Henry Pym (Earth-616)/Expanded History

Preface

A number of the details regarding events in the life of Henry Pym are subject to the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. As such certain events may have been occurring during times that, in context of the date the story was published, were topical during that time. As such these instances will be generalized but explained in more detail in the reference section. In addition certain elements in the history of this character have been slightly changed due to a lessening restrictions and censorship on comic books that were imposed by the Comics Code Authority that regulated Marvel Comics between 1954 until Marvel stopped using the Code for regulation in 2001. As with the topical references these will also be addressed in the reference section as well. The passage of time listed here are rough estimates based on the Sliding Timescale.

Early Life

Childhood

As a child

Henry Jonathan Pym was the son of Brad and Doris Pym in East Nowhere, Nebraska. While his father was a factory foreman and his mother was a bookkeeper, their son proved to highly intelligent. Tested by doctors at the age of three, Pym was determined to be smarter than both of his parents combined intelligence. An inquisitive young boy, Henry often tried to emulate things he saw on television such as a time when he stained his skin blue to look like an alien in a movie. While his parents were upset, Henry was always encouraged to pursue his curiosity by his grandmother, Angela who was a science fiction author. Henry's scientific ingenuity and childish curiosity was influenced by his grandmother's tales of science fiction, further exasperating Henry's parents when Henry began making his own inventions at a young age.

By the age of 5, Henry built a typewriter that could type in fourteen different colors. Later when he created a device that could make the horn in his father's car make any sound he could, Brad Pym asked his son if he could build a carburetor. Angela told her son that anyone could build one of those and continued to encourage Henry to use his imagination to the fullest when building. When Henry was seven years old, his grandmother fell terminally ill. Saddened by this young Henry attempted to build a device that could cure her. While flattered by the effort, Angela Pym had accepted it was her time to die and told her grandson to never stop reaching for the clouds. When Angela died moments later, Henry angrily smashed his device. After the funeral, Henry decided to follow his father's advice and built his own carburetor the very next day.

Pym went on inventing a string of inventions each more dull than the last over the next fifteen years. His academic career was strictly followed by his professors and school administrators who constantly discouraged Pym's use of his own imagination and inventing things for fun by being told that he would never invent anything that would impact the world. Pym excelled better than any of his fellow classmates, earning his doctorate while his friends were still undergrads.

First Marriage

Henry and his first wife Maria Trovaya

During his final years in university, Pym was dragged along by his colleagues to a party where he met Maria Trovaya a Hungarian immigrant living in the United States. The two fell quickly in love and were soon married. Apparently during their marriage, Pym was working on a formula to shrink objects but was having difficulty finding funding. On their honeymoon, Maria convinced Henry to take her back to her home country. There Pym expressed his desire to spend all his time with her. Joking about the prospect of having a "lazy husband", Maria offered her new husband a motto from her father, "go to the ants thou dullard!". Not long into their honeymoon some of old political enemies of Maria's father recognized her and shot her in the head right in front of Henry

Pym recovered from his injuries in a United States Embassy in Hungary. However when he felt like the Embassy was not doing enough to catch the men who murdered his wife, Pym decided to go and hunt for them himself. Eventually he had his first of many mental breakdowns and went on a rampage, getting himself arrested and jailed by the Hungarian authorities. The U.S. Embassy managed to negotiate his release, and unable to find who was responsible for killing his wife, Henry was forced to return to the United States.

Witnesssing Maria's Murder

Discovering Pym Particles

Eventually Pym became the worlds hardest working biochemist, but the lack of innovation in his experiments eventually became too much for him. While working on a development program being paid for by the Roxxon Oil Company, Pym was distracted by an ant farm and when his employer got on his case, Pym finally lost his temper. Ranting about not being able to use his imagination, Pym angrily hurled the ant farm across the room and quit his job. Henry later began working with another scientist named Albert Poole in developing a robot named Grutan. When Pym accidentally damaged an audio impulse generator he was scolded and left. Incidentally Poole later locked himself inside Grutan and was trapped. His fate is unknown, but since then Pym always worked alone.

Henry Pym shrinking for the first time

Henry was haunted with nightmares of the murder of his wife, but one day became inspired by her father's motto and decided to use his scientific prowess to try and fight crime while continuing to create his size changing formula. Inspired by ants, he began to study entomology and began experimenting to find a means to shrink objects down to "ant size" as well as restore them to normal. He eventually discovered what he eventually called Pym Particles which at the time Pym distilled in a chemical formula that when exposed to the skin caused objects to shrink in size, and a specially made antidote could restore them to normal. After successfully shrinking a chair, Pym brought his discovery before the Committee of Scientific Research and Development. When displaying the shrunken chair, Pym's ideas were ridiculed, and when he incidentally mentioned a possible military application for his formula, the humanitarian based committee rejected his grant. Outside, he happened to cross paths with the youthful Janet van Dyne whose father Vernon was approaching the council to get funding for his own invention, a gamma-ray beam that he believes would allow him to contact other worlds beyond Earth's solar system. Smitten by Pym, the fast moving Janet attempted to ask Pym out for dinner. Still mourning the loss of his late wife, Pym rejected the offer and returned to his work.

After many more tests, Pym decided to foolishly test the Pym Particles on himself, shrinking down in size. He was chased out of his home by a mouse, and stumbled down into an ant-hill while fleeing some ants. Here accounts of what happened in the ant-hill vary. In one account, Pym fell into a pile of honey and was freed by an ant. The other members of the colony tried to kill him but he managed to fight them off using a match that he discovered within the tunnels. The helpful ant then assisted him in returning to his home and using the growth formula to restore himself to normal. Another account states that there was no clash with ants, he only encountered the one empathetic ant -- which he named Dusty who brought him back to the growth formula. When both Pym and Dusty were exposed to the formula they grew in size. This was a boon to Pym who could now examine a much larger specimen. He was interrupted by Janet van Dyne who had tracked him down and asked him out to dinner. In order to get rid of her before she saw Dusty, Pym reluctantly agreed. Later when he had dinner with Janet and her father, he explained his research and while Vernon was unimpressed Janet was even more smitten by Pym. The two then began dating while in his spare time, Henry continued to study Dusty and learn how ants communicated with one another.

Modern Age

Becoming Ant-Man

First Ant-Man costume

Henry then began designing a special communication helmet that allowed him to to communicate with ants as well as a costume woven out of Unstable Molecules that protected him from insect bites. Testing out these new inventions Pym found himself in danger when frantically tried to find the proper frequency to get the ants to obey his commands. One ant failed to fall under his control and when it attacked, Henry was shocked to discover that although he was shrunken down in size, he still retained his average strength he had at normal height and was easily able to fight off the ant. Pym continued to date Janet and he entertained her with all his latest discoveries with ants. However she continued to press the relationship further and Henry continued to push away until he was forced to confide that he was still getting over the loss of his previous wife. Understanding that Henry needed more time to get over this loss, Janet vowed to give Pym all the time he needed to recover.

