Ant-Man meets a worthy opponent in the The Hijacker, a supervillain interested in building a personal armory. When Ant-Man fails to save the day, who has he disappointed? A humbling moment for one of Marvel's mightiest heroes.
Story Titles
The Day Ant-Man Failed!
The issue starts off with Henry Pym explaining to himself that he has altered his gas mask with unstable molecules (don’t tell Reed Richards), so it now adjusts to the size of the wearers head. Seemingly unaware that it already did that the last 5 issues.
Meanwhile, this issues plot begins in which we learn that The Hijacker is hijacking Howard Mitchell’s armored cars and leaving no clues. So of course he decides that Ant-Man is the only one clever enough to catch The Hijacker.
Luckily, for Howard, ants are on his windowsill and relay said information to none other than Hank Pym. Who then releases his shrinking gas (which incidentally works just like it did before. Except instead of fumes, it’s now a gas – yay for science) and becomes Ant-Man.
Ant-Man then enters his electronic catapult (which looks and works like a mini-cannon) and shoots himself to Howard Mitchell’s office. This time, he ends up overshooting the pile the ants that usually cushion his fall and is about to crash, helmet first into the wall of the office, but luckily a couple of ants take one for the team as they use their bodies to shield his impact.
Ant-Man then talks to Howard Mitchell who explains how his armored trucks get stolen and no clues are left behind. We also then learn that it seems only his armored trucks are the ones being stolen (hmm). He then asks Ant-Man for his help. Ant-Man agrees to help. However, Ant-Man notices a collection of Incan statues in the office. When Ant-Man asks Howard about them, he replies how he spent some time with Indians of the jungle in Peru, but how it’s unimportant (double hmmm).
The next day, on the next shipment, Ant-Man plans to tag along in hopes of ambushing The Hijacker. But before he can join the guards on the shipment, Ant-Man suddenly groans in pain. It seems he has appendicitis and must hurry to get to the doctor before it ruptures and so of course speeds off on his ant-mobile.
The guards drive off, but are soon blocked by a moving van in the middle of the road. Suddenly the back doors of the moving van open to reveal a giant magnet that draws the armored truck like a tractor beam into the back of the moving van. Once inside the moving van, The Hijacker shows himself and shoots some green gas at the armored truck, rendering the guards unconscious.
The Hijacker then proceeds to blowtorch his way into the armored truck, but is stopped by the appearance of…Ant-Man (like you didn’t know). It seems, the devilishly clever Ant-Man only pretended to have appendicitis to make The Hijacker think he wouldn’t show up. You see, after Ant-Man left on his ant-mobile, instead of going to the doctors, he instead went to nearby alley where he had a simple catapult set up (made out of wood and a rubber band) and shot himself to a nearby roof where (lo and behold) he had a gassed up model plane ready and waiting. He then followed the armored truck and landed on the it, then donned a gas mask he invented (as if he already knew what would happen, hmmm).
After this bit of flashbacking, we return to The Hijacker attempting to blowtorch his way thru Ant-Man. Ant-Man then tries to escape by entering the armored truck and narrowly escapes The Hijackers attacks of ‘starting the bloody truck’. As Ant-Man narrowly avoids being crushed by the turning of the ignition key, the vibrations of the engine and then the honking of the horn ( he ain’t). However, Ant-Man is able to disable the horn just before he succumbed to bursting of eardrums and before The Hijacker can nab Ant-Man, Ant-Man rushes to the windshield wipers because he commanded ants to turn on the windshield wipers allowing him to leap onto The Hijacker mask, where Ant-Man rips it open causing The Hijacker to succumb to his own gas (which apparently is still lingering and doesn’t affect ants). It is then revealed that The Hijacker is none other that (drum roll please) Howard Mitchell.
After Mitchell is arrested, Ant-Man explains that he knew that the Indians in the jungle of had a vapor that causes memory loss (though not unconsciousness, but let’s not get picky now) and figured that’s what Mitchell learned and used. As for why Mitchell would even want to have Ant-Man involved is explained in that Mitchell figured that it would throw off suspicion from him. Apparently, he didn’t think his clever plan thru.
Upon which Ant-Man rides off in his ant-mobile.
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