Jen's Herald

sum1

Actually, they did bring Tony's alcoholism into Iron Man 2.
Oh Jaysus, Alex is not going to like that.

PhoenixRising

sum1, if you tally up the entire history of the Avengers, Hank and Janet are still in more Avengers storylines and have been on the team longer than anyone other than Captain America and Iron Man. Yes, there were periods of time when they weren't on the team, but the same can be said of Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Thor, etc. The Hulk has had a minimal presence in the Avengers since the team's founding and is more known for being on The Defenders with Namor, Doctor Strange, and Silver Surfer than being an Avenger.

Okay, now you woke the beast. First of all, everything you wrote has nothing to do with why Hank and Janet were relegated to supporting status in the MCU. As I've stated numerous times, Joss Whedon himself said that he was basically forced to remove Hank and Janet from his original Avengers script because "Edgar had him first," which is a direct quote. I'd also add that Marvel/Disney had no issue with having Hank and Janet featured in their Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon which was aimed at children, so if they thought Hank was okay for a cartoon then there's no reason why he couldn't be used in the movies. The old Hank Pym you see on the screen was not created to be "family friendly," he was created by Edgar Wright as a sort of "Batman Beyond" version of Hank Pym to serve as a mentor to Scott Lang. But again, Edgar's script was never meant for MCU inclusion and he had no idea that the MCU would be made by the time his movie would go into production.

Also, as for Hank's past in the comics, I really wish that people like you would let that go because that was never Hank's fault to begin with. Hank was suffering the effects of a lab accident where a chemical spill caused the Pym particles in his body to become unstable, which resulted in the onset of neurological disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. This created the Yellowjacket alternate personality which claimed to have killed Hank Pym. Even after regaining his identity, Hank's mind still carried the effects of that accident, which caused him to descend into violent, unstable behavior that ended up getting him suspended from the Avengers pending a hearing on his actions. In an attempt to win his way back on the team, Hank planned a robot attack on the courthouse where the hearing was to take place, so he could save the day at the last minute and prove his worth to the team. When Janet saw that Hank had clearly lost his mind, she tried to stop him, and this is where things got messed up.

Jim Shooter, the writer for the Avengers, has said that Hank's mental breakdown storyline actually ended up selling more comics for the title. Shooter said he was getting a lot of hate mail from fans, but Stan Lee told him that he received similar mail when he wrote about Peter Parker's romantic troubles. When Lee asked how sales were doing, Shooter confirmed that Avengers sales had increased by 10,000 copies per issue and that fans cared passionately about what was happening with Hank and Janet as if they were real people. Stan Lee told him, "that's the key," and "don't worry about the mail."

Shooter has stated more times that I care to count that he wrote that scene with Hank flailing his arms about in an attempt to keep Janet away from him, and Janet was supposed to be accidentally struck by his arm when she got too close. But the artist who drew the panel, Bob Hall, who was new to the industry and had been taught by John Buscema to always go for the most extreme action possible, drew the scene as a back-handed slap. That was not the scene Shooter wanted, and it was impossible to correct it because they had a deadline and the issue had to go to print with no time to change the scene. So basically, Hank Pym's reputation got damaged because of a miscommunication between a writer and an artist, and I do not accept that Hank should be the one to suffer because of what was essentially a typo.

Also, the number of Marvel characters with checkered pasts reads like a laundry list. Chris Claremont, the creator of the Dark Phoenix saga for X-Men, killed off Jean Grey because he felt that after the things her character had done she was "irredeemable," having committed mass murder and genocide. Cyclops had often been the most ill-treated character in Marvel comics and has been unfairly bashed for numerous indiscretions, most recently his killing of Charles Xavier in Avengers vs. X-Men during the time he was possessed by the Phoenix Force. And the MCU doesn't seem to have a problem with wife-slapper Peter Parker, do they? Peter didn't just hit his wife, Mary Jane Watson, he back-fisted her clear across a room, leaving her with a bloody nose... oh, and did I mention she was pregnant at the time? This was during the Clone Saga, when The Jackal had tricked Peter into thinking that he was the Spider-Clone and that Ben Reilly, the actual Spider-Clone, was the real Peter Parker all along. Peter's rage at Ben was understandable, but Peter hitting Mary Jane as she tried to stop him from attacking Ben is still a black smear on his history... one that Marvel conveniently retconned with their "Brand New Day" storyline. So I really am tired of seeing this tired, overused, and irrelevant excuse being put out there. It's basically a giant Gordian knot that all of you keep staring at when the simplest and easiest thing to do is cut the damn knot in half and move on already.