The first time that Henry became the Ant-Man for the purposes of fighting crime when he took up a government job trying to develop a means to make people immune to radioactivity. The notes on this formula were targeted by a group of spies who tied up Henry's colleagues. Unwilling to divulge any information, Pym was locked in an office until he was ready to talk. This allowed Henry to use his formula to shrink in size and, as Ant-Man, rescue his colleagues. Using his control helmet, he commanded an army of ants to help untie his fellow scientists and then attacked the spies. The spies panicked from all the insect bites and were soon incapacitated and tied up by the scientists who had no idea how they got free or what happened to their would be captors. Ant-Man quietly slipped away and reverted back to his normal size, leaving none the wiser about his involvement in their freedom. While Ant-Man's existence was not revealed at that point, he soon became a well known and widely accepted super-hero before too long.

Early Solo Adventures

Ant-Man's cannon

As Ant-Man, Pym established a connection with law enforcement in New York City and developed technology that allowed him to learn of crimes in progress and police activity through a network of ants. He also developed a means to expose himself to Pym Particles using gas as well as a cannon that allowed him to fire himself across long distances where he would be cushioned by an army of ants or be able to fly on the backs of the flying variety of the species. The earliest record of Ant-Man helping the police was freeing a gang of bank robbers who managed to trap themselves inside a bank vault, rescuing them before they could suffocate. Ant-Man's exploits got international attention and attracted the interest of a communist nation who sought to capture him and learn his secrets. They sent their agent Comrade X to capture Pym. Comrade X was really a woman named Nina Tsiolkovsky who disguised herself as a man when operating. Using this double identity she attempted to lure Ant-Man into a trap, but Ant-Man managed to uncover the truth and stop Madam X's attempt to capture him, turning her over to the Coast Guard. Pym later investigate the costumed criminal calling himself the Protector who was forcing local jewellery store owners to pay protection money to him or risk having their stuck seemingly turned into dust. Renting out his own jewellery shop, Pym lured the Protector into a trap and captured him as Ant-Man. Pym revealed to the authorities that the Protector was in reality failing shop owner Gerald Marsh who targeted his competition in order to steal their jewels and make it look like they were turned into dust while also getting protection money.

Ant-Man was later targeted by the disgraced scientist known as Egghead who was attempting to prove his value to the local mob by promising to capture the hero. Believing he could turn Ant-Man's ants against him, Egghead lured him to a nearby museum and into fly paper. However, Egghead did not realize that the ants could not be motivated by his lies and they had already tipped Ant-Man off to the situation and he was prepared for the trap. While Ant-Man and his army of ants managed to round up the mobsters, Egghead managed to escape and would return to combat Ant-Man many times in the future. Ant-Man later encountered the Scarlet Beetle that became greatly intelligent and could communicate telepathically after being mutated by radiation. The Scarlet Beetle was rallying other insects to try and conquer the world. When Ant-Man tried to stop the Beetle, the creature easily overpowered him and stole his growing formula and used it to increase his size to cause more chaos and trapped Ant-Man in a pit without his control helmet. Ant-Man was rescued by his ants anyway and he used them to stop the Scarlet Beetle's army of insets. Luring the creature into a toy shop, Ant-Man punctured the container of shrinking gas restoring the Scarlet Beetle to his normal size and making him easier to contain. Returning the Scarlet Beetle to his lab and returning to normal height, Pym seemingly reversed the effects of the radiation and let the beetle go to live out the rest of its life.

Ant-Men was next called in to investigate armored car robberies committed by a costumed criminal calling himself the Hijacker that threatened to put the Mitchell Armored Truck Company out of business. Properly deducing that owner Howard Mitchell was responsible, Ant-Man feigned illness before sending out a decoy truck. When the Hijacker attempted to rob the truck, Ant-Man was there to catch him by surprise and capture him. Then Kulla the ruler of the slave dimension of Dehnock began kidnapping scientists whom he forced to build a "Electro-Death Ray". He accomplished this using a human accomplice on Earth and Henry Pym was soon targeted. Transported to Kulla's realm Pym refused to work for Kulla and found himself locked in a dungeon. Changing into Ant-Man, Pym found he could control the strange insects that lived in that realm and used them to assassinate Kulla. With Kulla defeated the rebels in his domain took over and returned Pym and all the other scientists to their home dimension. Ant-Man soon had the people of New York turned against him by the so-called Voice of Doom, a former radio voice actor whose vocal chords were altered by radiation making him able to compel people to obey his vocal commands. When the Voice was making a televised address, Ant-Man forced him to recant his orders to hunt down Ant-Man to the audience using a prop gun. While the Voice was distracted, Ant-Man infected him with laryngitis making him incapable of utilizing his influencing voice, ending his threat. Ant-Man next clashed disgruntled inventor Elias Weams, who was let go from his job due to his age. Calling himself the "Master of Time" Weams built a device to rapidly age people so that they too would be old. Despite having been reduced to an elderly state, Ant-Man still fought against Weams. Ultimately Weams surrendered when his own grandson was accidentally exposed to the ray. Ant-Man recovered the weapon and restored all of Elias' victims. Seeing that Weams was merely lashing out at a society that was discriminating against him, Ant-Man then convinced the judge to go easy on Weams and convinced his former employer to give him his job back.

Ant-Man later investigated the theft of funds from the McSpay Foundation from a seemingly theft proof vault. Unaware that director Charles Harrington used a teleportation device to commit the robbery, Ant-Man asked to search the vault for clues. Harrington then trapped Ant-Man inside using anaesthetic gas and tried to pin the blame on the diminutive hero. Ant-Man survived the gassing and escape and hitched a ride on Harrington. When Harrington teleported to his hideout, he heard a full confession before his thugs and the scientist whom he stole the teleportation technology from. Ant-Man quickly altered the coordinates to the teleportation device so that when Harrington activated it again it teleported him to a local jail. Ant-Man then stripped Harrington of the device and alerted the authorities.

Creating the Wasp

Ant-Man and the Wasp

By this time, Pym had been developing a means to graft the wings and antenna of a wasp to a human body, that would protrude from their bodies once shrunken down by Pym Particles. Also during this time, Vernon van Dyne had perfected his gamma-ray beam device and succeeded in contacting another world. The device brought a strange creature later dubbed the Creature from Kosmos, whose biologically produced formic acid was used to murder Vernon. Vernon's body was discovered by Janet who sought out Henry Pym for his assistance in finding her father's killer.

There are two different accounts of the events that followed: In the first account it is stated that Henry Pym had only just recently met both Vernon and Janet and showed a lack of interest in Vernon's invention. While Henry was also attracted to Janet due to the fact that she reminded her of his late wife Maria, he thought she was quite young. In this account the creature that murdered Vernon was able to speak and claimed to have come from the planet Kosmos. and that he was a criminal on that world, before murdering Vernon and going on a rampage through the city. When Janet called Henry for help he dismissed it as a society girl's prank. Later when he heard reports of Vernon's death from his ants, Pym went to her as Ant-Man and told her to contact Lee Kearns his contact within the FBI, and then go see "Henry Pym". When Janet went to Pym's lab, Henry revealed his secret identity and offered her a chance to help capture her father's murderer. Janet agreed to under go an experiment to implant the wasp's antenna and wings to her body and she was soon outfitted with a costume and Pym Particles. Pym called her the Wasp and the two agreed to work together. When they attempted to attack the creature at first, they found that no weapons could harm it and Ant-Man's army of ants were afraid of it. Examining its substances Pym learned of its formic acid biology and devised an antidote. Loading it into shotgun shells the Ant-Man and Wasp seemingly vanquished the creature Although the Wasp initially disobeyed Ant-Man's orders, and also professed her love to him during battle, Pym uneasily allowed her to remain his partner.

