Tales to Astonish #27

Review of 'The Man in the Ant Hill' only...

Henry Pym may be the only Marvel superhero that actually predates the Marvel Universe as we know it. In the early days, Marvel was still publishing the kind of science fiction and horror anthology titles that were a holdover from its days as Atlas Comics. One such comic was Tales to Astonish.

In this particular issue of Tales to Astonish we are introduced to scientist Henry Pym who invents two serums, one that will shrink things and another which will restore shrunken things (or perhaps grow things?). But when he tests the shrinking serum on himself, he stumbles out into the yard and is chased by ants, eventually cornered inside an anthill.

Overall there isn't anything other than the first appearance of Henry Pym to make this story particularly special. In fact, Pym's escape and return to normal size is accomplished through a series of the most incredible coincidences and fortunate circumstances that its really hard to see the guy as much of a hero - more like someone that bumbled into and out of trouble. On that level it doesn't even seem to work as a very good sci-fi story. Still, if it hadn't been for this tale, we would never have had one of the founding Avengers, so completists might want to search it out.