“ANT: WHO SHE IS AND HOW SHE CAME TO BE!” Erik Larsen takes on a whole new wall-crawler! ANT’s epic adventure kicks off with this all-new origin issue! A new ongoing title by ERIK LARSEN.
What I thought
The tale opens on a young Hannah Washington, the eponymous Ant as a child. She draws herself as she will be with a degree of prescience that is both creepy and unnerving. Her father meanwhile is working for a very shady organization. In her community she is bullied by Carrie, who causes her to be hit by a car. Years later she stumbles upon her father’s assistant murdered in an alley and gets beat up by an even larger and angrier Carrie. Her father is promptly fired from his shady job but takes with him the experimental bioweapon they were working on. At home he is shocked by his battered daughter right as their house is burned down. The quick thinking father injects himself and Hannah hoping to save their lives. He is shot however but her powers are activated. Killing their attacker she rescues her father from the fire and flees into the night. After a full transformation she awakens in the morning to her father’s shady boss offering an outstretched hand.
Where do I start? I enjoyed this book from start to finish. The more chronological approach made it more accessible and easily understood. The original series went to some weird and inconsistent places back in the day.
At the end of the issue Larsen gives a mighty long exposition on how he arrived at owning the ANT brand from creator Mario Gully. That alone is worth the cover price! The inconsistency in the original series and the later re-launches makes far more sense in this new context.
Larsen has always had a very Jack Kirby similar style to his art and as such it doesn’t always go with every story. His work on Savage Dragon is hands down the best art of his illustrious career. Mario Gully’s curvaceous and voluptuous Ant and her hyper sexualized depiction has been toned down quite a bit. Instead of poses meant to titillate male fans instead Larsen opts for a more tasteful and purposeful depiction. Her mixed racial composition is present in the color of her eyes and the lighter shade of brown that is her skin and the texture of her hair. Adult Ant meanwhile is action heavy, stylized and not detracting from the story. I like it allot! It’s different enough but faithful enough that I am down for wherever Larsen takes this! Larsen+Ant=Awesome!
Ant #1 is balls to the wall fun! and A great start for a fantastic character! I give it 3/5 stars