The second account states that the creature did not talk or appeared to have any sort of intelligence. When Vernon was murdered, Janet went to Pym directly and revealed that she had figured out that he was secretly Ant-Man. She convinced Henry to help her find her father's killer, finding Janet so much like his Maria, Pym agreed to conduct his experiments that endowed her with her Wasp powers. In this account, Ant-Man examined Vernon's body, finding traces of formic acid on the body. He then developed a single antidote and they went to confront the Creature from Kosmos. In this recounting, the Wasp took the antidote from Ant-Man and flew up and dump the chemical compound on Kosmos, destroying the creature. During the process of doing so, the Wasp professed her love to Henry. When they got back to Henry's apartment he scolded her for so foolishly risking her life. When Janet suddenly broke down in tears, Henry realized that she was finally coming to terms with her father's death and began comforting her instead. This was the start of a budding romance that would see its triumphant highs and tragic lows over the coming years.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Ant-Man and the Wasp vs Egghead

Ant-Man and the Wasp then began working as a crime fighting duo. During this time Jan took every opportunity to try and get the stuffy Henry to admit his feelings for her. He was also incredibly insecure and felt that he was out of her league when considering her family wealth. The pairs activities soon reached Ant-Man's old foe Egghead who began working with two escaped crooks in trying to destroy Ant-Man. To this end, Egghead developed the false identity of Professor Carl Striker. Using false credentials of a Zoologist, he put on exhibits on insects and after masterminding the theft of Middleton Diamond he put on a wasp exhibit at the local zoo to lure the Wasp into a trap. It succeeded and the Wasp was captured and Ant-Man was lured into a seemingly escapable trap. Even with all escapes electrified, Ant-Man bested a lizard and anteater that were set on him and freed the Wasp from captivity. While they managed to capture the two thugs, Egghead managed to escape once again.

When the Fantastic Four were began experiencing a strange series of size reductions, their leader Mr. Fantastic contacted Ant-Man for assistance. Ant-Man then provided a sample of his Pym Particles for Reed to examine. This brought the Fantastic Four to the Microverse realm of Sub-Atomica where they were captured by their old foe Dr. Doom who had conquered the realm. Not hearing from the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man went to investigate and used Reed's improved formula to travel to the Microverse to search for them. Ant-Man was quickly captured by Doom's forces but he was later freed by the Fantastic Four and assisted them in liberating Sub-Atomica. However, when Doom realized his battle was lost he fled back to Earth. The heroes followed after him where Ant-Man returned home while the Fantastic Four went off to hunt for and eventually defeat Dr. Doom.

With things in the city quiet, Henry and Janet decided to go on vacation in Greece. Learning of reports of the mythical Cyclops on one of the local islands was stealing boats the couple went to investigate as Ant-Man and the Wasp. They soon discovered that the "Cyclops" was actually a robot built by the alien A-Chiltarian race who were using the island as a staging ground for an invasion of Earth. Taking control of the Cyclops robot, Ant-Man and the Wasp managed to rescue the captive sailors and force the A-Chiltarians to flee the Earth. The pair next stopped mobster Ramond Theis and later a jazz musician named Liso Trago from robbing the box office at a nightclub. Trago's employer agreed not to press charges if Trago left the country. Trago did so only to return months later having learned how to use his music to hypnotize people. Ant-Man and Wasp stopped him when Ant-Man damaged his trumpet enough to create a note that put Trago under his own hypnotic spell making him forget his entire criminal career and his knowledge of how to put people under his control. Later the pair were unable to stop the Porcupine from robbing a supposedly burglar proof vault that Pym had developed for the National Bank. However, Henry was able to track the Porcupine to his lab in a military installation where in his civilian identity of Alex Gentry, he developed weapons for the military. With Jan falling ill, Pym forced her to stay home to face the Porcupine alone but was captured. As the Wasp, Janet saved Henry and the pair defeated the Porcupine by jamming his projectile firing quills with liquid cement.

Forming the Avengers

Ant-Man joins the Avengers

It was about this time that the Asgardian trickster god Loki wished to manipulate the gamma spawned monster known as the Hulk to attack his adoptive brother Thor. To this end, Loki made it appear as though the Hulk attempted to destroy a train. When the Hulk's sidekick Rick Jones gathered his group the Teen Brigade together to try and contact the Fantastic Four for help. Loki intercepted their transmission and made it so it was reached. However a side effect of the spell the transmission was also received by Ant-Man, the Wasp, and the armored hero known as Iron Man who all tracked it back to the Teen Brigade's headquarters. The meeting was tense at first but Rick calmed nerves and convinced the gathered heroes to help in their cause. During the meeting Thor was shown an illusion of the Hulk convincing him that Loki was involved. Iron Man then took the heroes to the Stark Industries office in Sugar Land, Texas. There Thor departed to investigate his suspicions while Ant-Man was given access to Tony Stark's technology to build a device that could increase his range and be able to use ants all over the country to try and search for the Hulk. Using this device, Ant-Man was able to locate the Hulk in Canyon City, Colorado where he was posing as a robot attraction in a circus performing there. Ant-Man ordered the ants in the region to distract the Hulk while they arrived. Ant-Man, the Wasp and Iron Man then travelled there and clashed with the Hulk who managed to escape. There are two differing accounts of what happened next, in one account the Hulk fled to an automobile manufacturing plant in Detroit, Michigan while the other states that the Hulk fled to the Cardiff-Grant Munitions R&D Factory in Denver, Colorado. In either case the Hulk clashed with the three heroes until Thor arrived with the defeated Loki and revealed his part in the whole ordeal. Loki attempted to defeat the heroes by becoming radioactive. In the Detroit account Loki was defeated when dumped in a radioactive waste disposal furnace beneath the plant, while the Denver account states that they placed him in a device that was used to conduct controlled explosion experiments. The Detroit account states that the group unanimously agreed to form a team and that the Wasp came up with their name: the Avengers. However the Denver account states that the group did not formally form a group until a meeting three days later at the Stark Industries plant in Sugar Land, Texas. Whatever the case, the fact that Ant-Man played an integral part in defeating Loki.

Iron Man invited his fellow Avengers to use his "employer" Tony Stark's mansion as their headquarters, later dubbed Avengers Mansion. There the group were given a tour and Jan purposely ruffled Henry's feathers by openly flirting with Thor. Ant-Man and the others then revealed themselves to the press. They then began a series of early meetings. During the first meeting the group was trying to determine who would be the chairman to the group. Janet used this as another opportunity to rankle Henry. All the male members wanted to test their might to determine who led, but they all agreed to allow the Wasp to secretly be their chairperson so none of their egos could be bruised. This meeting was briefly crashed by Iron Man's future self and the Black Widow who briefly passed through the meeting room while jaunting through time periods. By this time both Hank and Janet had moved into a home together in Cresskill, New Jersey and Hank began developing a new version of his Pym Particles that could be taken in pill form. Iron Man later called a meeting to discuss the signing of a charter of the Avengers code of conduct. Ant-Man and the Wasp agreed to sign it, deciding that it was time to become part of something bigger.

