Irredeemable Ant-Man #3
Homecoming
Now
Eric O’Grady, the new Ant-Man, has gone out on a date with a woman named Beth, whom he saved from a mugger earlier that evening.[1] The evening ends with some tea back at Beth’s apartment, where she stresses that they won’t be sleeping together. When it’s clear that this is all O’Grady is after, she ends the evening and sends him home.
The creep then writes down her address and apartment number before hopping into a cab. He has the driver take him to the pay lockers where he has stashed his Ant-Man suit before being taken back to Beth’s building. Suiting up, Eric shrinks down to ant-size and gets into her apartment.
Six Months Ago
The SHIELD helicarrier has crashed after a battle against Hydra.[2] Triage tents are quickly set up at the crash site to treat the injured. Among those those present is Wolverine (Logan) who uses his enhanced senses goes looking for Nick Fury. He discovers that Fury has been injured as the SHIELD Director is being brought in by Eric O’Grady.[3] Logan commends Eric for bringing Fury in. As Eric thinks about his current situation, he is found by Veronica King. She was injured in the crash and has been looking for agents that she knew. She is relieved to see that Eric is alive and is glad that their mutual friend, Chris McCarthy was away on a secret mission. That’s when Eric tells her that Chris had just came back when the helicarrier was attack and he was killed in the battle.[4] Devastated by the news, Veronica begins to cry and hugs Eric tightly.
One Week Later
Eric and Veronica head to Lancaster, Vermont, to pay their respects to Chris’ parents, Jim and Nancy. When they arrive, Nancy is so grief stricken by her son’s death, she openly wishes that Eric had died in his place. This hits O’Grady pretty hard and when he goes to get their bags, Jim apologizes for his wife saying that she has taken the death pretty hard.
That evening, Eric finds himself sitting in Chris’ room, unable to sleep. He is joined by Veronica and tells her about how much time he and Chris spent playing in this room. Veronica also talks about how Eric told her that Chris was cheating on her before his death. She is thankful that Eric told her about it, but now that he is dead, she finds that she can’t be angry at him anymore.[5] Eric tries to make a move by putting his hand on her shoulder. This makes Veronica uncomfortable and she meekly tells him that she has to go to bed. Eric sighs over the fact that he didn’t get what he wanted.
After mulling things over, he remembers that he brought the Ant-Man suit with him and decides to go out and have fun with it. After suiting up, O’Grady shrinks down to ant-size and heads out the bedroom window to see what it can do.
Meanwhile, Mitch Carson is recovering from his injuries at Alabaster Hospital. There he is visited by Hank Pym and SHIELD agent Maria Hill.[5] They have concluded that the Ant-Man suit was stolen during the attack on the helicarrier. However, they are convinced that this was the work of a SHIELD agent, and not the invaders. They can track the suit with a device that can detect the emission of Pym Particles and assign Carson to head the hunt for the thief. Since he has been trying to cover up the disappearance of the Ant-Man suit to save his own hide, Carson agrees to take the case once he is out of the hospital.
Back at the McCarthy house, Ant-Man is learning how to use his suit when he becomes privy to a domestic dispute happening next door. Leaping down off the roof, Ant-Man lands on the husband’s shoulder and tries to knock him out with a punch to the neck. However, rather than knock him out, Eric’s fist actually punctures an artery in his neck, causing him to bleed profusely. The jet of blood ends up knocking him to the ground. Seeing that her husband was hurt somehow, she comes to his aid. However, when police and paramedics arrive, she has no idea what happened to her husband.
Meanwhile, Eric uses the out door faucet to wash the blood off his body and return to his room. Returning to normal size he is impressed that he is dry because the Pym Particles did not enlarge the water he was drenched in. Stripping off the Ant-Man armor, Eric goes to see if Veronica is still awake. She is and she invites him into the room. There Eric opens up and talks about how he feels his entire world has been turned upside down after Chris dies. He doesn’t, however, own up to anything he has done or the Ant-Man suit. Veronica, taking him at his word, can empathize with his situation and cries on his shoulder.
Two Days Later
Eric and Veronica are attending Chris McCarthy’s burial at the Pine Grover Cemetery. There, Nancy cannot let go of her son and has to be pulled off his coffin before it is lowered into the ground. During the funeral, Eric and Veronica hold hands.
The Next Day
Eric finds Veronica back at Chris’ grave in the pouring rain. He tells her that the McCarthy’s have offered them a place to stay for as long as they’d like. Veronica, however, wants to go back home to spend time with her parents. She says that there is nothing keeping her here anymore. Eric tries to make this about him, but his complaints are interrupted when Veronica suddenly kisses him. The two begin making out, but Veronica gets ahold of herself when she remembers that they are about to do this on Chris’ grave. She tells O’Grady to get off of him and abruptly leaves. Annoyed, Eric looks at McCarthy’s grave and rhetorically asks what the dead man is staring at.
Now
Ant-Man has used his diminutive size to sneak into Beth’s bathroom and watch her in the shower. However, his peepshow is interrupted when there is an aggressive knock at the door. Beth gets out of the shower and throws a towel around herself before calling out to find out who is knocking at her door. It is SHIELD and they tell her that she has 4 seconds to open the front door before they kick it down. Ant-Man recognizes the voice giving the orders, Mitch Carson![7]
Recurring Characters
Ant-Man, SHIELD (Maria Hill, Mitch Carson, Veronica King), Wolverine, Hank Pym, Beth
Continuity Notes
This attack was covered last issue as well as Wolverine (vol. 3) #27.
For clarification: Around the date of this issue’s publication (February, 2007), Nick Fury had gone underground after it was revealed that he staged an illegal invasion of Latveria in Secret War #1-5. While SHIELD employed LMD’s of Fury (starting in Marvel Team-Up (vol. 3) #13) to cover up his disappearance from the general public. That said, the flashback in this story is chronologically set months prior to Fury going AWOL, as such this is the real Nick Fury.
O’Grady is lying about Chris’ situation. As we saw in Irredeemable Ant-Man #1, Chris went missing on the helicarrier after putting on the Ant-Man suit and shrinking down to ant-size without knowing how to reverse the process. This was covered by by Chris and Eric’s superior, Mitch Carson who feared he’d lose his position if it was found out that he assigned two untrained agents to guard the suit and it went missing. In the following issue, Eric (jealous that Veronica and Chris were dating) told her that McCarthy was assigned to a secret mission. He did indeed die last issue, after getting shot in the back of the head by the Hydra invaders.
While Chris was lost in the helicarrier at ant-size, Eric lied to Veronica by saying he was cheating on her. As seen in Irredeemable Ant-Man #2.
I just wanted to clarify something about this story. It was published was a period in which Hank Pym had been replaced by a Skrull impostor named Criti Noll (which will be revealed in Mighty Avengers #15) That said, because this flashback takes place months before hand, this is the real Hank Pym in this story, not the Skrull impostor.
Between the flashback and the present day, half of Mitch Carson’s face is now horribly burned without explanation. How he sustained this injury is explained in Irredeemable Ant-Man #6.
