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Tales to Astonish Vol 1 54

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I feel like a character in an Ian Fleming novel.

—Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)

Appearing in "No Place To Hide!"

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  • Passenger jet
  • Rio Express

Synopsis for "No Place To Hide!"

Watching the Huntley-Brinkley Report, Giant-Man learns that the nation of Santo Rico has just elected El Toro as their new president. The report notes that, even though the nation of Santo Rico is a democratic nation, the communist-backed El Toro won by a landslide.

Giant-Man is interrupted by the Wasp, who demands that they plan a vacation, to which Giant-Man declines because he's far too busy. Wasp provokes a brief tussle between the two, so that Giant-Man will get so mixed-up that the next time she suggests a vacation he'll agree before he knows what he's doing.

Soon afterwards, the two heroes are bombarded by a surprise visit by their fan club. After hosting them for a brief period, they get a phone call from Washington, D.C. asking them for assistance, and Giant-Man shoos his fan club out of his lab. They elude their insistent fans by shrinking down to ant size to leave the premises.

In Washington a few hours later, government representatives ask them to go to Santo Rico to find proof that El Toro rigged the election. Accepting the mission, the two heroes travel to Santo Rico in their civilian guises of Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne. Arriving there, Pym trusts Janet with the size-changing capsules. Noticing the armed troops everywhere, the pair realize that the country now looks like a real police state. As they arrive at their hotel, they are noticed by a member of the secret police who thinks they look suspicious and reports them to El Toro who, figuring them to be American spies, orders them to be seized.

When the soldiers come to arrest the two heroes, they grab Janet first, but not before she can toss Henry a growth capsule. After racing around a nearby building, Henry drops his outer clothing and swallows the capsule to become Giant-Man who then tries to rescue Janet. However, his attempt is thwarted when he is rammed from behind and knocked down by El Toro himself.

Struggling to his feet, Giant-Man vows to rescue Janet, but finds himself an easy target when El Toro orders his death and he is stuck at giant size. Smashing through the city to get away from guards, Giant-Man escapes by following railroad tracks to open country, but when an oncoming train forces him to jump aboard in order to avoid being hit, Giant-Man finds it taking him back to the capital city. Fortunately, by this time night is falling, giving Giant-Man hope that he can find a hiding place.

Later, using the darkness as cover, Giant-Man retrieves his cybernetic communicator and uses it to create a network of ants who are all commanded to locate the Wasp. When one finally finds her on a ship anchored off the coast, "Ant-Man" is alerted and, just before dawn breaks, Giant-Man uses speed boats as water skis in order to reach the ship and rescue Janet. Regaining the size capsules and freeing the Wasp, the two heroes shrink to ant-size and hitch a ride on Janet's guards as they go to El Toro to report her escape.

Arriving in El Toro's office, Giant-Man and Wasp let their presence be known, and El Toro attacks them. Giant-Man easily defeats El Toro who ends up hanging helplessly from a flagpole above the city square while the Wasp finds documents proving that the election was rigged by communist backers. Giant-Man tosses the papers down to the crowd of onlookers who are enraged to learn that El Toro cheated them because he won the election using votes that had been bought and paid for by the Reds. The crowd denounces El Toro as a tyrant and a traitor, and depose him, vowing to hold a new election.

Two days later, after returning to America, Giant-Man and the Wasp are congratulated for freeing Santo Rico from communist tyranny. Later, Giant-Man states that he's had enough traveling around to last him for years, but the Wasp is still trying to decide where they should go for their vacation.

Appearing in "The Treasure"

Reprint of the 2nd story from
Uncanny Tales #36

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Synopsis for "The Treasure"

Reprint of the 2nd story from
Uncanny Tales #36
A sick boy takes comfort from a stray dog that grants wishes.

Appearing in "There Were Five Frightened Men"

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Synopsis for "There Were Five Frightened Men"

Notorious art thief and swindler Victor Conrad steals his last painting. To his eternal torment, when he takes a portrait entitled "Five Frightened Men", he finds the portrait absorbs people who take possession of the portrait and puts their terrified image on the portrait!

Appearing in "Conquest!"

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  • Tommy (First appearance)
  • Tommy's mother (Mentioned)
  • King Shann (First appearance)

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Synopsis for "Conquest!"

