The Warrior's Madness (And the Worrier's)

I’ve been reading some old Thor comics recently. From the 90s. The same era that had “Adventures in Babysitting” with that kid who was obsessed with Marvel’s Thor and the mechanic who looked like Thor and was played by the Kingpin from the Netflix Daredevil show.

And I came across this one issue that’s basically that Avengers story where Hank Pym literally goes crazy and develops an alternate personality that hits his wife in a way that was supposed to seem accidental but didn’t really play like that. Except Thor’s in place of Pym. And he has an imaginary girlfriend instead of an alternate personality. And it definitely wasn’t accidental because the wife he hit was intended to be the first death before he murdered the entire cosmos. Which actually treads close to Thanos territory too, but Death was nebulously real in a way that only seemed reminiscent of an imaginary friend.

Where am I going with this? That one slap Pym gave his wife coloured his entire character for decades to the point where wife beating became a significant aspect of his reputation. And this panel, which evokes the Pym slap even as it outweighs it in a story that’s like a mythically enlarged version of Hank’s ordeal, just makes me wonder why that stain clung to Hank so stubbornly while it seems to have slid off Thor’s back too fast for his big red cape to notice.

On an unrelated note, when I was first getting into comics, the Avengers were on my periphery, but Hank Pym and Thor were usually near the top of my list in that team because I related to Pym’s neuroses and Thor’s shininess. I’m pretty sure that those qualities don’t have significant comorbidity with spousal abuse. I’ve had a lot of bad relationships, but that particular issue never came up.

Anyway, I haven’t finished this story at the time of this writing, but I’m assuming Thor moves on from this particular manifestation of madness as Hank did, and the positive message I’ll probably seek in that is the worth of being allowed to change for the better and progress beyond one’s mistakes.

And on another unrelated note, I think Hank and Jan were better as a couple than Thor and Sif. That latter pair were better with a fraternal relationship, but Pym and Wasp were adorable at their best.