Comic Shop On The Block: Irredeemable Ant-Man #1-#2

The shop is open once again guys, so what is good.  In this installment of the Comic Shop we’ll be digging a little into something that I’ve been trying to avoid. We’re gonna talk about the new guy, Eric O’Grady. I am a Ant-Man fan, more so a Hank Pym fan, and when this series first came out I was a little reluctant to read it. And then when I heard the upcoming Ant-Man movie was gonna be based off of another Ant-Man besides Hank, I decided to finally sit down and get into it. So I started with Eric.

Honestly, I actually like the dude. So if you are expecting a origin story of normal standards, how someone takes up the mantle of a hero in time of crisis and turmoil…. This ain’t it. Eric actually earns his title from day one “The Most Unlikable Hero” . You think it would be a joke, but nope. So Eric O’Grady is one of many low level S.H.I.E.L.D agents, I honestly don’t know how he made the cut but he did. It was actually not even Eric that was suppose to be in the suit, Hank being retired after all of the craziness that has happened in his life, starts up an Ant-Man project with S.H.I.E.L.D to find someone to take his place and help out the Avengers. But it all goes south when it hits the fan and Hydra attacks. In the fray they attempt to get the suit out of there and Eric’s friend and fellow S.H.I.E.L.D guard puts it on.It fit for him because he was one of the guys chosen already to have the suit.  But they kinda stuffed Hank in a broom closet trying to get him out of the way. But as they are getting out of dodge his friend takes a shot to the head. Yeah, it just got there. So Eric takes the suit off of his friend’s dead body, and gets out.

Okay, sounds dynamic right, you haven’t scratched the surface. So He makes it, but he has to kinda deal with his best friend being dead, him wanted for stealing the Ant-Man armor and having to figure out what to do with all of this power he has just obtained. What would any guy really do  with a suit that allows him to shrink to a size where he can’t be seen? Spy on girls of course, I told you he lives up to his title. He really does not care how he acts or what people think about his “methods” of his path to becoming a hero. He knows he makes constant mistakes but he owns up to and learns from them, he had sex with his best friend’s fiance on his grave for god sake. His best friend is a retired villain and he permanently scarred the man who was asked to retrieve the suit.

But with all of his epic failures at being Ant-Man, I can say that there is nobody else who could pick up where Hank left off. We gotta see past the first, second, third, eighteenth impression someone makes and as Capt. saw something in him to recruit Eric into the Secret Avengers later on, but these first two books setup his entire journey for the most unlikable hero in the Marvel Roster .