Last month I wrote about five heroes who should have movies instead of Ant-Man. (To try this at home, just choose five random heroes and make sure none of them are Ant-Man.) Legions of inexplicable Ant-fans descended to explain how I was “no true comics fan”. Even though I’ve read more material on metahumans than Nick Fury, and am also paid to analyze them for weaknesses. With the advantage that my house doesn’t blow up, fall out of the sky, and sink every week.

This actually counts as a good day for SHIELD because it’s not impacting New York.

Superhero battles are simply fun, even when they’re just between fans, so I’m responding to these Ant-agonists.

“Ant-Man was a founding member of the Avengers!”

So was Wasp. Where’s her movie? And there’s nothing less sacred than a Marvel origin. It’s been retold more often than stories of Canadian girlfriends, and less faithfully, probably because the original story also included the Hulk pretending to be a clown robot.

Things aren’t automatically good because they were there first

Besides, the Avengers were first assembled by the strict criteria of “whoever was in radio range the Nth time Hulk lost his shit”, and even then Hulk got to be on the team despite being the entire crisis. It’s just a shame the signal didn’t call in U.S.1. Then we’d have a much better movie.

I am not kidding even a little bit

“Getting small is really useful!”

Getting small is really useful if you’re the Atom, who can shrink to the atomic level and has the physics and chemistry knowledge to do things down there. Hank hits insect size — small enough to lose a fight, big enough to still be noticed by people in that fight — and his specialty is biochemical research. Meaning knows the names of all the species which can’t normally defeat humans, and can describe exactly how he’s dying of the wounds they inflicted.

“Ant-Man has other benefits beyond shrinking – he’s also a genius!”

A genius on a team which already had Tony Stark (genius, constantly building new inventions and armored suits) and Bruce Banner (genius, indestructible gamma monster). Between them they cover the entire scientific spectrum of hubris, ethics, accidents and ideals of nobility. Hank Pym (genius, much better at hiding) isn’t an essential character, he’s poor writing and ability replication. Besides, his entire plan as a founding Avenger was becoming the size of an ant and moving towards a rampaging Hulk. That’s the exact opposite of genius.

“He’s more than just Ant-Man!”

Yes, he’s also been Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, and Wasp, because nothing says “popular character” like “constantly changing between synonyms in the hope you can trick people into liking you.” Yellowjacket! You’ve got to be fairly crap when you try changing your name to a predatory wasp golfer.

“It’s not just Hank Pym!”

No, it’s not, and no, the others aren’t better.

“All the heroes written back then were white males, so we just have to keep going with them now.”

When I think of the wonder of heroic fiction, I don’t think “inductive racism”.

“The movie will be great!”

Yep! That’s why I didn’t say a single thing about it, just the choice of character. Edgar Wright could direct my execution and my only regret would be not being able to watch.

“You need Ant-Man to justify the existence of Ultron.”

If we had to introduce a new hero every time the Avengers were attacked by an evil killer robot there wouldn’t be anybody left to defend. Earth would be seven billion superheroes and surrounded by giant black and yellow warning signs on every evil conquerer’s map of the galaxy.

Ant-Man can be good. He was great in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, because everyone was great in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. A good writer can save anyone. I’d just like to see cooler characters.

Any other heroes you’d like to see? Or an ant-ithesis to any of my points? Post below and I’ll keep having fun by replying!

More superheroic overanalysis with

• An Infinity Of Alternate Batmen
• Why Cyclops Should Be The Best Boyfriend Of All Time
• The Worst Watchmen Ending Ever

The X-Men’s Cyclops is famous for being about as romantic as being shot in the face, even though he does the exact opposite every day. He’s as much fun to date as fossilized excrement, and the only reason he ever has relationships is “You’re both primary characters so get on with it”. His lack of lovability comes from his absolute dedication to training and improving his abilities, motivated by:

• Truly internalizing the fear that mutant powers could kill people at any second
• Shouldering the burden of leading mutantkind in a world which hates and fears them

You can see why he’s humorless. But the same factors should make him the best boyfriend of all time.

Being honest, this is more fun than most dates. (Source: Marvel)

Why? Because in most continuities his girlfriend is Jean Grey, most powerful psychic on the planet, frequent avatar of the Phoenix Force which could destroy everything ever, and single mutant most likely to kill all the people at any second. Which makes Scott our point man for

1. Being there for her when she needs to share her worries about losing control.
2. Knowing her so intimately that he can tell when she’s not sharing her worries about losing control, again, because she’s only an Omega-level mutant with the power destroy minds and planets, why on Earth would she warn people, of course she’ll just hold her forehead for a second and think “Oh it’s nothing, I’d better not tell anyone I’m about to psionically destroy everything again“.
3. Reminding her of her humanity through the power of love to save us when she starts psionically destroying everything again.

That’s three different ways he can save the world, and they’re all crippled by being colder than a broken robot. They’re primary characters in a relationship more predestined than Romeo & Juliet, and it often takes them years to even admit that they like each other. There’s no point in assembling an academy of mutant might to deal with threats to humanity when your strategy for dealing with psychic Armageddon is being too shy to bring it up.

It’ll also help with human-mutant relations. Phoenix and Dark Phoenix are the first time that both the good and evil versions of something have threatened to destroy the planet and been the same person. Jean Grey alone sets back sapien-superior peace by infinity years. In the series the metaracism might swing up and down in a sinewave of storyline-necessity, but no sane human would be okay with letting one person run around with the ability to end everything.

“So you’re saying she can destroy the planet sometimes, or destroy the minds of anyone she likes anytime?”

“Yes, but only when she’s under great stress.”

“So how do you deal with that?”

“Oh, you know, make her dress in skintight latex and take her places people are trying to kill her every week.”

“It’s not an ideal strategy.”

We know that it’s actually the Phoenix Force, and good luck explaining that to people who hate and fear you.

“It’s not her, it’s an incarnation of the omniversal creative spark energy which happens to be hosted by her. Basically a big cosmic force boy did it and ran away.” 

So if Scott Summers wants to dedicate his life to training to protect the world? Brilliant! That training should be romantic! He should be Casanova 9000! He should have doctorates in being the world’s greatest listener, psychologist, and lovemaker. His endless training in Danger Room sessions should focus on massage and advanced hand-holding, perfecting his ability to front-flip through open windows without spilling the poured glass of red wine while using his optic blasts to light the candles he’s covered the room with. Because if he can keep Jean Grey happy he’ll have done more to protect the planet than the X-Men and Avengers combined.

Indulge in more overanalysis with Why Tony Stark Is Earth’s Mightiest Hero, and 6 Reasons Iron Man Is Objectively Better Than Batman.