Tales to Astonish #43

 "Old-timers like yourself no longer fit the bill! Your ideas are unimaginative and out-dated!"

This issue is, like all the others, utterly bonkers... but there is, in fact, a rather touching little moral to it. Our "baddie" is a scientist who is fired for no reason other than being over sixty-five years of age, thus showing the poor workers' rights laws in whatever part of the United States this is (again, we're told it's "Center City", which feels very DC) in 1963. Naturally, he wants revenge.

Splendidly, this revenge takes the form of a ray that can age people... and, fortunately, reverse the process. The story doesn't address the obvious implications of this, though- can he permanently rejuvenate people? We simply don't go there.

This is a rather enjoyable little tale, beginning with the diminutive Ant-Man attracting an admiring crowd before his faithful ants alert him of the problem so he can get straight to action... via his normal method of, er, firing himself from a miniature cannon and landing on an impromptu ant hill. And that's literally only so he can confer with the police.

Our antagonist proceeds, his blackmail having been refused, to make Ant-Man an old man and then fire his ageing ray into the crowd... cue dialogue like "Oh no! I'm growing older!" as though you'd in some way know what was happening to you in the moment,

But all is redeemed by the ending, in which our antagonist is let off, a reformed character, and his erstwhile employer regrets his appalling ageism. This gives me a warm glow, so this is one Ant-Man tale that I'll actually praise.

Just this once...