Summer Falls

see i agree with the avengers side that is what i think will happen later on if they want to continue the avengers they will have people swap in and out.

When was antman movie released? did they have the right to use janat and hank?

side note i can watch this movie next week finally

madness

I really need to find the time to go watch this soon.

Summer Falls

i will finally watch it next week

sum1

Which is why none of those characters absolutely HAS to be in an Avengers movie. They can base a movie on a lineup of the Avengers that doesn't include a lot of the characters who are most commonly on the team or best known on the team.


Sure, but he was on the team briefly so that justifies them using him. Remember, the MCU movies and shows are expressly defined as taking place in a different reality from the comics. The comics are Earth-616. The MCU is Earth-199999. They don't have to match up. Sure they influence each other, but plenty things appear in the comics that don't appear in the movies and plenty things that are in the movies don't appear in the comics. And yes, Hank Pym can come back in the comics without appearing in the movies. My favorite Avenger, Hercules, has had a lot of page time in the comics in the past decade, without ever appearing in the movies.

The Ant Man movie was released in 2015 and yes they had the rights to Janet and Hank. Hank was in it, played by Michael Douglas as an old Hank Pym. The film wasn't by Edgar Wright. The Edgar Wright Ant Man movie was never made.

From what I gather Disney does intend to swap people in and out and change the Avengers roster in the movies. That's how they'll make the next phase of the MCU centre on Captain Marvel, as we've heard they'll do. Which is why I probably won't be much interested in the next phase of MCU movies. Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, is one of Marvel's worst ever major female characters. Which is probably why the company mostly ignored her in much of the '80s and '90s. She has a lot of fans and I don't get why. Marvel should give the Captain Marvel name back to Monica Rambeau, who was not only a much better character, but was black too and they need minority characters.

Summer Falls

oh that sucks i guess they wont change that storyline of the antman than

and yeah it would make sense for the MCU to go down the route next ..

to the captian marvel thing , i dont know much about her so i cant say much but i am excited to see her on the big screen . Do you think they will make her act similar to the comic version ?

madness

Hooray! I hope you enjoy it.

sum1

I don't have a clue.

meraki

I hope you will. It is a good movie.

YAY!

PhoenixRising

Hulk was only on the team for a year before leaving. Hank Pym as Giant-Man actually took over the duties of the team's resident strong man after The Hulk left. If Hulk being on the team briefly justifies using him, then Hank and Janet being on the team for 50 years justifies them being on the team even more, even if they weren't always there. Yes, Cap's Avengers briefly had him, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver(Cap's Kooky Quartet), but Hank, Janet, Thor, and Tony quickly returned and were the mainstays on the team throughout most of the late 60's and into the 70's and early 80's. Hank and Janet had left the team briefly, but then returned in West Coast Avengers in the 80's and remained on the team for most of the 90's and 2000's, well into the 21st century. Also, given that Hank and Janet are founding members of the Avengers and were on the team even before Captain America, and that Hank Pym is Ultron's creator, not Tony Stark, and that Janet Van Dyne is not only the first female Avenger, but is also the one who named the Avengers and was the leader of the Avengers after Captain America and is to this day the second longest-serving leader of the team, all justifies their being in the movies even more so. Hank is also the only Avenger who had five different identities while serving on the team - Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, and he briefly became The Wasp while Janet was trapped for a time in the Microverse.

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. The 2015 Ant-Man film was written by Edgar Wright. The script was altered significantly to fit it into the MCU, adding the backstory involving SHIELD and the scene where Scott Lang meets Falcon, all of which Edgar Wright did not want and he ended up quitting the production. Peyton Reed took over as director, but the story still remained mostly Edgar's. Making Hank Pym an old man was Edgar's idea, as his film was conceived years before the MCU was created and he had no idea that his film would ever be part of a cinematic universe. As I stated earlier, the reason that Joss Whedon was forced to remove Hank and Janet(who were originally in his Avengers script) and replace them with Hawkeye and Black Widow was because of Edgar Wright. That's taken from an actual quote from Joss Whedon.

