The Irredeemable Ant-Man, 1-12, 2006-2007
Writer - Robert Kirkman
Artist - Phil Hester
For most fans of the comic book industry, I assume the name Robert Kirkman is one that they know. Even those that don't read comics probably have cause to know his name in this day and age. Either through his Image books (most notably the Walking Dead and Invincible) or the TV series based on the Walking Dead, Kirkman's work has broken through to the mainstream in a way that most comic creators can only dream of. Still only 34, Kirkman started doing some small work for Marvel in 2004, near the start of his run on Walking Dead. And with the exception of a 27 issue run on Ultimate X-Men, most of that work was one shots or mini-series (Jubilee? Perhaps in a future issue of this write up).
Regardless of the rather meagre back catalogue of Marvel work, we ended up here, in late 2006. Kirkman had created quite a fan base and perhaps used some of that cache to work with a niche character. Being an Ant-Man book, you'd likely expect this to revolve around Hank Pym, erstwhile Giant Man/Yellow Jacket/original Ant Man (and creator of Ultron). You'd be wrong. This is the story of Eric O'Grady, a low level SHIELD employee who sucks at poker. For a long time in the Marvel U, Hank Pym was regarded as one of the scummiest characters after punching his wife. Eric doesn't quite sink that low, but you're not going to confuse him for Captain America by the end of the series.
Being a 12 issue run, we get two broad arcs to focus on. The first tells the story of how Eric became Ant Man flashing between the past and the present, with each issue bringing the flashbacks closer and closer to the present. Asked to protect the Ant Man armour from a rampant Wolverine (this story runs concurrently to the Enemy of the State line in Wolverine, wherein he was controlled by Hydra), Eric and his best friend Chris accidentally mistake Pym for an enemy combatant. Eric encourages Chris to take advantage of the unguarded Ant Man armour, to fulfil a life long super hero fantasy, only to see him brutally gunned down in front of him during a Wolverine break out. The right move for Eric, obviously, is to steal the armour from his friends dead body and use it for his own means. In the present part of our story, we see Eric using his new found powers to set up robberies that he uses to seduce women. When those don't work out, he just spies on them in the shower. The past part of the story details SHIELD's search for the armour, led by former friend Mitch. The first arc comes to a semi-conclusion, with Eric and Mitch duking it out. Eric, not a fighter, attempts to escape, only to blast his former friend in the face with a jet boost. This scars him permanently and sets up the subplot for the second half of our arc. We have an added subsplot with Eric using his friends death to try (again) to get with his girlfriend.
The second half of our story begins to see an emergence of a 'good' side in Eric. After spying on Ms Marvel in the shower, Eric finds himself thrown in to the midst of a battle the Mighty Avengers have in NYC. At first seeing it as an opportunity to ransack and loot (which he does anyway) he also manages to use the shrink power to rescue a little girl. Seeing this, Damage Control Inc (Marvel's company who come in to clean up NYC after battles) offer Eric a role. Largely taking the job to get in the pants of the sexy mutant team member, Eric finds himself relating to her and to the rest of the team. By the end, Eric has proven his innocence (or relative harmlessness) to SHIELD and is offered a role with the Initiative by Director Tony Stark
To be honest, this book was a major surprise for me. Kirkman approaches his hero in a way that's more commonly found in the books that Image puts out, that of a truly shitty anti-hero. Eric seduces his dead friends girl. He steals money from girls. He spies on girls in the shower. He runs from fights. But through it all, you really can't hate him. He knows that he's a bit of a sociopath and by the end of the book you can see that while it might never work, he's at least found a reason to try. It's a legitimately funny comic book, with Kirkman and Webster working together to put forward a book that's aware of it's precarious position in the Marvel universe. In a World War Hulk tie in, for example, Eric gets whooped on the outside, and then whooped again when he tried to damage the Hulk from the inside. Each issue is introduced by recap ant, a kind of narrator voice to catch up readers on what's happened. This is used rather frequently in books, but I've not seen it used to such a good effect.
I haven't mentioned the art here yet, which is something I'd be remiss to do. The characters, the colours, etc are all very well done. I particularly enjoyed the intricate panel design's that Hester uses to tell the story. It reminds me a lot of the work that Aja is doing on Hawkeye right now. Different panel sizes, locations, etc, allow Kirkman to spread his story out and fully utilize the page.
I'd highly recommend this book to comic fans. You don't need a background knowledge of the Marvel universe as it's a relatively self-contained book. Things that are going on around (Wolverine, the Civil War, M-Day, WWH) are breezily alluded to but aren't of such significance that you'll feel lost if you've never read another book.
