Avengerous Tales 1.32 - Avengers #59-#60

 

 

To read Avengerous Tales 1.31, go here! 

Hey kids, remember when this comic thought it was competent enough to have a discussion about racism?  Remember how well that went?  Well today they’re going to try to tackle mental illness!  Won’t that be fun?!!

***This review contains depictions and extensive discussions of emotional and physical abuse, a couple of brief scenes that could be interpreted as attempted sexual assault, and gross misrepresentation of schizophrenia.  If you’d prefer to avoid that, feel free to enjoy some adorable fanart while slamming canon’s fingers in the door.  Actually, you’ll probably want to do that anyway.

We open with a bunch of guys robbing a fur store.  The last time we saw that, the perpetrators were Maggia goons and their boss came up with the world’s stupidest retaliatory plan when the Avengers foiled the theft. This time, however, the crime is thwarted by a mysterious new hero named Yellowjacket who, in addition to potent stingers in his hands, possesses a very bad attitude.

Naturally, J. Jonah Jameson loves him already.

 

This has nothing to do with the rest of the story, I just like watching Spider-Man sass people.

But what of the Avengers?  Well, Hawkeye shoots stuff at Black Panther to pass the time while waiting for the group meeting to start.  (Don’t worry, he’s just testing weapons.)  The gang’s all here, all except Hank Pym that is.  This gives the other Avengers a chance to daydream while they wait for him—Hawkeye is worried if he’ll ever see the Black Widow again, Black Panther wonders if his fate is really with the Avengers or with helping Wakanda find its place on the world stage—until who should appear but Yellowjacket, who ties up Jarvis and asks to join the team.  Are we sure he isn’t just the Swordsman in a new costume?

Oh, and he also claims to have murdered Hank Pym.

 

You can tell he’s evil because he’s chewing gum.

Wasp, of course, faints at the news of Hank’s demise, so she misses Yellowjacket gloating about how he finished off the giant Avenger: he broke into Hank’s lab, knocking him out with a ceiling grate.

 

Um.

Hank wakes up (thankfully) and they tussle for a while.  The fight ends with Yellowjacket spraying Goliath with some kind of shrinking spray, and Ant-Man soon finds himself on the run from a spider.  That’s the last Yellowjacket saw of him, and you’ll notice that means that Yellowjacket didn’t actually kill Hank or see him die.  The Avengers notice that too, and they try to beat the truth out of him.

Yellowjacket, however, does what every other villain in Avengers’ history has done and kidnaps the Wasp.

 

First of all, hornets and yellowjackets are not the same thing.  This slip-up is especially surprising given Yellowjacket’s secret identity, but I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t already figured it out.  Second, of course hornet’s nests don’t look like that.  Hornets have better taste than to build with pink and orange plastic.  Third, talking about bugs for this long is literally giving me the creeps.  Moving on before I give myself nightmares.

 

Aaaand now I’ll have nightmares of something else entirely.  Fortunately, he comes to his senses before it gets much farther than this, and he tells her she’s free to go.

The Avengers, meanwhile, haven’t been sitting idle and follow the Wasp’s emergency signal to Yellowjacket’s Pimp My Treehouse.  Obviously they all want to take a crack at Yellowjacket but the Wasp stops them, proclaiming that she and Yellowjacket are going to be married.  Hurray for Stockholm Syndrome!

Don’t worry, though.  This is about to get SO much worse.

Issue Sixty—the first of 1969, if we’re going by cover dates, which we are—begins when Captain America receives an invitation to Yellowjacket and Jan’s wedding and rightfully flips out about it.  He heads to the Mansion to get the story from the other Avengers, who of course are just as much in the dark as he is.

 

That’s “corpus delicti.”  Also, you’re stupid.

From the five minutes of Googling I did (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), corpus delicti just means you need proof that a crime occurred before you can charge someone with committing it.  Well, guess what?  You have Yellowjacket waltzing into Avengers Mansion to tell you, in explicit detail, how he killed Goliath.  Given that it’s AVENGERS MANSION, I’m sure you have video or audio surveillance somewhere that caught said confession on tape.

