a tale to astonish?
One potential good thing that might be coming out of the Marvel-Disney business: Ant-Man, by Edgar Wright and Pixar. Seems like pretty good match to me.
I’ve always kind of loved Ant-Man. Scientist Hank Pym, using improbable science, shrinks to a tiny size, and employs a special telepathic helmet to communicate with and direct armies of insects to fight crime. Great, wacky adventure in the Mighty Marvel Manner.
He grew out of a one-off horror science story Kirby and Lee wrote in Tales to Astonish back in the early sixties, and has always been there as a dependable background stalwart, though has never truly been an A-lister. He’s mostly been written that way, too – he’s heroic, but has always kind of had a self-esteem problem, feeling like he can’t quite keep up with the more colorful Avengers, and is sometimes kind of a dick about compensating for it. This plays out in his constantly trying out new sizes (he’s gone from microscopic to 30 feet high) and personas; he’s gone by Giant Man, Goliath, “Doctor Pym”, Yellowjacket, and Wasp over the years, depending on his stature and costume color.
Wright (of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead fame) has been working on an Ant-Man movie for years, though it’s never quite materialized. Maybe as a Pixar project with little more snark to the action, it just might work (especially given that the whole size-changing thing would be easier and cheaper with animation), embracing a bit of the character’s inherent silliness, but still telling a decent adventure story. I know I’d watch it.
