would change a person. Kirkman writes relatable characters and shows audiences how people that mirror people we see every day, would react to the worlds they are placed in. In The Irredeemable Ant-Man, Kirkman writes about how coming in contact with super abilities would affect someone who represents the opposite of everything a hero should be.
The Irredeemable Ant-Man is split into two stories. The first story shows us how O’Grady got the Ant-Man suit and why he is the new Ant-Man. The first thing Kirkman does is show us that this story exists in a greater world. He simply has the characters introduce themselves while they play poker and joke about the world around them. This serves two purposes, it shows readers who these new characters are, and also shows that they are not too far away from the characters they have been reading about for years. Kirkman does this a lot in both sections of the 12-issue run. It helps ground the story within the Marvel Universe but doesn’t do it in a way that jeopardizes the story he wants to tell. Another immediately apparent aspect of this run is that it does not take itself seriously, just like O’Grady doesn’t take his new power seriously. Each issue starts with an ant recapping the story so far. The ant’s dialogue shows that it’s almost embarrassed by the actions O’Grady takes. The ant tells the audience several times that O’Grady is a terrible person. At no point does this first volume give us any hope that O’Grady will be any more than irredeemable.
This brings us to the second half of the story, which gives us a definitive reason as to why Kirkman wanted to tell this story. The second half of the story teaches readers the main lesson of the series, that while someone may not be redeemable, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be a better person than they once were. This half of the story follows O’Grady as he takes his new power and tries to use it to live a life that makes him happy. Of course, this leads to many panels of him watching women shower, yet something changes in the character. While the first volume served as a proper introduction to the character, the second volume shows us how he has learned from his experiences. O’Grady will do spiteful acts and say things such as “oh being a superhero is so great.” It’s apparent that he feels as though he has the right to call himself a superhero just because of his newfound power. It isn’t until the final issue that O’Grady’s life is sort of back to normal, and that’s when all of the reality sets in, showing him that he has the potential to be a better person. He comes to the conclusion that he cannot change the part of him that makes him the irredeemable hero, but he can at least do what he can, moving forward, to be a better person. He will always have to live with the sins of his past; but, he can use the future to show that he can be a true hero. His actions are irredeemable but his understanding of what he was and who he wants to become shows the reader that not every character is black-and-white, and that the first step towards becoming a better person is accepting the sins of your past.
Kirkman unapologetically shows someone that is still unlikable at the end of the story, but through a lens that says we’ve all done bad things, but sometimes the best we can do is try to learn from those circumstances. Eric O’Grady may not ever be an ideal hero. But to have someone that unlikable, change their ways, even if it’s only slightly, gives readers hope that bad people may eventually learn the error of their ways. The Irredeemable Ant-Man reminds me why I read comics. The character may not be someone I look up to, but the story helped me see the world from a new perspective. Every good story should teach audiences some important message about life, be it the way we look at the world, or the way we look at one another.