In addition, because Yellowjacket’s confession was so thorough, you know a) that a random man in the street witnessed the fight and could therefore prove that said fight and accompanying property damage occurred, and b) the exact location the crime was committed—Hank Pym’s laboratory.  Considerable damage was done to the structure during their fight, and Hank is supposedly still there, trapped at ant-size.  So why don’t you idiots get off your keisters and do what you’re supposed to do and FIND THE CORPUS DELICTI FOR YOURSELVES???  What, are you all waiting for Hank Pym’s corpse to fall into your lap?  What are you people doing?!  Oh, that’s right, you’re doing NOTHING!

Yellowjacket and the Wasp soon arrive, and Jan provides an impressively weak explanation for why she’s marrying him: Hank always allowed her money and his work to come between them, he’s dead now anyway, might as well have some fun with the guy who kidnapped her and who she’s only known for a day!  Because even though they don’t have enough evidence to prove Hank is dead, hey, no evidence is good evidence.  And no, I don’t recall her money ever being an issue for Hank either.  Now they’re just making stuff up.

But of course, what would a superhero wedding be without a few, um, party crashers?

 

You may remember these clowns from their brief appearance in Avengers #22, but in this case, they just want revenge on Thor for not staying under the Ringmaster’s hypnosis long enough to do them any good (see Thor #147).  Incidentally, Thor never shows up to the wedding.  The comic claims that it’s because he’s busy battling the Silver Surfer, but I think Thor just saw the script for these issues and decided he wanted no part.

The Mansion quickly fills with genuine wedding guests, none of whom are aware that the caterers have been replaced with supervillains.  The comic makes a point of reassuring us they’re all drinking non-alcoholic beverages, which is weird because Nick Fury’s smoking like a chimney so I don’t know why they thought a couple glasses of champagne was somehow worse than a cigarette.

 

Oh I’ll bet Cap and Iron Man had some urgent business.  Also, the conversation between Hawkeye and Black Panther is actually a very serious problem I have with the Avengers, one that will only get worse as time goes on—that vow they made to each other in the early days about not prying into each other’s personal lives is all too often used as an excuse for them to ignore their teammates’ obvious distress.  Jan is marrying a man who CONFESSED TO THE MURDER OF HER FIANCE, and now she has the gall to get upset whenever someone dares to question her clearly sane and rational decision-making skills.  We haven’t even gotten to the worst part of this scenario yet, but the Avengers already have ample reason to bash both Jan and Yellowjacket over the head and lock them in separate rooms until they get to the bottom of things.

Hawkeye stomps off and accidentally walks in on the Circus of Crime.  They tie him up next to Jarvis (poor guy) before he can warn anyone of their plans.  What might those plans be?  Princess Python’s python was hidden in the wedding cake like the world’s ugliest stripper, and the second Jan tries to cut it, the python bursts out and tries to squeeze her to death.  Fortunately, the Vision and the Panther are on hand to save the day, but now they have the rest of the Circus of Crime to contend with.

The python from earlier recovers and tries to squish Jan again, much to Yellowjacket’s horror, but what does he do about it?  I’m sure at least some of you are not the least bit surprised to see this happen.

But wait!  There’s more!

After the Circus of Crime is defeated, we finally get an explanation for all this.

 

Hank was working in his lab late one night when his eyes beheld an eerie sight he accidentally spilled some untested chemicals, which triggered a schizophrenic episode.  Because he was thinking of Jan at the time of the accident, he decided that, if Hank Pym was so reluctant to marry her, he’d just get rid of Hank Pym and take on a new identity.
 

Got that?  Okay.  Let’s break this down.

First, it turns out accident induced schizophrenia is kind of a thing. I’m not sure if that’s the technical term, but that study I linked to shows that people who spent a lot of time working at Chernobyl were more likely to develop symptoms of schizophrenia than others.  Granted, it didn’t just pop up overnight, but that’s the LEAST of this comic’s problems.

In order to keep my complaints organized, I am ranking them from ‘standard comic book silliness’ to ‘if you don’t shiv the creators I will.’