Giant-Man

First Giant-Man costume

First time as Giant-Man from Tales to Astonish #49

Deciding to augment his powers to be more of a benefit to the Avengers, Hank began developing a new growth formula that would allow him to increase his size. He found that growing larger than 12 feet tall put too much strain on his body. While he was developing these new abilities, Pym was kidnapped by the Living Eraser from Dimension Z who was gathering Earth scientists to steal their atomic secrets. Unfortunately for the Eraser and his leaders, they did not suspect that Pym was secretly a super-hero, nor were they aware that the Wasp stowed away on his person. As Giant-Man and the Wasp, the two heroes liberated the kidnapped scientists and captured the Living Eraser's devices allowing them and the other prisoners to return home. Hank kept his new powers a secret when the Avengers were asked by the military to assist in recovering Dr. Doom's flying fortress which had recently been stolen. The Avengers took on the case and infiltrated the ship but were caught in many of Doom's various traps. Ant-Man found himself trapped in a sealed room with US Airforce Major Bowman. In order to escape the cell, Ant-Man used one of his experimental growth pills to break out of their cell. He then used his new powers to free the other Avengers. While they managed to destroy Doom's flying fortress they discovered the "Doom" they were fighting was one of his Doombots. Hank experienced another boost of confidence after being the one who helped the Avengers defeat Dr. Doom once again made him believe that he was worthy to lead the Avengers.

From this point on, Hank used his Giant-Man identity on an ongoing basis. During the next meeting with the Avengers, they were targeted by the Space Phantom who claimed to be an alien seeking to defeat the Avengers so his people could invade the planet. The Space Phantom plotted to do turn the Avengers against the Hulk, using his ability to shift individuals into the timeless realm of Limbo while assuming their form. When the Space Phantom attacked the Avengers, he fled and then returned the Hulk to Earth and watched the battle in the shape of a wasp. When the Wasp detected the Space Phantom's presence, he tried to attack her and Giant-Man went to her rescue. When away from the other Avengers, the Space Phantom changed into Giant-Man. Rendered unconscious while being shunted into Limbo, Pym was discovered by future versions of the Avengers who were trapped in Limbo at that relative time. Before he could awaken, Giant-Man was returned to his own time when the Space Phantom tried to take the form of Iron Man. The heroes eventually learned the truth when the Space Phantom attempted to take the form of Thor and was shunted into Limbo himself. However the damage had already been done and the Hulk, no longer trusting his one time allies left the group.

Second Giant-Man costume

Going solo again, Giant-Man and the Wasp went after some smugglers. The pair later joined the Avengers on a manhunt for the criminal known as Sandman. The Avengers failed to capture him, but he was eventually defeated by the Spider-Man. With his new found power Hank became over confident and when a new super-powered criminal calling himself the Human Top began committing a series of robberies, Pym believed that stopping the Top was beneath his abilities. However when his ants reported that the Human Top intended to rob the Danly's Department store, the Wasp convinced him to do something about it. When the Top attempted to rob the department store, Giant-Man went into action to try and stop him. However the gigantic hero proved no match for the Top's speed and his larger size proved to be more of a detriment and such the Human Top managed to escape. Giant-Man then began training to try and stop the Human Top when he next resurfaced trying to increase his speed through improvements in his growth serum as well as physical training. Ultimately, Giant-Man realized that intelligence was the only way to defeat the Human Top when he managed to steal top secret plans. With the help of the FBI, they intercepted some spies who were seeking to buy the plans from the Top. When the Human Top attempted to make the delivery, Giant-Man was waiting in the spy's place. When the Top attempted to escape, he found that the authorities had fenced off the entire neighbourhood and Giant-Man soon captured him and turned him over to the authorities.

Recovering Captain America

Pulling Captain America from the ice

Giant-Man and the Wasp then returned to active Avengers duties and assisted the team in trying to track down the Hulk. During their initial clash with the Hulk, Pym tried to grab him while on a train but ended up being knocked off when it went into a tunnel. When they later tracked the Hulk to an abandoned island that was last used during World War II, they found that the Hulk had allied himself with the Atlantean monarch known as the Sub-Mariner and a clash between the two villains and the Avengers broke out. Ultimately the Hulk began changing back into his alter ego of Bruce Banner who fled. Alone against the Avengers, the Sub-Mariner fled as well. While pursing the Sub-Mariner in a submarine, Giant-Man expressed his frustration over losing both the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner. The Avengers eventually came across the body of Captain America a wartime hero that had been missing since 1945, frozen in a block of ice. Taking him aboard their ship and thawing out his body, they found that Captain America had been kept in suspended animation. When he was revived, Captain America battled the Avengers, who easily calmed him down and brought him back to New York. There they had Cap wait below deck while they addressed the press and while the heroes were doing so they were blasted by a ray that turned them into living stone, leaving Captain America to wander the modern day on his own. Eventually, Captain America was found by Rick Jones and they both tracked down the one responsible, a member of the D'bari race named Vuk. They learned that Vuk was trapped on Earth and he turned the Avengers to stone for the Sub-Mariner in order to get his ship freed from the bottom of the ocean. Vuk agreed to return the Avengers to normal in exchange for the same help. With Giant-Man and the others changed back they were good on their promise but were attacked by the Sub-Mariner and his Atlantean warriors. While Namor was distracted, Vuk's ship was freed and he managed to leave the Earth. With the battle lost the Sub-Mariner fled into the ocean. Returning to the Mansion, Giant-Man needed time alone, his confidence shaken after the debatable trying to capture the Hulk. When Iron Man entered the study, Giant-Man shrunk down in size as he did not want to talk to anybody and was shocked when Iron Man removed his mask revealing himself as Tony Stark. This caused a massive blow to Giant-Man's self-esteem. Later Giant-Man engaged in a training session with Iron Man and confided that he had his doubts about his usefulness to the team and questioned why they were constantly striving to upgrade their abilities. Giant-Man was later tasked confirming the identity of Captain America. While Cap was under sedation, Giant-Man and the Wasp spent some time marvelling over the situation. This was the first time that Henry openly told Jan that he loved her. Giant-Man completed his tests confirming Captain America's identity, but was concerned about his memory gaps and clear wartime stress. He presented this finding to the Avengers, making them question if Captain America would be mentally fit to be a part of the team.

