BuildingMyOwnTrade...With Trades #6--Ant Man!

The Astonishing Ant-Man TPB Vol 1-3
By: Nick Spencer, Ramon Rosanas and 3-4 other artists sprinkled throughout

I'm not 100% sure what compelled me to snag this collection as I was digging around on ebay, but it landed in my mailbox last week, and as I'm journeying through this #NewForYouComicBookDay like everyone else, here we are!

My only other experience with Nick Spencer's writing is his current work on the Amazing Spider Man (which I am in the 30's of now...) and I've found some of that storyline disjointed or painfully slow.  Thus, one of the things I hoped for, from reading this TPB collection was a grander sense of Spencer's style, on another insect-themed character.  I also wanted to see if I would appreciate his work on a definitive shorter run, and see if that helped me understand stylistically what he was doing in his run of ASM.

Several large things of note hit us at the beginning of this collection: 1. Hank Pym is no longer Giant-Man as he is merged with Ultron, and GM, a lab and other things were willed to Scott, 2. Scott is working on building his security business, and 3. We work throughout discovering why Lang is back in jail, yet again.  The other thing this plays off of is his distant relationship with Cassie who recently had a heart surgery (read. her heart was stolen by the Cross family because of Pym particles) and Cassie feels as if her father has abandoned her.

I genuinely did like this collection for a couple of reasons:
1. You see the humor that follows most folks who take on writing Ant-Man stories.

2. The main villains of the arc are Power Broker (who is creating Hench...it's Uber for Villains) and the Cross Family (who stole Cassie's heart, and ripped off Power Broker's app with a different, cheaper service).

3. Whatever Scott does, he is in constant damage-control mode from fucking everything up (like having sex with the Beetle (a villain) frequently, letting his daughter know he was spying on her, Hiring partially loyal contractors for his security business) but still looks for the silver lining/making the best of any bad situation.

4. The lego-village training montage of the new Giant-Man is a hoot.

5. You get an adorable re-bonding of father and daughter, which will pull at me in my new softened fatherhood heart.

6. While the arc is a little predictable, there are a couple of good surprises here and there, some humorous side-villains/henchmen/lackeys are created, we get to know what Lang's version of The Truman Show would look like, and its all wrapped up in 16 issues, which is a nice succinct arc!

What should you do? Like I said, I'd give this collection a chance, even if you aren't either the biggest fan of Spencer or Ant-Man.  It is some good lighthearted reading, which we can all use during the doldrums of our quarantining!