1. Where did Hank get that ugly treehouse?  He’s not an architect.  He’s not an engineer.  He’s a freaking biochemist.

2. This wedding is ragingly, obviously, stupendously illegal.  Yellowjacket still has his mask on and hasn’t remembered/given us his real name yet.  Maybe the marriage laws in New York have changed since 1969, but nowadays you have to provide like five different IDs before you take your vows.  Even in a world where superheroes exist, I don’t think the county clerk is going to take it well if a masked man who refuses to identify himself waltzes in asking for a marriage license.  And if Yellowjacket harassed said clerk into issuing said license, well, that’s still not legal, now is it?

NO IT ISN’T YOU BIG FAT LIAR.  AND WHY ARE YOU REFERENCING SPIDER-MAN’S LINE?  YOU WEREN’T EVEN IN THAT SCENE.

3. Why did Jan keep this a secret?  There is exactly zero reason for her to not inform the others the second she figured out Yellowjacket and Hank were the same person.  What, was she waiting to spring it on them at the reception?  “Hey everyone, guess what?  Hank has schizophrenia and tried to kidnap me!  Hurray!”

4. Having schizophrenia does not absolve Hank of his crimes… assuming he even has it. 

WAIT DON’T KILL ME YET.  I have a theory.  Don’t know if it’s true or if I entirely buy it, but I think it’s worth mentioning.

I call it the Jekyll and Hyde theory (or the ‘Jacket and Hank theory—I’m still working on it).  We saw that Hank’s villainous behavior began pretty much instantaneously and very much unlike schizophrenia (see Point 6) after exposure to unspecified chemicals.  We’ve also seen that, in comic books, chemicals can do basically anything, from doling out superspeed to turning a guy to living stone to whatever else the writers felt like writing that day.  And, generally, people can’t control how the chemicals affect them.

I think there is a sound argument to be made here that the chemicals fundamentally altered Hank’s brain chemistry so that he is now subject to random bouts of violence which he genuinely has no control over.  It’d be like blaming Hawkeye for shooting all those dudes in the movie.  Sure it was wrong, but his brain was hijacked by something/someone else.  Yelling at him for it would be misguided.

Note that, even if this is what happened, it doesn’t mean there’s no need for justice.  Yellowjacket may not have killed Hank Pym (duh), but he tied up Jarvis and kidnapped Jan.  Just as Dr. Jekyll took responsibility for Mr. Hyde, so must Hank Pym take responsibility for Yellowjacket, though hopefully with less suicide.  If this theory is true, it just means Hank’s actions are more easily forgiven since he either didn’t know what he was doing or literally could not control himself.  It does NOT mean there is nothing to forgive, because of course there is.

HOWEVER.

The comic explicitly states Hank has schizophrenia.  This isn’t the cut-and-dried evidence I’d like it to be, since the comic has no idea what schizophrenia actually is (HINT: IT’S NOT MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES).  If Hank does indeed have schizophrenia, then odds are he knew exactly what he was doing and that it was wrong, in which case, I volunteer to be the first in line to kick him where it hurts.

I ranked all of this relatively low on my list of complaints because it’s up to Jarvis and Jan if they want to press charges, and given how lenient the Avengers tend to be when one of their own fouls up (remember how quick they forgave Jarvis for selling them out to Ultron?), I can’t imagine they’re going to be too hard on Hank.  Still, if we’re going by what I think should happen if Hank has schizophrenia, he and Jarvis and Jan would all be spending some quality time behind bars.

INTERMISSION: These complaints are long and are about to get nasty, so here, have a picture of Milagro Reyes showing us what a healthy relationship looks like.

 

END OF INTERMISSION

5. I hate to keep harping on this, but for the love of cheese, Hank was missing for almost two issues and not one of his teammates OR his fiancé took so much as an hour out of their precious schedules to go looking for him, even after learning he was in danger and possibly dead.  What kind of Avengers are you?  Hell, what kind of FRIENDS are you?  I think I know why Hank’s so attached to bugs now.  Bugs don’t suck half as hard as these selfish jerks.

6. I’m pretty sure Hank’s symptoms don’t match up with schizophrenia?  I imagine every case is different, and I’m no expert so if anyone out there actually knows what they’re talking about please let me know, but I guess the whole “if Hank won’t marry Jan I’ll get rid of Hank” thing can be some sort of delusion of persecution against himself?  Is that a thing?