Going solo with the Wasp for a short time, the pair busted Professor Nathan Garrett who was trying to sell secrets to spies, capturing them all. Garrett was freed on bail, but fled the country only to return shortly thereafter as a new costumed villain, the Black Knight. Using a genetically engineered flying horse he attempted to steal a new jet powered helicopter but was easily defeated by Giant-Man and the Wasp. The Porcupine resurfaced shortly thereafter and attempted to get at Giant-Man through his own fan club. By this time, Giant-Man and the Wasp had set up a lab/headquarters in New York City. The Porcupine managed to get inside when the fan club arrived dressed as various foes that Giant-Man fought over his career. The Porcupine then captured the Wasp and fled from Giant-Man, who had sprained his ankle during a charity event. The Porcupine however allowed the Wasp to escape so he could track her back to their shared New Jersey home in the hopes of learning their secret identities. When the Porcupine arrived, Giant-Man was ready and they battled once again. The Porcupine then attempted to swallow a handful of Giant-Man's growth capsules, but when he ingested them he realized too late that he had accidentally took the shrinking pills instead and shrank into nothingness. Giant-Man, the Wasp and the other Avengers later met the hero known as the Sentry and assisted him in battling his foe the Void. The Avengers then resumed their hunt for the Hulk and returned to the southwestern United States to search for him, only to find he had left the region. They returned to Avengers Mansion to learn that the Hulk had actually come to New York to look for them and trounced the Fantastic Four. The Avengers defended themselves at their mansion headquarters and when the recovered FF came to join them the two teams stumbled over each other to try and stop the Hulk. Both teams eventually began working together to stop the Hulk, chasing him up a sky scraper under construction. The battle ended when Rick Jones tossed a gamma irradiated capsule into the Hulk's mouth causing him to fall into the Hudson River while changing back into Bruce Banner and was swept away by the currents. Giant-Man and Iron Man then examined Captain America after the battle to ensure that he was in fighting form. When Cap expressed the fact that he did no belong in their time and requested a time machine to return to his own era, both heroes declined warning that Cap's knowledge of the future could have dire effects on history.

Early Romantic Tensions

Giant-Man riding his ant chariot

Giant-Man and the Wasp later joined the Avengers in a trip back to the southwest where they battled the Lava Men from Subterranea who were attempting to invade the surface world. An invasion they managed to push back thanks in part to the Hulk whom they tricked into knocking the Lava Men's mound back into the Earth. Giant-Man and the Wasp were next asked by the American government to learn how the communist backed dictator El Toro managed to take over the nation of Santo Rico. The pair entered the country posing as tourists but were exposed. However the pair managed to reveal that El Toro rigged the election and had him disposed. The people of Santo Rico then held an democratic election. In thanks to Giant-Man and the Wasp's help, they erected a statue of the heroes in their honour. Not long after this the Human Top escaped from prison again and sought to get revenge against his foes. He followed Giant-Man and the Wasp back to their headquarters where he managed to succeed in obtaining some of Giant-Man's growing pills. Despite his increased size, the Human Top was defeated by Giant-Man and the Wasp, restored to his normal size, and incarcerated once again. Hank eventually mustered up the courage to try and propose to Jan, but when Jan noticed he was nervous she assumed that he was being stand-offish and decided to make him jealous by saying she was invited to a party being thrown by a wealthy socialite whom she assumed was going to propose. Unknown to Jan, this broke Henry's heart as it confirmed to him what he always feared -- that he was not good enough for Janet. Later a new foe calling himself the Magician robbed the yacht party and kidnapped the Wasp. Giant-Men set up a phony yacht party and used it to lure the Magician into a trap and captured him, saving Jan in the process and the two reconciled their feelings for one another, although Hank did not propose to Jan at that time. However their romance began to start showing its first signs of strain when Hank began becoming more closed off about his feelings and neglecting Janet and losing himself in his work. On the Avengers front, the group was had to deal with the fact that they had to maintain Captain America on the roster in order to obtain the security clearance they needed from the government, something that Giant-Man and the others were not sure that Cap was mentally prepared for.

Soon the Avengers had to battle a foe from Cap's past, Baron Zemo who had formed a group his own, the Masters of Evil, which included many of the Avengers previous foes -- including the Black Knight, Radioactive Man, the Melter. While the Avengers stopped the Masters from immobilizing New York City with Zemo's Adhesive X, Cap faced off against Zemo alone, but Zemo managed to escape. Giant-Man found Cap injured after the battle and found him in an even worse state after encountering the man responsible for the death of his former partner Bucky. They later learned of Cap's desire to avenge Bucky's death. While going into battle, Giant-Man was photographed by Daily Globe photographer Phillip Sheldon. This photograph later went on to appear on the cover of his book, "Marvels." Pym later developed a new weapon for Janet to use in battle, this first model of her "Wasp's Sting" was a compressed air gun. Shortly after this, their old foe Egghead resurfaced and used a device to sent out false signals through Giant-Man's ant communication devices. The villain tricked the pair into fighting Spider-Man, but the heroes ultimately realized the trick and brought Egghead to justice, although Spider-Man parted from the duo on bad terms. Hank was later on hand after Janet thwarted a jewellery robbery and after a more tragic encounter she had with two would-be bank robbers. Later Giant-Man and the Wasp assisted the Avengers in apprehending weatherman turned super-villain the Weather Maker. When Thor later fumed across the city over his inability to romance Jane Foster, Giant-Man and the other Avengers attempted to get him to confide in them, but to no avail.

Unlimited Access

As the Green Goliath

Giant-Man and his Avengers allies were soon pulled into the future by Access a man who could jump between time and space between the Earth-616 universe and the Earth of a distant cosmos, when the modern day New York was under threat from Darkseid and his Apokoliptians who were invaders from that other cosmos. When the Avengers needed help, Access also summoned the original line up of the Justice League of America from the other cosmos. The two teams worked in tandem until the Apokolipian known as Amazing Grace convinced the Avengers and the JLA to fight each other. Giant-Man battled against the Flash until Access pulled Superman from the present who reversed Amazing Grace's tampering. The two teams then joined the present Teen Titans and the original X-Men in battling Darkseid's Parademons and members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from various eras who had allied themselves with Darkseid to try and take over Earth-616. Learning that the Evil Mutants and the Apokoliptians were aboard Magneto's Asteroid M. Access then used his ability to merge heroes from both universes together into an amalgamation to create a strike force to go after their foes. Among those amalgamated were Giant-Man and the Green Lantern who were merged into the Green Goliath. They infiltrated Asteroid M and battled amalgamated versions of the Brotherhood and the Apokolipians, learning that Darkseid and Magneto had the assistance of an evil version of Access from the future. The heroes ultimately prevailed when Access merged with his future self, eliminating his threat. Darkseid and his forces -- having betrayed the Brotherhood -- fled back to their own universe. Afterward, the heroes were restored to normal returned to their respective universes and proper times. Upon their return home, Giant-Man and the others memories of the entire episode faded away.

Using Brain over Brawn

Back in their own time and place, Giant-Man continued to find more scientific means of defeating his foes over brute strength. He and the other Avengers attempted to console their teammate Thor over his continued romantic problems, but he still refused to let his teammates in. Henry then began developing a new cybernetic control helmet that could trigger his transformations in himself and the Wasp without the use of pills, making their size changing abilities a matter of will. The couple were later asked by Captain America to investigate the appearance of a so-called Colossus who appeared in the Bora-Boru region of Africa. The pair clashed with the massive alien who was twice the size of Giant-Man. This was the first time that Pym pushed the 12 foot limit he placed on his growth powers, taxing his system. Ultimately the Colossus -- actually a would be invader from the planet Vega was defeated and he fled back to his homeworld. Later when the Magician broke out of prison once again, Hank was out of town, and the Wasp managed to tackle their foe all by herself.

