Over the years, a number of different characters have assumed the title of Ant-Man; most of them have been connected with the
Avengers.
Hank Pym Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym was a biophysicist and security operations center expert who decided to become the original Ant-Man after the death of his first wife
Maria Trovaya who had been a political dissident in Hungary. Falling in love with him and believing that his American citizenship would protect her, Maria traveled with Hank to Hungary shortly after their marriage to start their new life together. Unfortunately they were confronted by corrupt agents of the secret police. Hank was knocked unconscious and Maria was murdered. Pym was greatly distraught by his wife's death, and decided to do whatever he could in the future to battle injustice. Originally, he changed his stature by inhaling a shrinking gas; this soon evolved into a size-changing pill, and later into the use of what he called Pym Particles. He armed himself with a helmet that could control ants. Pym would shrink down to the size of an insect as the mystery-solving Ant-Man, solving crimes and stopping criminals. He soon shared his discovery with the woman who would become his second wife,
Janet van Dyne, who became his crime-fighting partner Wasp after he helped Janet avenge the death of her scientist father Vernon van Dyne. The duo would be founding members of the
Avengers, fighting recurring enemies such as the mad scientist
Egghead, the mutant
Whirlwind, and Pym's own robotic creation
Ultron. While Pym is the original Ant-Man, he eventually acquired the power to grow in size as well as shrink, and adopted other aliases over the years such as
Giant-Man,
Goliath,
Yellowjacket, His successors have taken up the Ant-Man role while Pym explored these other identities.
Scott Lang Scott Lang was a thief who decided to be the second Ant-Man after stealing the Ant-Man suit to save his daughter
Cassandra "Cassie" Lang from a heart condition. He became an affiliate of the
Fantastic Four and later became a full-time member of the Avengers. For a period of time he dated
Jessica Jones. He was killed by the
Scarlet Witch along with the
Vision and
Hawkeye in
Avengers Disassembled, and his daughter took up his heroic mantle as Stature in the book
Young Avengers. He returned to life in 2011 in the miniseries ''The Children's Crusade''.
Chris McCarthy Chris McCarthy was the third character to take up the Ant-Man title albeit briefly, serving only as a plot point to get the Ant-Man suit to Eric O'Grady. The character, created by
Robert Kirkman and
Phil Hester, first appeared in
Civil War: Choosing Sides #1 (October 2006). A low level agent of
S.H.I.E.L.D. working on the
Helicarrier, McCarthy was tasked with guarding Hank Pym's lab. After panicking and accidentally knocked Pym unconscious, he found the most recent Ant-Man suit which he promptly used to shrink, getting lost. McCarthy was caught up when a group of
Hydra superhumans attacked and was killed in the chaos.
Zayn Asghar Dr. Zayn Asghar operates as the Earth-14831 equivalent of Ant-Man in the year 2549. The character, created by
Al Ewing and Tom Reilly, first appeared in
Ant-Man Vol. 3 #1 (July 2022). Born to eco-scientists working to repair the damage to Earth caused by All-Father Ultron in
Ultron Forever, he developing an obsession with redeeming Hank Pym, Ultron's creator, and created the Nano Ant Swarm which he used to fight paleo-capitalists and disaster opportunists as Ant-Man. Dr. Asghar began cloning thousands of extinct ant species to restore his world's climate, but these ants lacked the evolved instincts of the insects. Using
Doctor Doom's Time Platform, he returns to the time periods of the three previous Ant-Men to study their methods of insect control to synthesize artificial instincts for his ants, briefly interacting with each of his contemporaries. Dr. Asghar's tampering with time resulted in All-Father Ultron finding a way to return to the Earth he once conquered. Zayn pulls Pym, Eric O'Grady, and Scott Lang to his time. Using Time Master's aging ray that was brought to the future by Lang, Zayn removes the artificial aging that turned Ultron into the All-Father, causing him to vanish to parts unknown. ==In other media==