Today's Lunchtime Reading West Coast Avengers 36 Return of the Ant-Man

West Coast Avengers 36 Return of the Ant-Man

Published: September 10th, 1988

Writer: Steve Englehart Penciler: Al Milgrom

Cover Artist: Al Milgrom

The West Coast Avengers head back to Hungary. They face Quicksilver again, who is now allied with The Voice.

The Voice forces Henry Pym to run through a gauntlet at Hungary's Super Human Research Complex, hunted by the other Avengers. Since it's his Tales To Astonish arc, Pym does well against the other Avengers with his miniaturized arsenal. Best KO: enlarging a floating video camera to crush the Scarlet Witch. Another good move is shrinking the braces that hold Mockingbird's staves. 

Pym is aided by Khonshu, who has become dominant in Moon Knight's body. He isn't actively helping since he doesn't want to give away the fact that he's an actual god living in Moon Knight, but he does misdirect Tigra.

Pym is lucky enough to not bump into Wonder Man before getting to his end goal, which is his thought-to-be-dead first wife, Maria. She's got a big brain now.

 

She says that after her father's death, the Hungarian Communists tried to force her to continue his work. When she refused, they used the device that makes the Beasts of Berlin into super-smart apes on her. But they've kept her heavily drugged to avoid a repeat of what happened when AIM created MODOK (he took over their organization). It's said that her super-brain was used in the creation of the Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and the Red Guardian.

At that point, the Avengers close in on Pym, but he appeals to Maria and gets her to use her super-brain to stop the Voice from controlling them. All the bad guys are rounded up and Maria shuts down their powers. And Pym decides to quit the Avengers to work full time on restoring his wife. Hank and Janet also come to the conclusion that since Hank's first wife was never really dead, they were never really married and so they never got divorced.

 

But for now, that sort of settles things between Jan and Hank (although it's not like it erases the history between them!). And Vision and Scarlet Witch remind us that they are still lovey dovey. But Mockingbird announces that she and Hawkeye are splitting up.