Giant-Man and the Wasp

Giant-Man and the other Avengers later attempted to call Iron Man to a meeting regarding a new threat, one which Iron Man ignored and had to answer for later when the group met. They suspended Iron Man and all took leave. It was at this time that Baron Zemo formed an alliance with the exiled Asgardians known as the Enchantress and the Executioner. The Enchantress used her magics to pit Thor against his comrades while Zemo made another attack on Captain America. Thanks to the arrival of Iron Man, Giant-Man and the Wasp were saved by Thor. Freed from the Enchantress' control, Thor joined his comrades in defeating their foes. Cap also defeated Zemo, but all the villains managed to evade capture. Giant-Man, Wasp and Iron Man later attempted to assist Thor in one of his latest clashes with Loki, and were once again rebuffed. Giant-Man and the Wasp then decided to try and focus their efforts on trying to capture the Hulk again and reign him back under Avengers control. They travelled back to the southwest unaware that their old foe the Human Top had followed them there as well and sought to destroy them once again. When Giant-Man tracked the Hulk down and was battling him, the Top convinced General Thaddeus Ross to fire a nuclear warhead at the town they were fighting on. However thanks to a warning from the Wasp, Giant-Man and the Hulk were dutifully warned, and the Hulk was able to destroy the atomic weapon. Unable to capture the Hulk, the couple gave up and returned to New York.

Giant-Man participates in a celebration for the Avengers defeat of Kang the Conqueror

Incidentally, Giant-Man assisted the Thing, Hulk, and the Beast in rounding up an army of monsters that were rampaging through New York and banished them into the Negative Zone. Later, Giant-Man was called in to assist Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic to remove the Tentacles of Spider-Man foe Dr. Octopus. While the operation was successful, it did not sever the mental connection the villain had with his mechanical appendages. Later Giant-Man and the Wasp captured a gang of criminals, and later helped uncovered the Chameleon's plot to pit Iron Man against Captain America. Giant-Man later mobilized with his other fellow Avengers when the time traveller known as Kang the Conqueror of the 31st Century appeared in modern day Washington, D.C.. The Avengers learned that Kang intended to conquer their era and when they fought back they were all easily incapacitated by Kang's future technology and taken prisoner. The Avengers were freed in part thanks to Rick Jones, his Teen Brigade and Captain America, and Kang was forced back to his own era. In the aftermath of the battle Giant-Man and his teammates were part of a massive parade thrown in the Avengers honour. Giant-Man was also present when the Avengers were contemplating what to do regarding Spider-Man's apparent cowardice battling the Sandman, however the web-head eventually redeemed himself.

Henry later learned that his friend Lee Kearns had gone missing in Berlin and sought out to find him. Recalling how his last trip to Europe ended with the death of his first wife, Pym forbade Janet from following him finally explaining to her the details of Maria's death. Travelling to Berlin, Giant-Man discovered that communist scientists were operating in the area. Locating and breaking into their facility, he rescued Lee, defeating their so-called Beasts of Berlin, gorillas that had their intelligence enhanced. Destroying the device, Giant-Man brought Lee to safety and returned him home. The Avengers were later targeted by Zemo and his Masters of Evil once again. This time they had the newly empowered Wonder Man to infiltrate their team. Learning that the source of Wonder Man's powers were seemingly killing him the Avengers agreed to try and save his life. Henry began working on a means to save his life, but as a precaution he made a copy of Wonder Man's brain engram. When Wonder Man prepared to betray the Avengers for a cure, he captured the Wasp and also pretended to have been capture himself. However when the Avengers came and Wonder Man realized that Baron Zemo intended to kill them, Wonder Man turned on Zemo foiling his plans, but seemingly died in the process. Giant-Man and the Wasp were later targeted by their old foe Egghead once again. This time, Egghead lured them with a phony offer to appear in a television series only to trap them in an air-tight building and force Giant-Man to battle an android of his own making. Realizing that Egghead felt everything that the android did, he began to spin it around making Egghead dizzy enough to surrender and set them free.

Giant-Man and the Wasp later joined the Avengers, Spider-Man, Daredevil, the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Dr. Strange in battling the crazed super-villain known as Sundown who was absorbing all the ambient light around New York. Despite the heroes combined might, it took the injury of Sundown's young friend Mary to force the villain to surrender over to the authorities. Pym then began working on a formula to boost the growth of plants and animals. When he tested it out on a plant it soon began to grow out of control and knocked him out. At that very moment, a crook named Second-Story Sammy was passing by and happened to spy the unconscious hero. Learning Giant-Man's secret identity, Sammy decided to steal Giant-Man's costume and use its size-changing powers to commit a robbery. He was confronted by the Wasp and the two battled it out when Jan realized that the man in the costume was not her boyfriend. Pym later revived and used his army of ants to bring Sammy back to his lab where he quickly knocked the crook out and used his powers to stop the wildly growing plants. He then used an amnesia potion to wipe out Sammy's memories and criminal personality. Giant-Man later accompanied his fellow Avengers followed Thor to Bavaria when Thor's hammer Mjolnir detected evil emanations coming from the region. There they encountered the X-Men who were summoned by their leader Professor X to help stop the alien being known as Lucifer from detonating a bomb. Learning that Lucifer connected the bomb to his heartbeat, the X-Men were ordered to keep the Avengers at bay so as not to harm or kill their foe. The X-Men complied, holding their own against the Avengers until Professor Xavier was able to shut down Lucifer's mind with his mental powers. With Lucifer knocked out, Xavier explained the entire situation to the Avengers, who agreed to leave the X-Men to disarm the bomb themselves.

Giant-Man and the Wasp were later assisted the NYPD in trying to stop the protection racketeer known only as the Wrecker, who was forcing shops to pay him in order to keep their businesses safe. Pym and Van Dyne purchased a hardware store in the area and when the Wrecker arrived to intimidate them, they easily trounced him. The Wrecker was later unmasked and revealed to be Frank Smith, the former owner of the hardware store that Hank and Jan purchased. Giant-Man and the Wasp later rejoined the Avengers in yet another attempt to bring in the Hulk. This time their encounter with the jade brute was complicated when the Masters of Evil convinced the Hulk to join them instead. The Hulk battled the Avengers with the Masters until Baron Zemo threatened the life of his former sidekick, Rick Jones, and the Hulk turned on Zemo and the Masters forcing them to flee, and the Hulk then escaped the Avengers once again. When their teammate Iron Man went missing the Avengers were targeted by Kang the Conqueror who built a android duplicate of Spider-Man to lure the Avengers into a trap. He tricked the Avengers into believing that Iron Man was trapped in the Temple of Triod located in Mexico. Giant-Man and the Wasp arrived there first and they were quickly incapacitated by the Spider-Man robot, and the other Avengers soon followed. The Avengers were later saved by the real Spider-Man who deactivated his robot doppelgänger. Later, Giant-Man was involved in an Avengers battle between the Enchantress and the Hulk, the details of this battle are unrecorded. In his private time, Henry began building a robotic replica of an ant, but grew mad at Jan when she damaged equipment delaying the project. Feeling rejected, Jan decided to leave Hank for good. Later his plane was captured by the Atlantean barbarian known as Attuma who decided to take Jan prisoner to study surface humans. Learning of this from his ants, Giant-Man came to Janet's rescue, and their combined size changing abilities tricked Attuma into thinking all surface dwellers had such powers and he fled. Giant-Man later could not get the Avengers backing when his ants reported strange seismic activity below the surface of the Earth. Deciding to investigate alone, he was captured by the Mole Man who had built an atomic gyroscope to cause the Earth to spin so quickly everything on the surface would be destroyed. When the Mole Man foolishly set his Moloids after the Avengers, they followed them back and battle the Mole Man and his new ally the Red Ghost. The team defeated both villains, destroy the atomic gyroscope and freed Giant-Man from captivity.

