Downsized Disarray For Ant-Man And The Wasp

by Vince Brusio

Things are not always as they seem, and anyone who’s been backstage before a concert or play could tell you that with a smile. The stars of a top-rated Broadway show could be puking into buckets before they put on a smiles and prance under their hot blue spotlights. Or, in the cast of Ant-Man And The Wasp #1 (APR180707), the two “heroes” could be bickering and fighting like an old married couple. You just never know. But one thing we did know: we wanted to talk to Mark Waid about the new book, and catch the dirt if he was slinging it. And he does! Along with laws of probability.

Ant-Man And The Wasp #1 (APR180707) is in comic shops June 6.

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Vince Brusio: This title is said to be a part of Marvel Comics “fresh start.” How does this book put a face on that campaign?

Mark Waid: By weaving the new together with the traditional. Nadia is a fairly recent arrival to the Marvel Universe, but Scott Lang's been around for a good long time and is the reader's POV character as regards this new Wasp.

Vince Brusio: What’s going to be shown as the glue between these two heroes? What makes them work as a unit rather than two competing egos?

Mark Waid: Ha! You're assuming they work well as a unit! You even assume that there's some glue there and not just, say, some tar and feathers. It's a lot more fun to have them bounding through the microverse if they have to figure out on the fly how to work as a team — and they are not having it!

Vince Brusio: What was the goal for you in brainstorming the plot of this series? Were there a few ideas in the drawer that you finally got to dust off and use? Is this something not found in any cook book? Tell us about your building blocks.

Mark Waid: I've been begging for a subatomic book for years! I'm a serious quantum physics wonk and have been reading for years about our ever-changing idea of what the quantum realm really seems to look like — and there's so, so much material there to build stories from. The way the laws of probability are challenged at that size. The eternal question of what it is you're breathing when you're smaller than an oxygen atom. Why tachyons aren't the time-travel miracle we make them out to be, but could instead be brutally weaponized. To redefine the Marvel Microverse is a blast.

Vince Brusio: When you get inside the heads of these two characters, what do you see? How are they wired? How is the furniture arranged? What makes these two tick, and what might distract them despite their experience in the field?

Mark Waid: Scott Lang is smart — he's an engineer — but Nadia is suuuuuper-smart, and she understands the quantum realm far, far more deeply than he does. So he has to swallow his pride a lot as he's being led around by a girl not much older than his own daughter--a girl who has a serious ax to grind with Scott Lang, as we'll see early on.

Vince Brusio: What’s the tone of this series, and what gives it a heartbeat? How does it represent the mighty Marvel magic?

Mark Waid: As much as I'm digging writing about the science, it's still just a backdrop. Stories are about people, not about plot devices. The tone is surprising, I think you'll find — it seems pretty light, but I really enjoy writing stories where you can laugh on one page and then get blindsided with a moment of total horror on the page-turn. 

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Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.