And to answer the earlier question, yes, Marvel did have the rights to Hank and Janet along with Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, when they reacquired the rights from Artisan Entertainment, who had previously owned the rights to those characters. But the fact remains that 50 years of comics history has Hank and Janet in the Avengers, and 99% of Hank and Janet's story involves them being in the Avengers. The stories with Hank and Janet from Tales To Astonish in the early 60's is minimal at best. To take Hank and Janet out of the Avengers robs them of their entire story, and to have an MCU where Hank and Janet will never be in the Avengers is more than unfair, it's sacrilege. Especially having Hope Van Dyne be the Wasp in the MCU, a character with no history or legacy in the Avengers whatsoever. Each year that Hope is in the MCU, Janet's legacy is damaged because of a moviegoing audience who will over time start to forget about her in favor of Hope, a character who has no right to Janet's legacy and no business even being in these movies.

If Marvel is going to switch out characters over time, then I'm hoping that at some point Hank and Janet will get to be in the Avengers movies, and I really don't care how long that takes. And from what Kevin Feige has said, characters will also be recast further down the line, so don't think that you've seen the last of Iron Man or Captain America, and don't think that new actors won't one day be playing Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. But they can't sustain a discrepancy like having a young Hank and Janet in the comics and an old Hank and Janet in the movies because over time that's going to become confusing to audiences of both, not to mention it's unnecessary. Janet is the one who deserves to be remembered by movie audiences, not Hope, because Janet, as I've said before, is the one who has actually earned the right. If Marvel is going with Scott and Hope for the moment, fine. Allow the MCU in its current form to run its course until they get all this Edgar Wright stuff out of their system. But once that loses its relevance, they would be wise to get Hank and Janet into the MCU and in the Avengers asap and get rid of Scott and Hope if they don't want what happened to Hal Jordan in DC to happen to Hank and Janet.

sum1

I'm not saying there isn't justification for including Hank and Janet. I'm saying there's justification for NOT including them or any of the other well-known Avengers, because they all spent time off the team and a screen version of the Avengers can choose to pick from any of the various team lineups for its foundation material.

Hulk wasn't on the team for a year. He was on the team for two issues and then he quit. But him being a founding member justifies putting him on the team. There is justification for putting Hulk on the team or for not putting him on the team. Same goes for Hank and Janet, who spent a lot more time off the team than you indicate.

You seem very concerned about justification for Hank and Jan being on the team in the movies. I don't care about justification. It exists, it's obvious, but it's irrelevant, because there's also justificatrion for leaving out any or all of the most classic Avengers, because the lineup in the comics changed all the time and was often missing many or all of them. You don't have to base an Avengers movie on the classic Avengers. You can base it on Cap's Kooky Quartet or any other variation of the comic book Avengers roster.

Actually there was a lot more time in that that time period with various of those characters (Hank, Janet, Tony and Thor) off the team than you're acknowledging.

They spent plenty of time during all those periods being off the team, even if you count the spinoff West Coast Avengers, which I don't think you should unless you're talking about making a West Coast Avengers movie. The Avengers in these movies are based on the East Coast.

But they CAN sustain such a discrepancy and they've sustained such discrepancies before. You don't give the fans enough credit. They can sort out in their heads what's movies and what's comics. If what you said was true the comics and movies would match exactly, but they don't because they can sustain lots of discrepancy between them.

PhoenixRising

I'm only gonna reply to this part of your comment, sum1, because I think I've already established that Hank and Janet's history and storyline in the Avengers is far more extensive than almost any other Avengers character aside from Iron Man, Cap, and Thor. So excluding them from the Avengers in the MCU just to accommodate Edgar Wright's Avengers/MCU-incompatible Ant-Man script that was never meant for MCU inclusion, only to have Edgar Wright end up quitting the production, and Marvel Studios themselves admitting that the script, "just wasn't working" and "didn't fit" in the MCU, is total and completely unnecessary. There was no reason they couldn't have gotten Joss Whedon to re-write Edgar's script for Hank and Janet(since Edgar was gonna quit anyway) and use Hank and Janet in the Avengers movies(since Joss was gonna use them initially anyway). There was no need to re-write the entire Avengers storyline, replace Hank and Janet with Clint and Natasha(who really didn't fit into that movie), and make Tony Ultron's creator. That's asking Whedon to do a lot of unnecessary retooling to a story that's been around for a half century. Let's put it this way: if Deadpool goes back in time and does the same thing to Edgar Wright that he did to Ryan Reynolds in the post-credits scene of Deadpool 2, Hank and Janet would be in the Avengers movies. Oh, and in terms of Cap's Kooky Quartet, let me remind you that Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver got a lot more screen time in the Avengers movies than Hank and Janet have, which is zero.

