By the way, Slam, I slowed down so you could catch up with me (I'm currently in May 1963). Don't allow having a life to slow you down. We need to get to the Galactus Saga before Christmas, or there will be hell to pay...

I hear you. It's easy going not only because of the dearth of titles early on, but because most of them are 12 or 13 pagers. It's amazing how much longer they take to read compared to some of the new stuff I'm reading; I read Walt Simonson's Ragnarok #2 last night and it barely took me 10 minutes, even pausing to admire the panels. Most old comics take me 20-30 minutes.

Tales to Astonish 37 (Ant Man story)

Plot by Stan Lee
Script by Larry Lieber
Pencils by Jack Kirby
Inks by Dick Ayers



Cover:

We see our hero (barely visible) is being shot out of his travel catapult at the Protector. Another static cover with muted colors. The MU is not setting the world on fire because of its covers.

The Story:

We open with a 2/3 splash of Ant-man being menaced by The Protecter (yeah...it's spelled wrong in the title). The splash is a fair bit more interesting than the cover. We then see jeweler Gerald Marsh staggering to his feet (pay attention...this will become nonsensical later) and a police car racing to the scene of his shop. The wail of the siren is picked up by the Ant-Network and Ant-Man springs into action. Apparently he responds to every police call. We get a two-page intro to our hero...see him shrink...and shoot himself from his magic cannon into a pile of ants (because that has to be softer than the awning over the window). We do get an editor's note telling us there was a diagram of the ant portions of Pym's lab in the last issue.

Our hero meets with Marsh who was attacked by The Protector, who has been shaking down jewelers for protection money. Since Marsh hadn't paid he used his “disintegrator gun”to disintegrate Marsh's jewels and half his display case (pay attention...that becomes important later). Then for good measure he knocks Marsh unconscious. Why he disintegrates the jewels instead of taking them for payment...we don't know. As Ant-Man leaves, and catches a ride on a passing car, he is watched by mysterious eyes. Back at the Ant-Lair Pym sets his ant buddies to respond to the verbal stimuli of “Protector and disintegrating gun”. I'm pretty sure that ants don't actually hear like we do what with not having ears...but okay. But somehow they do hear and Ant-Man cannons to the scene...but the ants can't for an ex-skeleton hardened hill...so he has to land in a baby carriage, jump into the cuff of a pair of trousers and then to the ground. It might have been easier and safer to go there full size and then shrink.

But The Protector is there shaking down a jeweler and wearing an outfit he clearly put together from a thrift store. Our intrepid hero confronts him with the bane of villains everywhere...a pearl necklace. Yeah...really. And in true Keystone Cops fashion The Protector slips on the pearls and falls on his keister. Then, instead of trying to finish the battle while his opponent is down, Anty decides to take the battle outside where there is more room (and more opportunity for the foe to escape or find weapons). The Protector uses a squirt gun, stolen from a convenient passing child, to wash Ant-man into a storm drain. Now this is far before the days of the Super Soaker...and we have that issue of him retaining his normal strength...but...yeah. Honestly, if you're a super hero and you need to be concerned about a child's water pistol...you maybe should find a new line of work. Like super scientist. But Anty saves himself from the sewer by a handy lollipop stick while The Protector escapes. I'm sure if he had to do it all over he'd have tried to capture him inside.

The obvious plan at this point is to rent a jewelry store and wait for the Protector to come shake him down. Which is exactly what Hank does. And it works, as The Protector comes and demands protection money. To demonstrate his power he disintegrates half a display case and all of its contents (this will become important). Exactly how the poor jeweler is supposed to make any money to pay the protection with a large part of his inventory gone is an open question. The Protector leaves and Hank turns into Ant-Man. At miniature size he notices that there is oil where Protector was standing and he then uses the Ant Network to track him to a tenement building. But alas, the Protector has set a trap, because it was self-evident to him that Ant-Man would eventually track him down. And our hero falls prey to something more deadly than a squirt gun...the dreaded vacuum cleaner. Luckily Hank remembers he has his normal strength and is able to punch his way out of a paper vacuum cleaner bag (it's not even a wet paper bag). He then starts a fan which blows the dirt and dust from the bag into the Protector's face disabling him while the police (alerted by ants who can spell) arrive to take him into custody.