Near Death Experience

Rushing the Wasp to the hospital

The Avengers began focusing on the Maggia crime syndicate, hampering their operations all over New York City. This prompted the Maggia's secret leader Count Nefaria to come to America. He invited the Avengers to his castle under the auspices that they were going to a charity gala. Instead he used a device to create holographic duplicates of the team to commit an act of treason. When the team was later attacked by the military, they deduced that Nefaria was responsible and attacked his castle. Giant-Man, the Wasp, Thor and Iron Man were immobilized by a specially made chemical created by Count Nefaria, but they were later freed by Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade. As Giant-Man assisted his fellow Avengers in defeating Nefaria, Janet took a bullet and was critically wounded. Henry rushed Jan to a nearby hospital and where he learned that her left lung was punctured and should it fail her right lung could collapse, killing her. The only hope was in getting the aid of Dr. Svenson of Norway. When Thor brought back whom he believed to be Svenson they were all shocked that the "doctor" was really a member of the Kallusian race. The Avengers tracked the Kallusians to the North Pole where hey learned that Svenson was helping them willingly to survive on Earth in order to hide from their foes the Yirbek. However the Yirbek tracked down the Kallusians and they fled the Earth. This allowed the Avengers to bring Svenson back to America to perform the needed surgery on the Wasp. Although an Atheist, Giant-Man went to the hospital's chapel to pray for the Wasp's survival. When Thor attempted to console his comrade, Pym revealed that he found it difficult to believe Thor's claims that he was really a god from Asgard. As Thor insisted that it was not Janet's time to die, Dr. Svenson entered the room and informed them the surgery was a success and the Wasp was going to live. After Janet was released from the hospital, the couple were among the guests invited to the engagement part of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl.

Third costume

After this, Henry began developing a new helmet that would allow to grow to larger sizes and to project a beam that could cause any object to shrink and grow, while Janet designed a new costume for him. While experimenting on their pet cat Tabby, Pym accidentally knocked over a vial of his growing solution and it caused a nearby spider to grow to gigantic size. With his new costume and helmet, Pym was able to defeat the massive arachnid before it could harm him or the Wasp. The pair were next targeted by the Mandarin's adopted daughter Madame Macabre who had size changing abilities of her own, only they were limited to toy models created by her assistant Gogo. She attempted to convince Giant-Man to share the secret of his size-changing abilities so they could rule the world but he refused. She then lured the Wasp to Central Park Art Galley and trapped her. When Giant-Man came to her rescue, Madame Macabre attempted to trap Giant-Man in a rapidly shrinking room in order to force him to reveal his secrets. With the help of the Wasp, Giant-Man escape and the pair captured Madame Macabre and turned her over to the authorities. Not long after this the Masters of Evil launched their final gambit against the Avengers when Baron Zemo captured Rick Jones. While Captain America went to South America to rescue Rick, the other Avengers battled the Masters of Evil which included the recently freed Black Knight. Ultimately, Baron Zemo died battling Captain America. With the Avengers outnumbering them, the Masters of Evil fled as well. With Thor having left the team, Iron Man, Giant Man and the Wasp began discussing the future of the group. Giant-Man had decided that both he and Janet wished to take a leave of absence after Janet's recent brush with death. Their meeting was interrupted by the arrival of the criminal known as Hawkeye who sought to join the Avengers in order to redeem himself of his past wrongs, and the three Avengers agreed to allow him to join the group and held a press conference announcing the first line-up change of the Avengers. It was around this time that Hank and Janet's secret identities apparently had became public knowledge and they friendly had to duck from paparazzi on the streets. Just as Captain America and Rick Jones arrived, Giant-Man and Wasp found two other replacement Avengers in the former members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: the mutant twins Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Giant-Man and the Wasp then left to pursue their own private goals, leaving Captain America to introduce the new line up of the Avengers.

First Retirement

Not long after taking his leave of absence from the Avengers, Giant-Man was targeted by the alien known as the Hidden Man who used a mysterious "green ray" to steal knowledge from scientists all over New York. The Hidden Man became determined to steal Giant-Man's ability to change size for his own ends. Both he and the Wasp were no match for the green ray, which stole Giant-Man's ability to shrink. When Giant-Man finally caught up with the Hidden Man and attempted to capture him, members of the Hidden Man's race finally caught up with him and took him away, leaving Giant-Man without the ability to shrink at will. Giant-Man then began trying to expand his size to even greater heights but this proved to be quite the ordeal as the strain on his body was too great. He eventually decided that he could only switch between two sizes: from his normal height to 25 feet. When the Human Top resurfaced and attempted to get revenge for his past defeats. Just as Giant-Man was having his lab fitted to allow him to work at a much larger size and kidnapped the Wasp. Tracking Jan through her cybernetic relays in her headdress, Giant-Man enlarged her train wasp Boopsie and rode it to the Human Top's hideout. There Giant-Man tried to fight through the Top's traps but fell into a massive freezer that the villain set out for him. Pulling the Wasp to safety, Giant-Man was too late to stop the Top from activating the fast acting freezer. The couple shrank in size, hiding in the massive ice coating that formed around Giant-Man's gigantic body. When the Top pulled the frozen statue out, they broke free and easily defeated the Top, handing him over to the authorities. When the Human Top once again broke out of prison, both Giant-Man and the Wasp went after him, and arrived on the scene just as he was defeated by Spider-Man. After this last mission, both Giant-Man and the Wasp went into retirement.

Henry took on a job with the United States government which involved a deep sea drilling operation to search for clues to the origins of life on Earth. Their operation caused earthquakes in the realm of Atlantis drawing the Sub-Mariner to the drilling platform which he then attacked. As the soldiers tried to defend the platform a fire broke out. Suddenly and unknown to all, the Sub-Mariner was put under the control of his foe the Puppet Master and fled the location. Agreeing that the threat of the Sub-Mariner needed to be dealt with, Henry allowed Jan to go seek them out as the Wasp while he stayed behind to continue his research. En route, Janet was captured by Attuma who believed she was a spy trying to stop his most recent plans to invade the surface world. Jan managed to break free and alert the Avengers, but in turn was captured by the Collector. The Avengers ultimately thwarted Attuma's plans for conquest.