But as far as discrepancies go, let me remind you of the mess that DC comics went through with the whole Hal Jordan/John Stewart thing. Hal Jordan had been the definitive Green Lantern all through the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Sure, Guy Garnder, John Stewart, and Kyle Raynor all had their time, but DC always went back to Hal, especially in the 2000's when sales of Green Lantern were dropping during the Kyle Raynor era, and once Hal Jordan was brought back, sales increased. But in terms of pop-culture, in terms of non-comic book fans who aren't familiar with the characters, having John Stewart in the Cartoon Network Justice League series did a lot of damage. When WB released their Hal Jordan-based Green Lantern movie, critics tore the film apart, but there were fans of the cartoon who actually accused DC and WB of racism, of whitewashing, and of making Green Lantern black because these were younger fans who didn't know much or anything at all about Hal Jordan, even though Hal had been featured in all of the Justice League/Superfriends cartoons that predated the 2000's.

DC had to do a lot of damage control by re-introducing Hal to new audiences, first by putting Hal alongside John in the newer Justice League cartoons, and then featuring Hal as the lone Green Lantern in their Justice League animated movies, such as JL: War, Doom, Crisis on Two Earths, Throne of Atlantis, and Flashpoint. The point is, movie audiences only know what they see on the screen, and if all they see is Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne, then that's all they'll know as Ant-Man and Wasp. Also, sum1, if what you're saying is true, then why was it necessary for Marvel to fuse Hank Pym with Ultron in the Rage of Ultron storyline, which coincidentally came out the same time as the Age of Ultron movie? You think that fusing Hank with Ultron into a Hank/Ultron cyborg and bringing Scott Lang back from the dead wasn't due to the MCU? You think they didn't do that to get Hank out of the way as an inconvenience?

Why even introduce the "Nadia Pym" character in the comics in the first place? That character did not exist prior to the 2015 Ant-Man film, but after that movie came out, all of a sudden this "Nadia Pym" character(whose first name is Russian for "Hope") comes out of nowhere, claiming to be the daughter of Hank Pym and a Russian scientist he knew before Janet. And now "Nadia" has become the new Wasp(even taking Janet's last name, which is ridiculous considering they're not even related), and Janet has to sit on the sidelines as yet another inconvenience? You think that isn't the result of the MCU character that Evangeline Lily is playing? One does have something to do with the other, sum1. I'm not just being paranoid. Heaven forbid Marvel confuses the movie audiences with a discrepancy such as a young Hank and Janet in the Avengers comics, but an old Hank and Janet in the movies who aren't in the Avengers. They gotta get Hank and Janet out of the way. Not only that, but Hank and Janet have also been removed from all Marvel media, including merchandising, and the cartoons, like Avengers Assemble. This is yet again the tail wagging the dog, something that I know you yourself have complained about with other Marvel characters when it comes to Hollywood. Why is it that the movies are under no obligation to stay faithful to the comics, but the comics are somehow obligated to rearrange themselves to accommodate Hollywood? I know you know what I'm talking about.

The fact remains that as long as Disney/Marvel wants to promote the MCU, Hank and Janet will continue to be pushed aside in the comics/cartoons because Scott and Hope are in the MCU. So logically, if fans want Hank and Janet back in the comics and cartoons, Scott and Hope have to go, because if one had nothing to do with the other, we wouldn't be seeing "Nadia Pym/Van Dyne" or "Pymtron" in the comics, would we?

sum1

Sure, dropping Hank and Janet from the movies for the reasons you stated was unjustified, but I can think of plenty of other, better reasons for dropping them from the movies. And I'm not sure those weren't factors, because I don't buy the official Edgar Wright/Joss Whedon explanation. I've learned by now not to trust what directors, studio execs, etc say about their films, because they so often lie. And I've particularly learned not to trust anything that comes out of Joss Whedon's mouth. I rate his statements up there with Loki's for trustworthiness.

Ah, but I've indicated I think there's justification for making an Avengers movie without Iron Man, Cap and Thor. As I've argued in previous posts in this discussion. And the same reasons would justify leaving out Hank and Jan.

Just because some things (or even lots of things) in the comics are influenced by the movies doesn't mean everything is and just because some things match up between them doesn't mean there isn't plenty of room for discrepancies. Many things in the comics have been influenced by the movies in the past two decades, but in so many things the comics have gone their own way.

And the point about Hal Jordan is that he eventually won his place back. Things are always going to come full circle in the comics, so there's no reason to get so worried.