Marvel heroes regularly face overwhelming odds. Spider-Man has had to take on the entire Sinister Six. The Fantastic Four have had to outwit Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds. And Thor’s opponents are quite literally gods and devils. However, all of these battles pale next to one hero who got beaten up by the entire Marvel Universe. Although he’s gone by many names – including Ant-Man, Giant Man, and Yellowjacket, Hank Pym once suffered a brutal beating by the universe – for one of the saddest reasons of all.
Fans who’ve followed Hank Pym’s exploits in the comics know that he’s had a Janet Van Dyne, destroying his personal life.
This last act has haunted Hank – both in the comic book and real world. While other superheroes have engaged in questionable, illegal, or downright evil acts, their behavior has always been forgiven and even erased, allowing them to be seen as heroes by the public. Not so with Hank. Although he was suffering from accidentally inhaling some mind-altering chemicals that caused him to become the violent Yellowjacket, by hitting Janet, Hank forever saddled himself with the label “wife beater.”
To Hank’s credit, he acknowledged his crime and tried to atone for it – he apologized to Janet, sought help, and later opened several domestic violence shelters in Janet’s name. When Janet was presumed dead, he even decided to honor her superhero identity by renaming himself “The Wasp.” During this time, he found himself in charge of a new team of “Mighty Avengers” and led them successfully against numerous foes, saving the world multiple times.
At one point, Hank conducted an experiment where he used his size-changing powers to grow large enough to enter the “Macroverse” and encounter the cosmic entity Eternity – the literal representation of all that is (and therefore the physical representation of the entire Marvel Universe). As Hank tried to speak with Eternity, however, the universe lashed out and punched Hank in the face. Shocked, Hank asked why the universe was beating him up – only for Eternity to start kicking him.
Why was Eternity behaving so violently? According to the entity, since Hank felt the rest of the universe had been beating him up all of his life, that was how Eternity would treat him. Moments later, however, Eternity offered Hank a helping hand and told him that, in actuality, he was not Hank’s enemy and that he actually owed Hank a great deal for all the times his Avengers had saved all of reality.
Eternity went on to claim that Hank was actually Earth’s “Scientist Supreme” – the one person so gifted in science that he could create miracles almost indistinguishable the magic created by Doctor Strange, Earth’s “Sorcerer Supreme.” When Hank protested that there were other people much smarter than him, Eternity acknowledged that while Reed Richards and Tony Stark were smarter than he was, their intellect was geared in directions other than Hank’s magical science.
Buoyed by this distinction, Hank recovered much more of his lost self esteem and went on to lead the Avengers on more successful missions. Although the trickster god Loki later claimed that he had been posing as Eternity the whole time and lied to Hank about the title, Hank continued to conduct himself as the “Scientist Supreme” – now seeing his ability to change size, open dimensional portals, talk to animals, and create artificial intelligences gave him a unique place among Marvel’s scientists.
Despite being one of the founding Avengers, Hank Pym has often been considered a Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk. This, coupled with his unfortunate reputation as an abusive husband, has relegated him to a much lower status than many Marvel heroes (although Michael Douglas’ performance as Hank in the Ant-Man movies may have done much to raise his popularity). Given all of this, it’s understandable that Hank would feel the universe was against him – which is why it was so gratifying for him to realize this was never the case at all.