And low and behold, the reveal is that it's...Aunt Jebedissa...no...Old Man Jenkins...no...sorry Scooby...it's it's Marsh, the Jeweler. Ant-Man suspected him because it made no sense for The Protector to beat him up when his business is poor (Pym clearly doesn't understand how protection rackets actually work). His “feats of strength” were due to platform shoes and metal rods and springs (a poor explanation of what is clearly a mechanical exo-skeleton drawn by Kirby). Except the only real feats of strength we saw were when he attacked Marsh. And the disintegrate gun didn't actually work. It emitted a “puff of smoke” and then he'd steal the jewels and leave sand in their place. Another case solved by The Ant-Man.

Thoughts…

There is no reason for Marsh to be staggering to his feet in the first story panel. NOTHING HAPPENED. And nobody is there yet. It's stuff like this that made me thing that these stories were done Marvel style and Lieber wasn't tracking Kirby. It appears that Lieber was just an awful scripter.

And the Disintegrator doesn't disintegrate the jewels...he steals them in seconds and leave sand in their place. But...the display cases are clearly disintegrated. Again...Lieber is clueless.

You can do some cool stuff with a mini-hero...but they aren't doing it here. If you're a super-hero and you're being menaced by squirt guns and vacuum cleaners there's a problem.

A third Scooby Doo unmasking in a row from Leiber.

Pym never seems to think to grow to full size when he's in perilous peril. He's not the brightest of super-scientists.

Could one actually rent a fully stocked jewelry store in 1962. Pym clearly has some significant cash reserves.

If you can build a mechanical exoskeleton that gives you enhanced strength...maybe you should get out of the jewelry biz and...y'know...do that for a living.

The art here is really pretty darn good. How is it that Kirby/Ayers looks so good here and so dang bad on Fantastic Four and Human Torch. Page 3, Panel 1 showing Ant-Man after he's catapulted flying toward the reader is a thing of beauty.

The Story. This story is awful. There's virtually nothing here that makes any sense at all.

The Art: This may be as good as we've seen from Kirby/Ayers. There is a definite sense that Kirby is really enjoying the ant's eye view of the world. And Ayers isn't doing his usual hatchet job on the faces and figures.

The toll: A broken pearl necklace. A jewelry showcase. Hank is pretty darn good about not causing collateral damage.

Grade for historic importance: F. Lame one-shot villain in a nothing story. .

Story – D -
Art – B +

I love it when tiny heroes make use of props (like the Atom using a pencil to pole vault) or get menaced by everyday objects (like the squirt gun or the vacuum cleaner, or like that time the Porcupine took off Ant-Man's helmet with tweezers and then dropped him in a bathtub full of water and left him to drown). Why have a tiny super-hero if you can't make use of everyday objects in silly ways? (Although I can see why tiny super-heroes don't do so well because you eventually run out of ideas.)

But you're absolutely right about the Protector's scheme. I bought TTA #37 for $5 (in the 1970s) when I was about 13 and my friends and I really had a blast making fun of this.

But, yeah, that Kirby/Ayers art is SWEET!

Larry Leiber is to Stan Lee as Yoko Ono was to John Lennon. Neither Larry or Yoko would be in the business without their more talented partners looking out for them. If you liked Stan Lennon, you had to put up with Larry Ono

I love the muted colours on the covers of early '60s Marvel comics, especially compared to later, more garish re-colourings of those covers (mid-'80s Marvel Tales, I'm looking at you). But you raise a point that I've often wondered about: how did those early Marvel's attract ever increasing numbers of readers, when the brighter covers of their competitors must've "jumped out" much more at kids browsing the spinner racks?



That's one hell of an analogy...but I like it.