Tales to Astonish #57

Jan 19

Jan 19 Tales to Astonish #57

On the Trail of the Amazing Spider-Man!

When the Wasp arrives at headquarters, Giant-Man tells her that he has a surprise for her. However, instead of the fur and diamonds she was expecting, Hank has developed a new weapon for her to use as the Wasp. It is a wrist-mounted weapon that fires blasts of compressed air. Trying the device on, Janet then uses it to blast objects off a nearby table. This weapon will also shrink in size whenever Janet becomes the Wasp, giving her a powerful new weapon to “sting” her enemies with.

Meanwhile, the villain known as Egghead has decided that he has laid low long enough and now is the time to strike back against his foes, Giant-Man and the Wasp.[1] He has been spending this time expanding his ability to communicate with ants, just like his foe. He uses this ability to transmit a false message through Hank Pym’s ant network claiming that Spider-Man is seeking to attack Giant-Man. Hearing this message and believing it at face value, Hank and Janet change into Giant-Man and the Wasp and go looking for the web-slinger.

The Wasp is dispatched to locate Spider-Man first, with Hank warning her not to engage the wall-crawler alone. However, Janet thinks that she is more than a match for Spider-Man with her new weapon. When she finds the web-head, she shoots him with her new compressed air gun. The resulting sting causes Spider-Man to lose his grip on his web-line. As Spider-Man falls, the Wasp is certain she has killed the web-slinger, but he manages to break his fall thanks to his web-shooters. Locating his attacker via his spider-sense, Spider-Man then traps the Wasp in some webbing.

Learning that Janet has been captured, Giant-Man grows to his maximum size and uses the tension wires he built into area flagpole to quickly travel to Spider-Man’s location. Watching from his monitors, Egghead is pleased with how his plan is going so far. Egghead then calls the police to report the battle between Giant-Man and Spider-Man and while the authorities are busy with that, Egghead and his gang of goons will commit what he calls the robbery of the century.

Meanwhile, Giant-Man proves more than a match for Spider-Man’s powers, forcing the web-slinger to flee. Giant-Man intends to stop the wall-crawler and chases after him, with the police following behind to make sure nobody gets hurt. While the authorities are distracted, Egghead and his men use a specially modified truck to steal an armored car and make their escape.

Not far away, Spider-Man demands to know why Giant-Man and the Wasp are attacking him for no reason. This makes the Wasp realize that someone might have duped them into fighting each other and convinces Giant-Man and Spider-Man to stop fighting. Checking with his network of ants, Giant-Man learns of Egghead’s scheme. Arriving at Egghead’s hideout, Spider-Man snatches away the stolen loot while Giant-Man and the Wasp takedown Egghead’s hired men. When Egghead tries to escape he is stopped by Spider-Man. Egghead then tries to convince the three heroes to let him go by offering them a share of the loot, but this ploy doesn’t work.

Although Giant-Man is grateful for Spider-Man’s help, the Wasp has a sour opinion of the wall-crawler and they part on bad terms. Hank figures that Janet’s dislike of Spider-Man likely stems from the fact that spiders and wasps are natural enemies.

Recurring Characters

Giant-Man, Wasp, Spider-Man, Egghead

Continuity Notes

Reference is made to their last battle which took place in Tales to Astonish #45.

Topical References

Janet compares Hank to actor Carey Grant, saying how handsome Grant is. This is particularly topical since Grant died in 1986.

A Voice in the Dark!

After telling stories to children at the state orphanage, the Wasp realizes that she is running late for a dinner date with Hank. With no time to change out of her costume, she throws a coat and hat over her costume and rushes to the restaurant.[1]

Along the way, she spots a man wearing a hood suddenly duck into the sewers from a manhole cover. Initially, she dismisses this strange behavior until she notices that someone has broken into a nearby jewelry store. Suspecting that the hooded man is the thief, Janet strips off her coat and hat and tries to follow him. Unfortunately, she’s not strong enough to lift the manhole cover, forcing her to shrink down to wasp-size to follow after the apparent thief.

Her attempts to stop this thief all fail and he gets to an abandoned subway control room to stash his loot so it can be fenced later. Quick thinking, Janet decides to use the fact that the crook can’t see her to her advantage. Amplifying her voice with a rolled-up piece of paper, Janet convinces the crook that she is the Invisible Girl and to surrender before she calls the rest of the Fantastic Four. Afraid of facing an entire team of superheroes, the crook returns to the surface and turns himself in to the first police officer he meets.

Janet then rushes to Hank’s lab where he is furious that she is so late. When she explains what happened, Hank thinks that she is making things up and decides to teach her a lesson by saying they didn’t have dinner plans that evening, suggesting she might have had them with Mister Fantastic instead.