Getting a phone call from Henry Pym to go out on a date, the Wasp has to decline, because she is stuck at home babysitting the son of her sick friend. Ending her phone call, young Tommy asks the Wasp to tell him a bed time story.

She tells him a story about Shann, the ruler of a distant planet. The people of Shann's planet are content, and Shann is worried that this will mean that they will take him for granted and not be awed by his presence. He soon comes up with a solution to become exalted by his people again: invade another planet.

He preps his people to go to war against the planet Andromia, and has his people build weapons of war and space ships to attack the people. They find the people of Andromia are peaceful farmer folk, and are easily defeated. Shann has his troops destroy their cities and farm lands in the name of conquest until the people of Andromia surrender.

Shortly after their conquest of the planet, Shann is praised as a hero, but soon comes to realize that his decimation of Andromia's means of being self sufficiency has forced him to provide to them, so that they do not starve. Soon the people of Shann's planet begin having to work to sustain the people of Andromia, as well. Eventually, the people of Shann's home world grow to hate him for lowering their quality of life.

Soon, Shann realizes his own vanity has cost him the respect of his people. Finishing her story, the Wasp asks if Tommy like the story, however the boy is more interested in knowing why the Wasp only has her wings when she's wasp-sized.

Notes

Publication Notes[]

  • As seen on page one, Story One (Giant-Man Adventure) is story #X-610.
  • This issue contains a Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation. On the same page is a cover reproduction advertisement for Fantastic Four #25, as well an advertisement for the new comic series Daredevil #1.
  • The first page of "The Treasure" is featured this issue. The second page is featured in the following issue.

Continuity Notes[]

  • Although the main story clearly establishes that the country of Santo Rico is somewhere within the Americas, its exact location is never mentioned. Night Thrasher #17 will state that it is part of Latin America but it won't be until Thunderbolts #11 that it will be identified in-story as a Central American nation.
    • In 2008, the profile on Santo Rico in Marvel Atlas #2 will reveal that Santo Rico and the country of "San Rico" that appeared in X-Men #25–26 are actually the same place, and that Santo Rico is "sometimes called San Rico." As a result of this revelation/retcon, Santo Rico's next appearance is now considered to be as "San Rico" in those X-Men issues.
    • Since it has become common practice for pre-Marvel stories to be folded into Earth-616 as long as they don't contradict anything, it has been tentatively decided that the country of "San Rico" that appeared in a story in Mystic #59, published by Atlas Comics in 1957, should be treated as if it were also an appearance by Santo Rico. As a result, this comic no longer contains the first appearance of Santo Rico and its capital city.
  • Events is the Santo Rico story take place over a surprisingly short timeframe. After watching a TV news report about how El Toro had "just" become president of Santo Rico, Giant-Man and the Wasp arrived in that country "before day's end" and found that it had been transformed into a police state, complete with armed troops everywhere, secret police spying on strangers, and citizens who lived in fear of the tyrant El Toro. The situation was resolved just as quickly, with El Toro having been deposed and Santo Rico having been restored to being a democratic nation no more than two days after Giant-Man and the Wasp exposed how El Toro had rigged the election.
  • The chronology of Henry Pym and Janet Van Dye during this story is also a bit odd. First, they learned about El Toro by watching "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" which was a news program broadcast in the evening. Then, a few hours later, they were in Washington being asked to investigate. Then, after flying on a passenger jet and traveling a distance that must have been at least 1,500 miles, they arrived in Santo Rico "before day's end," and it wasn't too long after their arrival that night fell. Given that, since they were posing as tourists, they presumably traveled on a commercial flight, the travel time alone (in 1964) would have been at least 6 hours, if not more. This means that there would be no way that they could have learned about El Toro in the evening and still arrived in Santo Rico before nightfall of the same day. Perhaps Henry and Janet waited until the morning after learning about El Toro before boarding the speedy passenger jet that took them to Santo Rico?
    • To make matters worse, while chasing Giant-Man in the country, one of the soldiers mentions that it's "the hour of three." If this means three o'clock, then the fact that night falls only minutes later is also odd.

Trivia

  • In this issue, Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne listen to the "Huntley-Brinkley Report," a top-rated news program of the day.

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