Ant-Man/Giant-Man, vol. 2: Ant-Man No More

Date Completed: 14 June, 2025

Grade: B-

This volume collects The Giant-Man portions of Tales to Astonish #60-69, Power Man #24-25, Black Goliath #1-5, Champions #11-13, Marvel Premiere #47-48, and a back-up story from Iron Man #44. Covering so many different books makes this appear to be another hodgepodge Epic volume on the surface. However, it actually breaks down easily into four different parts which chronicle some major changes for the Ant-Man and Giant-Man characters.

Part I are the Tales to Astonish issues. I've always had a soft spot for these shorter stories and the Marvel comics that put two heroes together in one book. I do think it is a little weird that these last issues were not in the first volume, since Marvel had crammed them all into a single volume for the Essentials line. Perhaps splitting them up is due to the extra cost of having them in color and trying to keep these volumes at a semi-reasonable price. Anyway, this issues are fine, but honestly a little boring. I think there was a reason Giant-Man lost his own book and was relegated to just being an Avenger: he works better in a group dynamic.

It's a little hard to follow what was happening in Giant-Man's career in the Avengers while also reading this book, so the second part maybe took place when he was on an Avengers hiatus? Anyway, I consider Part II to be the random Iron Man back up story (revisiting one of Ant-Man's strangest villains), and then the Marvel Feature issues. I have mixed feelings on this one. I really like the direction the story took with Pym being stuck at Ant-Size and the struggle to survive at that size. I wish they did a little more with that rather than just having him fight more and more villains. However, this series was narrated in the first person perspective, which I just hate in comics. Maybe not quite as much as I hate the second-person narration which also seemed to be an artistic trend in the late 60s/early 70s, but it still annoys me. 

Part III features the character Bill Foster (who was introduced in the Avengers as an assistant to Hank Pym) refining Pym's growth formula and using it himself to become Black Goliath. I thought it was a little weird that Bill Foster’s change into Goliath came in Luke Cage’s book (I guess because of their shared race and that being a focus in Luke Cage's book?), but I like that they took an established character and made more out of him. I wish this volume had some of Foster’s appearances from the Avengers in them (like issue #32 where he is introduced), but the Luke Cage issues did provide the necessary background (but gave him a different last name…). With Black Goliath established, we then get the Black Goliath mini series featuring Bill Foster as BG. I was pleased and surprised to see writer Chris Claremont take over in issue #2. This was his third year writing at Marvel, and one year into his famed X-Men run. The BG mini series was a fun, down to Earth story that worked for the character, but it went completely off the rails in the fifth issue. I won't bother to say why so as to avoid spoilers, but I did appreciate how some of the art was experimental for the time to really show off Goliath's size (such as the double-page spread in issue #4 where Goliath fights Stilt Man). While issue #5 does a poor job of ending the mini series, we get a better resolution with Goliath's appearance in the Champions (although Goliath plays a small part in the story). The Champions issues also feature early art from John Byrne! Despite some of the weirdness, I think the Black Goliath issues are the highlight of the book.

This leaves us with Part IV, which consists of the two issues of Marvel Premiere which introduce Scott Lang as the new Ant-Man. The two issues are a nice little story about how Lang turns from being a former criminal into a new Hero and his motivation for doing so. It's a shame we only get Lang for two issues in this volume: it seems like an afterthought and something better left for a third volume. But I admittedly don't know what could be in a third Ant-Man volume, as I recall Lang made a lot of appearances in Avengers and Fantastic Four, but I don't recall if he ever had is own series (and a quick poke around the internet didn't reveal much beyond a few small solo stories, but not enough to make a whole volume).

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