dr_hermes (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dr_hermes) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} scans_daily,@ 2009-10-25 04:36:00 |
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From 1963, TALES TO ASTONISH# 35. Plot by Stan Lee and script by Larry Lieber, pencils by Jack Kirby and inks by Dick Ayers.
Here's another example of Jack Kirby's knack for designing whacky gadgets that seem plausible. Most of his gizmos have their own logic to them if you look at how they're supposed to work. Ant-Man's helmet looks like an ant's head, with the antennae and the part in front that resembles an ant's mandibles. As the diagram shows, it was functional and yet the design not only made Henry Pym recognizably Ant-Man, it may even have been supposed to have fooled the ants to a small exent. I don't know how much they rely on eyesight, but they do have large functional eyes after all.
The first appearance of the Ant-Man costume also continues this motif. Instead of a big letter A in a circle or whatever, Pym has the stylized outline of an ant's body going up his chest. How much the ants would respond to this outline is debateable, but he may have figured it was worth a try. He was the ant expert. (Of course, he thinks ants communicate by electronic signals from their antennae and that his own stronger signal can override theirs. Even odder, his adventures confirm this unlikely theory.)
I don't know if it has been emphasised enough, but I love the way Kirby drew the hero costumes as real clothing. There were wrinkles where there should be, the shirts had lines indicating where they had been tucked in, boots and gloves looked like boots and gloves. Ant-Man's boots for example aren't the skin-tight knee socks with soles they later were drawn as-- they have thickness and solidity, they look functional. All this has long since been abandoned, of course, and super-heroes are drawn as if they are essentially naked with colored overlays to indicate they are wearing costumes.