Writer: Nick Spencer / Artists: Brent Schoonover, Ramon Rosanas / Marvel Comics
Y’all wanna know why Ant-Man is the most underrated book? Y’all wanna know why Nick Spencer and Roman Rosanas’ character depth for Scott Lang is top notch? This creative team continues to go left with the MVP Everyman of Marvel. We usually get takes on heroes being brilliant and getting out of jams, avoiding having to take serious hits in their life, or just skating by obstacles in the personal life or hero life. We don’t have that with Scott Lang. For two volumes we’ve seen Scott Lang try and be and do better with his life while plowing into obstacles. If this was an Olympic race, Scott is doing the 400 meter high hurdles and nailing each hurdle while everyone blows by him, but the hook is that Scott is still smiling and just running his race no matter how many times he falls.
This is the beauty of the Ant-Man series. We’ve been seeing Scott Lang use his charm and cunning more than his super powers for the most part. We’ve seen him navigating through so much shit and pyrrhic victories that life has been throwing at him. Scott’s Lang greatest ability doesn’t lie within the Pym particles, it’s his willingness to fall on the sword to protect folks, especially his child Cassie. Which is exactly what has him back in prison and now on trial for breaking into Cross Industries.
We get a special guest appearance from Jen Walters representing Scott in his trial (this has to be before her involvement in Civil War II). Things are looking smooth for Scott until the prosecution shows up. The prosecutor turns out to be Janice Lincoln aka The Beetle aka The woman who was involved in the very same heist Scott is on trial for plus his latest romantic interest of sorts. Fam, when Scott breaks the news about this shit to She-Hulk she gets fed the fuck up immediately. The easy thing would be to call for a mistrial but Scott has his reasons for not wanting to do that, which again require him to fall on the sword. Janice’s reason for doing this to Scott is in no short way entirely fucked up, especially considering what he has been going through and you know.. being the fuck in jail.
Another portion of the series deals with Darren Cross getting Dr. Egghead back into the fold to help his son and gain vengeance on Scott Lang. Dr. Egghead is NOT with the shits until Cross shows him something in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody that belongs to Scott that is of peak interest as it links back directly to Hank Pym. Dude, Spencer is merciless because Scott can not fucking win, man. I ain’t ever seen a superhero suffer this many “L’s” in their own series like this before. This shit is a sadtire right here, this shit is dramaedy, man.
Brent Schoonover hops on the track and joins Roman Rosanas on the artwork. You can tell the distinct differences between the two’s work. It was a good combination, they worked well together to display the different tones and feels running rampant through this book. From Scott’s look of “Wtf?” at Janice to Cross’ turn from mourning over his son to straight up power lust and greed. I also gotta say, I’m always going to be biased toward Roman Rosanas’ work because, much like David Aja’s, I can pick it out of a line up anywhere, plus I’m always going to see this series as the successor (on its own terms) to Fraction and Aja’s Hawkeye.
This is the 12th issue in the second volume where this creative team has given you nothing but fucking flames man. I dunno what more you want me to do or say cause I’ve been telling you for almost a year and some change that this is a book you should be reading right now, and ain’t a damn thing change about that.
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