Raz Malhotra

Origin

Raz Malhotra was a robotics genius who lost his job after Hank Pym declared war on A.I. He settled for a job as a gig economy geek squad IT consultant. He was hired by a man whom turned out to be the criminal known as Egghead. Egghead hoped to use Raz in programming his robot doubles of the Avengers he had created with stolen Pym Tech. Raz recognized it immediately and had his mind brainwashed by Egghead into helping. Hank Pym and Scott Lang tracked them down, shutting down the robot doubles and freeing Raz's mind. Egghead ended up giving him a 1 star review for his work, which got Raz fired, despite being written by a supervillain.

Seeing himself in Raz, Scott gifted the Giant Man suit to him with a note: "You can't do worse than I did."

Creation

Raz Malhorta was created by Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas and first appeared in Ant-Man Annual issue 1 (2015).

Major Story Arcs

Ant-Man Security Solutions

Raz was chasing Unicorn after he stole some money from an armored truck in San Francisco when he embarrassingly got tied up in the Golden Gate bridge. This alerted Wasp to the fact that Scott had given away one of Hank’s old suits. She chewed him out and forced him to head to California to fix this situation. Rather than take the suit away, Scott decides to train him to be a superhero.

While in San Francisco, the two are targeted by the Power Broker and his new scam, a gig-economy app, Hench, where henchman can sign up for gigs, as well as new powers and gear. Scott ends up inviting Raz to accompany him to Miami and join his security firm, Ant-Man Security Solutions, as an unpaid intern.

He gets swept up in a heist which Scott is forced to plan to save his daughter, Cassie. Using the Hench app to get her powers back, she was manipulated into breaking into Cross Technologies but got caught. They managed to save her, but Scott got caught and sent back to prison.

Secret Empire

Raz help The Ultimates complete the Abeona, ship design to travel outside the Omniverse. Blue Marvel later ask for his assistance to construct a Pym Particle Accelerator in order to anchor and reduce Infinaut to human size so he wouldn't destroy the Earth whiles coming into reality.

When he returned from space, he found Ant-Man Security Solutions closed and his boyfriend with a new guy in a new city. With no place to go, he crashed on Grizzly's couch. When he is finally kicked out, he gets a bus ticket and heads to his parent's house in Denver. By the time he makes it to Denver, Hydra's Captain America had made his move on the United States. When he reaches out to Scott for answers, Scott flies from Las Vegas to recruit him for the Underground.

War of Realms

When Malekith leads an army made up of soldiers from all the different realms to take Midgard, Freya rallies the heroes of Earth to fight back. The Frost Giants are able to take over Florida, so Freya enlists Raz for a group of Giant Men (the new Goliath, Atlas, and leader Scott Lang) into enemy territory, disguised as Frost Giants, and defeat Ymir, the father of the Frost Giants.

It turns out Moonstone had enslaved a number of Florida women into handmaidens so she could torture and take advantage of Ymir. They have been carving pieces off his frozen body to create new Frost Giants in exchange for being left alone in the new world order. Just then one of the handmaidens reveals herself to be Cassie in her Stinger gear ready to liberate the rest of the slaves.

Together, they convince Moonstone to end her madness, but as they discus how to finish off Ymir, Raz makes an executive decision to let him go. He was a victim of Moonstone and left the realm without argument.

Agent of Atlas

Raz was giving a guest lecture at the Pan Asian School for the Unusually Gifted in Mumbai when a portal opened up. It was connected to Pan City, which was connected to a number of other large Asian population centers. This brings Raz into the new Agents of Atlas team, a collection of the best heroes of Asian descent.

Seeing the potential of Pan City, Raz joined the Agents of Atlas in volunteering to protect it from the dragons it seemed to be attracting. Raz would end up growing closer to Pan City’s official protector, Isaac Ikeda. They eventually learn that Pan City is powered by a kidnapped Atlantean dragon that is tortured for its power. All the dragons they have been fighting are actually attempting to rescue it.

When they released the dragon back to Atlantis, Pan City founder Mike Nguyen sabotaged the dragon with an explosive. Nguyen was working with the Sirenas, rivals of the Atlanteans, to bait Namor into declaring war.

Raz stands by Amadeus Cho in his attempts to quell the tension.

Powers and Abilities

Intellect: Raz is highly educated. His expertise is in artificial intelligence, robotics, and a bit of biochemistry. However, he is often just using it in I.T. support.

Size Changing: Raz uses Hank Pym's Giant Man suit to normally increase his size and, with it, his strength.