Astonishing Ant-Man #3 Review: Dream Team
By Nick Tylwalk
Sometimes team-ups just work. It doesn’t even take five pages of Astonishing Ant-Man #3 to know that the combination of Scott Lang and Sam Wilson is gold, in terms of both comedy and excitement.
It certainly helps that Nick Spencer is currently writing the adventures of both men, so there’s no need to worry about them sounding “right” when they end up together. Their missions even overlap somewhat naturally, with Captain America chasing a lead to the Miami area that gives him the idea of calling on the city’s resident hero for assistance.
The thing is, Ant-Man isn’t feeling particularly heroic at the moment, and so we get a bit of Scott laying his problems on Sam and inadvertantly insulting him before we get down to business. There’s also a nice sequence that sees Cap interact with the superb supporting cast that has been built up in this book, leading to a great pay-off when Lang realizes Wilson isn’t nearly as by the book as he first figures.
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Ramon Rosanas’ style turns out to be just fine for this Cap too. There’s something about all the details in Sam’s current costume that can be a little distracting, for lack of a better word, but Rosanas just makes everything look so smooth that they end up looking good. Cap’s goggles and wings, especially, have possible never looked so natural.
After the team-up business, Spencer and Rosanas give us an extended scene that shows the competition between super villains is just getting started. It seems like Marvel is dedicated to showing that super-crime isn’t the exclusive domain of New York City — witness recent events in Invincible Iron Man as well — and all of a sudden, Miami is getting even hotter for Ant-Man than he may have figured.
But hey, at least he can always call on Captain America for help should he need it again. He’s welcome back in this book any time.
SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT!
Three Things to Ponder
- I’m not sure about Machinesmith, but I’ll be bummed if Grizzly ends up choosing to side with the bad guys when crunch time finally rolls around, won’t you?
- All of you who figured that the cargo everyone is after is a Giganto, please raise your hands. Now everyone put your hands down, because there’s no way you figured that out. But is anyone really surprised this team would work a classic Marvel monster into this arc too?
- Scott had to figure his one-night stand with a younger super villain would come back to haunt him, right?
Favorite Moment
There’s plenty of good stuff in this issue, but the comment by Sam wondering how Steve Rogers stands up sp straight all the time, followed by Machinesmith’s reaction to the thought of teaming up with Cap, wins the day.