In this article we are going to briefly discuss one of the darkest comic book characters to ever hit the medium, Antman.

Unless you were a total comic book fan and bought everything that came into comic shops, and also unless you’re pretty old, you’ve probably never heard of Antman. He was as dark as he was weird. However, he existed.

Antman first came to life in Marvel Comic’s “Tales To Astonish” in 1961. He was created by the same person who gave us classic characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men, Stan Lee. The artwork was done by a gentleman named Jack Kirby.

Antman’s beginnings were actually pretty low-key. At first he was just a character in Tales, which was a sci-fi thriller. It was pretty typical of the kind of stuff that Marvel Comics produced in those days. But the comic was published right at a time when superheroes were back in fashion. Eight months after the release of Tales, Antman returned in a skin-tight suit with the ability to shrink to the size of an ant. That was his great weapon against the war on crime.

Antman’s real name was Henry Pym, a scientist who created and used the ability to change size. He also added a cybernetic helmet to his arsenal. This helmet could communicate with ants. No, that is not a misprint. Well, then it was a bit cheesy. This is an ability that he didn’t have in the first story. If he had, that story itself (especially the anthill part) wouldn’t have been as exciting.

As Antman, he battled such evil villains as Egghead, The Scarlet Beetle, and The Man with the Voice of Doom. He did all of this alone until finally, in June 1963, he teamed up with a female superhero named The Wasp. Later that year they met some soon to be quite famous characters like the Hulk, Iron Man and The Avengers.

Antman himself didn’t last long. Later in his career, Pym began to change his size in reverse and became Giant Man. A couple of years later, he lost his place in the Tales comic to The Sub-Mariner. Since then, Pym has gone by two other superhero names, Goliath and Yellowjacket. But this was only as a minor Avengers character. In 1969 he married Wasp, but they have since divorced.

However, in 1979, Antman tried to make a comeback. Scott Lang, who was an employee of Pym, borrowed the technology for the Antman costume for a personal emergency. He then used it to become the new Antman. Pym eventually gave him the costume to keep Antman’s legacy alive. Unfortunately, Antman’s resurrection lasted even less than the original series. He nowadays is occasionally seen as a supporting character of the Fantastic Four and even became a temporary member of the group when Mr. Fantastic was missing.

Antman never made a splash outside of the comics. Honestly, the character would probably be long forgotten if it wasn’t for his role in the founding of The Avengers and his association with the Wasp, who was a much stronger character. But for those of us who remember him, he was certainly one of a kind.