#in the weak nba joke at the start you'd have to pronounce it “yant man” which. i didnt sound it out until just now. really weak joke

[hautsreadsmarvel]

Giant-Man and the Wasp (1958, 3 issues)

Giant-Man is a really tortured ship name for Giannis Antetokounmpo x Anthony Edwards.

Going forward, in any issue of any series that features the Wasp, we will ignore all of Janet’s “stereotypical female only has looks and guys on the mind” quips. They are worthless page-filler and the comics with her in them should be cheaper as compensation.

"The Birth of Giant-Man!" (1958)

Oh ho hoh, that cover must’ve been really fun to draw. Of course these days you can just use separate layers in a digital art program and then run the eraser tool thru the one containing Ant-Man, but this was not drawn in the modern day.

Anyways, after developing pill versions of the enlarging and shrinking gases, Ant-Man indeed becomes Giant Man as promised by the cover. He apparently becomes unable to support his weight past 12 feet of height, but whatever, we have an alien from another universe going around “erasing” atomic scientists into his own dimension. The people of Dimension Z need human scientists to unlock the power of the atom, so Ant-Man and the Wasp rescue them. Standard fare villains, standard fare escape plot, standard fare dialogue - the only real positives out of this issue are the advent of Giant-Man and the wicked cool method of interdimensional travel showcased here.

Apparently Henry has heightened reflexes when Giant-size.

Also apparently these aliens exhibit more sense than Washington did in the first issue of F4 (remember how they fired a fucking nuclear missile over NYC to catch Johnny Storm? I sure do, and I’m never going to forget that).

“The Human Top!” (1958)

I went into this one expecting to be disappointed, ngl. A guy who can whirl? That’s your “Lee-Kirby marvel masterpiece!”? Oh, how pleasantly surprised I was. (Also, this one is our first real two-parter, hence the two cover images)

Our villain, David Cannon aka “the Human Top”, can spin really fast. It’s basically super-speed but fun to draw. His needling quippage is fun too.

And he’s realistic about his chance of defeat rather than having an unjustified ego? He’s a real cut above in the villain world.

Meanwhile Henry’s Giant-Man form is actually an inconvenience, so he has to train to make better use of it for anything other than brute strength or reaching high shelves.

Huh, as an aside, this is making me think about heroes with ego. I find it annoying when villains have an unfounded ego because there’s rarely anything to back it up, but when heroes have an unfounded ego it’s a good setup for them to take licks and meaningfully grow from those experiences. Spider-Man and Giant Man have that. I think part of the reason I don’t like the solo Human Torch stories that much is because his head is ridiculously swollen but nothing ever comes of it; sometimes he underestimates his foes, but it never really hampers him and nothing ever changes.

Hee hee hoo. Oh man, I love this villain. He’s even fun just to look at!

In the end, he gets caught when Giant Man deploys a trap for him, fencing off an entire neighborhood, striding across the rooftops, waiting for him to tire, and grabbing him w unguent-coated gloves. No asspull, no jobbing by the Human Top, just raw cleverness. Nice!