Also, and this is important: people with schizophrenia are no more violent than anyone else.  They’re more likely to harm themselves than others.  I guess symbolically killing Hank Pym could be a form of self-harm, but he wouldn’t resort to kidnapping, and if he did, it would be because he’s an asshole, not because he has schizophrenia.   Like I said earlier, this whole thing seems sketchy to me.  Hank clearly has a problem of some sort, but at this stage, we don’t have enough information to determine what it is.

7. Assuming Hank has schizophrenia: while schizophrenia can potentially be caused by exposure to certain substances, that diagnosis is permanent.  You don’t just snap out of it.  There is no cure for schizophrenia.  Treatment, yes.  Cure, no.

Actually, wait: have they seen a doctor?  I wouldn’t have thought they’d have time, what with planning the wedding, but if they haven’t, then how come Jan said he has schizophrenia?  I doubt she was smart enough to figure it out on her own.  Did Hank diagnose himself?  He’s not a psychiatrist!  That just opens up even MORE questions!!

Bottom line, even if Hank seems okay right now, he isn’t.

8. Last but certainly not least, HANK PYM NEEDS SERIOUS MEDICAL AND PSYCHIATRIC HELP.  IS NO ONE GOING TO GET HANK PYM MEDICAL AND PSYCHIATRIC HELP?

When Jan realized Yellowjacket was Hank, she should have reacted with concern, anger, fear, or some combination thereof, and preferably also with a call to a damn hospital to get him some damn antipsychotics and a referral to a damn therapist.  But no!  Jan decides that the moment her fiancé develops a mental illness is also the moment she wants to get married!  Here, let me spell this out for you, since the comic apparently couldn’t figure it out on its own:

This is not okay.

This is not cute.

This is not romantic.

This is disgusting.

I am absolutely appalled that this comic would DARE to depict taking advantage of a loved one with an untreated mental illness as an adorable little twist to the end of a mystery story.  In no universe is Jan’s behavior acceptable—this is the kind of manipulative garbage I expect from Hitchcock villains who end up dying melodramatically.  She’d get like chased off a cliff or something, which really isn’t looking like that bad of an idea at the moment, let me tell you.

 

(I think we all need a puppy right about now.  You can borrow mine.)

Not even the fact that Hank was apparently genuine in his desire to marry Jan makes this better.  First of all, like I said, Hank committed actual crimes and still needs treatment for whatever-he-has before he reaches anything remotely resembling stability.  Second, he had a lot of doubts about marrying Jan—whether it was her money or his work or something else—and I’m sure he had reasons for harboring those doubts.  Whatever it was that stopped Hank from proposing did not magically vanish with Hank’s diagnosis, and it is something that they need to sit down and talk about as a couple.  What Jan has done here is decide that she doesn’t give a crap about Hank’s feelings, and that manipulating him when he’s vulnerable is an easy way to sidestep having to deal with them.  If anything, this comic implies that Hank’s illness solved all their problems and improved their lives.

Now please don’t take any of this to mean that people with schizophrenia can’t get married or be loved or have happy lives.  That is ridiculous.  If this comic had shown Hank acting a little off—not to the point of kidnapping, just not like himself—and Jan realizing he had a problem, putting her own desire to wed on hold, and supporting Hank through the treatment process, and if that all culminated in Hank’s condition improving and him marrying the love of his life in front of all their friends, I would be weeping with glee instead of outrage because that would be amazing.  That is not what happened here, and I have already explained why in excruciating detail.

Let me repeat, THIS IS NOT OKAY.  THIS IS HORRIFYING.  Jan is an inexcusably terrible person, Hank might be too depending on which theory you subscribe to, and the other Avengers are complicit in all this because not one of them so much as a) asks Hank if he’s alright—which, again, he is not—or b) asks Jan if she’s sure that marrying her kidnapper is a good idea.

TL;DR Fuck this comic and everyone in it.

 

Here, have another puppy.

To read Avengerous Tales 1.33, go here!

Images from Avengers #59, Avengers #60, Booster Gold #25 and my camera phone