In this feature, I spotlight the goofiest moments from specific batches of comic book stories. With the Ant-Man movie coming out, I thought it'd make sense to combine two separate bits on the first five Ant-Man stories and then next five Ant-Man stories into one bit on the ten goofiest moments from the first ten Ant-Man stories! The stories are Tales to Astonish #35-40, written by the brothers Lieber (Stan Lee plotted all ten comics, Larry Lieber scripted the first nine) and Ernest Hart (script for #44) and drawn by Jack Kirby (pencils on #35-40, 44), Dick Ayers (inks on #35-39), Don Heck (pencils and inks on #41-43, inks on #44) and Sol Brodsky (inks on #40)...

As always, this is all in good fun. I don’t mean any of this as a serious criticism of the comics in question. Not only were these writers certainly never imagining people still reading these comics decades after they were written, great comics often have goofy moments (Kirby/Lee’s Fantastic Four is one of the best comic book runs of all-time and there were TONS of goofy stuff in those 100 plus issues!).

HONORABLE MENTIONS

I am sure that some writer explained that Reed Richards gave Hank Pym some unstable molecules for his costume, but I'd prefer the idea that unstable molecules are just really really easy to create in the Marvel Universe...



Something that comes up a lot during the Silver Age is that no matter how much of a hero you are, no matter how many good deeds you do, the public will turn on you on a DIME...



"Ant-Man must be doing this! Because we're disloyal jerks!"

What's funny is that this Ant-Man tale took place well after Rachel Carson's work about DDT came out and became such a big deal...



I just love how angry Egghead is that they don't realize that he screwed up. You fool, how can you not realize how incompetent I am!?!?



I dig how Ant-Man initially applied his serum. Just splashed that sucker on....



Okay, I get that Ant-Man has human strength in his Ant-Man form, but that doesn't mean he'd be able to twirl a dude around like this, right?



I think Ant-Man is way overselling the threat of the insect population...



In Ant-Man's first appearance, he makes a pointed effort to stay a secret...



But in the very next issue, Ant-Man is not only no longer a secret but he's a famous hero now...



Obviously, stuff happened off-panel, but wow, that's some fairly notable stuff to be skipping over.

I love how sloppy the Commies are....



Why does she need to have the mask on her person?

I just dig the awesomeness of "spoing"...



Talk about hardcore! Ant-Man ends up on an alien world where a bunch of scientists have been abducted to work on essentially a death ray. Ant-Man manages to communicate with the alien version of ants. Well, after getting splashed with a paralyzing agent, Ant-Man seems doomed...



only...



The alien ants gunned the bad guy down! When informed of this, Captain America spent three issues of Tales of Suspense in mourning over the death of the alien.

Ernest Hart must have thought that Stan Lee was paying him by the word. Check out his intro page for #44....



Yikes.

Then again, Larry Leiber also tried often to use a dozen words when four would suffice. Check out the verbosity of Hank Pym here...



Hank Pym sounds like that Miss South Carolina contestant. "I believe that the missing scientists like such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as"

In #43, some dude invents a device that can turn people old. He tests it out...



Now, later in the issue, he uses it on a crowd and he reverses it. However, they never mention this early subject. I would imagine that they would have eventually found her and reversed it in her case, too, but it amuses me that they never actually show it happening.

Go to the next page for #10-5!

10. Yes...tell me more...

I don't mind Ant-Man explaining what happened to the cops, but shouldn't someone notice Egghead standing right there listening to the whole plan?



9. Perspective problems....

I guess this is a perspective problem by Kirby/Ayers, but I think it is cooler if ants really could carry stuff that big...



8. Inconsistent strength.

Ant-Man's strength is like Hal Jordan's weakness to yellow. It was applied really inconsistently.

To wit, he can flick an ant easily...



but he has to do some major plot to stop a beetle?



7. Laryngitis in a bottle

So the bad guy, The Voice, can make people do whatever he wants just by telling them to do it. Ant-Man stops him through...bottled laryngitis!!!





Awesome. I love that the laryngitis took away his power for good.

6. When all else fails, fake appendicitis...

That's exactly what Ant-Man does in #40...



Now that the bad guy is unsuspecting, Ant-Man stows away and surprises him! He explains how he got to the bad guy's car...



I love how the model plane flies like a regular plane.

Go to the next page for #5-1!

5. Ah, radioactivity, what CAN'T you do?

Speaking of the Voice, here is his awesomely bizarre origin...



4. Ants-a-plenty...

I love how Stan Lee thinks ants are all over the place to the point where no one notices ants crawling all over their desks....



3. Great plan, Maria!

In #44, Hank Pym thinks back to his dead wife, Maria...



Isn't that amazing? "Nah, don't worry, Hank, they don't take this stuff seriously."

How insane is that?

And what's great is that the cosmos waits until Hank agrees with her before she is taken away...



This is some dark stuff....



Note for the future. If you escape a country, don't go back there to sight see.

2. I shall become...an ant!!!

Maria also hilariously inspires Hank to become Ant-Man in one of the sillier origins of the era...





What if she had told him a different Proverb, like "A scoundrel is a furnace of evil, and on his lips there is a scorching fire"...would he have become a pyromaniac? Let alone if she had told him, "The whip for the horse, the bridle for the ass, and the rod for the back of fools"....

1. Stick the landing!

Ant-Man's catapult system is messed up...





"Thanks, pals, for being a CUSHION for me!"

Not cool, Hank, not cool!

The next issues makes it even weirder.....



Just giant piles of ants out nowhere. So weird.

In this issue, he almost DIES using it!





Gotta love any transport system that almost splats you on a wall.