User blog comment:20thCentFopp/Ant-Man: The Zeitgeist Superhero/@comment-1458758-20131119153045

I recently saw the origin story for Hank Pym and it honestly seemed to be brilliant. Admittedly Hank was still kind of a dumbass, but he was decent, and the ending basically portrayed the idea that from that moment on he never knowingly harmed an ant because he owed his life to one.

The problem with any comic character is that they are subject to the whims of the writer. So unless they are supposed to be consistently scummy, I would not take any one off action taken by a character to be indicative of their entire character.

Yes, the bipolar thing is a retcon and likely supposed to help explain all the BS his character has done over the years, but that to me actually references the wider issue with Hank Pym.

He is often taken to be "the Most human" of the Avengers, so often, when a writer wants to display an air of human weakness amongst these god like heroes, Hank Pym is their bitch. Any time a glaring flaw is needed, Hank Pym. Yes other heroes have had their flaws, many are arrogant, Iron Man is a recovering alcoholic and ol' Cap'n America is at times out of touch, but these traits are often used to endear the character to us, to show they are working through their problems and I find that's where Hank Pym always seems to fall short. The Writers never focus on how he deals with his issues, he just does it and that's that, so rather than him being a flawed person trying to be better he just ends up a massive tool who never improves and his egregious mistakes are forgotten in time for another writer.

I like the bipolar thing because what they displayed of his response to it, while certainly not the most mature action, was at least a response to his problem. He retreated and tried to cheer himself up. He has kept constant record of his own biological data to try and predict these turns of his personality and while certainly no excuse for what he's done, it's at least presenting the idea that Hank Pym is not idle or oblivious to his own shortcomings and again, while not the best reaction he could have had to the situation, at least it was something and not as cold and half-assed as his response to Korr's death in this issue.