Goliath

First Goliath Costume

When Janet failed to turn up, Pym contacted the Avengers and revealed his secret identity to them and returned to Avengers Mansion to try and help them find her. After proving who he was, he was given a new costume and he decided to change his name to Goliath after Captain America called him one. However, after years of inactivity, Pym soon came to the horrific realization that he could only grow to 25 feet in height and that he could only do so for 15 minutes. To change size again any sooner or later would cause serious injury to him. Soon they were contacted by the Collector who challenged the Avengers to come and get him at his secret hideout. There Goliath battled through the Collector's various weapons as well as his minion, the Beetle. The team defeated the Collector, who teleported away with the Beetle. Although Jan was save, Henry was in his giant size for too long and quickly tried to change back to normal height. The strain was too much and Pym stopped reducing at 10 feet before passing out. The Avengers rushed Goliath back to their headquarters where he was examined by a doctor who confirmed their worst fears: Goliath would be stuck at the height of 10 feet, seemingly for the rest of his life. When learning the news, Pym became deeply depressed fearing that he would be a freak for the rest of his life. He pushed Jan away and then left the mansion. However when the team was captured by the Black Widow, and her minions Swordsman and Power Man, he came to their rescue easily trouncing these foes, although they managed to escape. Goliath was later on hand with his teammates during a United States defence briefing.

Although his room in the mansion was redesigned to accommodate his 10 foot high stature, he continued to shut out Janet and brood over his disposition. He soon read a newspaper story about his old university professor Dr. Franz Anton who resided in South America. Believing that Anton could cure him of his predicament, Goliath secretly left the Avengers to seek him out. When Pym arrived at Anton's home he found the scientist missing and his lab in shambles. He was soon attacked by members of a group of hidden people from the Forbidden Land. Goliath fought them off and took one of his attackers prisoner and forced him to take him to the Forbidden Land. There he found that Anton was a prisoner by the Keeper of the Flame who believed that Anton was a spy seeking to steal the secrets of their Cobalt powered flame. Goliath tried to talk sense and petition for Anton's release, but the fanatical Keeper ordered Goliath's death. Before he could be swarmed by the Keeper's legion, he was rescued by Prince Rey who sought to overthrow the Keeper. Goliath helped Prince Rey flee back to where his resistance fighters were, but upon learning that Rey only sought to control the power of the flame, he left to free Anton alone. By this time the Avengers had tracked down Goliath and come to the Forbidden Land. During the course of the battle against the people of the Forbidden Land, the Keeper kept on feeding the flame Cobalt, making it greatly unstable and making it a threat to the world. Ultimately the Avengers managed to douse the flames and escape with Dr. Anton. When Goliath asked Dr. Anton for help, Franz told the hero that there was only one man he knew who could possibly cure him: Henry Pym.

Goliath works with Bill Foster to try and find a cure

Finding new resolve, Goliath decided to try and cure himself of his own affliction instead, and slowly overcame his depression. To assist him in his research he hired African-American biochemist Bill Foster. One night Bill was attacked by the Sons of the Serpent a racist organization that was determined to eliminate or remove everyone but American-born Caucasians. This attack prompted Goliath to go to his fellow Avengers to deal with this organization. However, Captain America was captured by the Sons of the Serpent. As a senior member of the Avengers, Goliath took charge of the group and ordered his comrades to pretend to side with the Serpents in order to free Cap and shut them down on the inside. This public backing from the Avengers angered Bill who temporarily stopped working with Goliath, unaware that this was all part of his plan to shut the racist organization down. Goliath and the Wasp appeared before a rally organized by the Sons of the Serpent under the auspices that they were throwing in their support. However they denounced the Serpents while Hawkeye freed Captain America. The Avengers then defeated the Serpent's Captain America impersonator and revealed that their leader was General Chen, a communist soldier trying to create a propaganda victory against the United States for his country. Returning to Avengers Mansion, Goliath promised to examine the Super-Adaptoid that Captain America had defeated when it broke into the premises. Pym would not get the chance, as it managed to replicate all the Avengers powers and escape after battling Captain America. The Avengers later decided to offer membership to Spider-Man. Although when the hero was brought before them his quick temper led to he and Goliath to come to blows. Eventually the fight was broken up and Spider-Man was given the mission to capture the Hulk as a test to prove if he was Avengers material. Ultimately, Spider-Man could not bring himself to capture the Hulk as he felt sympathetic toward his alter-ego of Bruce Banner and eventually declined membership. With the Sons of the Serpent shut down, Bill eventually realized that Goliath was leading the organization into a trap and came back to work with Henry. As Goliath worked, Janet became the obsession of a new villain calling himself the Living Laser. Seeking to win the Wasp's love, the Laser attacked Goliath at his lab, but the man-mountain easily defeated his foe and he was turned over to Captain America and Hawkeye. The Living Laser managed to break free, and instead of going to prison he made Cap, Hawkeye and the Wasp his prisoners. Learning that Janet was in trouble, Goliath tracked the Laser down to his base. However by the time he arrived the Living Laser had already absconded with the Wasp to help overthrow the nation of Costa Verde. As Hawkeye and Captain America made a plan, Goliath and Bill stumbled upon a cure for his condition but Henry kept this a secret. The Avengers then launched an attack against the Laser's forces on Costa Verde. During the course of the battle, Goliath allowed himself to get captured, then used his recently regained shrinking abilities to free himself, and then the Wasp. The Avengers then crushed the Living Laser's invasion. With the communist regime of Costa Verde smashed, the people of the island thanked the Avengers and began setting up a democratic government.

Goliath and his fellow Avengers, and Hawkeye's girlfriend the Black Widow were next lured to the nation of Transia by the alien being known as Ixar who had already captured their comrades Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Ixar had attempted to capture the Avengers in the hopes of transferring their powers into his Ultroids so that they would have superior abilities to battle an unspecified alien foe. Goliath and the other Avengers broke free from their bonds and battled the Ultroid's and Ixar's Ultroid form. Meanwhile, Hawkeye and the Black Widow forced Ixar to surrender when the Black Widow threatened to kill the alien, pointing out that she was not bound to the Avengers code of conduct, which forbade killing. Ixar then surrendered and left Earth, but Hawkeye and the Widow kept how they defeated their foe a secret as Hawkeye wished for the Widow to become a member of the Avengers. When Hawkeye petitioned for the Black Widow to join their ranks, Goliath was against it given her past career as a spy and the fact that she attacked them recently. This caused the two men to come to blows. However the matter was taken out of their hands when the Black Widow secretly accepted an offer to work for the counter-espionage agency known as SHIELD. The Avengers were later attacked by the Enchantress who had enthralled the Olympian demi-god Hercules. Goliath held his own against Hercules but was no match for his strength. Hercules was later freed from the spell when Hawkeye attempted to use a sulfer arrow and the Enchantress was forced to flee. In the aftermath of the battle, Hercules' father Zeus appeared and exiled him on Earth for the next year. Goliath and the others then invited Hercules to stay with them at Avengers Mansion as a guest until his exile was over.

When the newspapers reported that the Black Widow had seemingly betrayed her newly adopted country, Hawkeye ran off to be alone and was captured by the Mad Thinker and his technologically enhanced footsoldiers the Triumvirate of Terror. Goliath and the others soon fell as well, giving the Thinker access to Avengers Mansion and the Stark Industries built computers held there. However the Thinker's plan soon fell apart, as he had not foreseen that Hercules was staying with the Avenges and he and his Triumvirate was easily defeated. Goliath then joined his fellow Avengers on a quest to find the Cosmic Cube, leading to a clash with the Sub-Mariner who had discovered the device first. Although Namor had the advantage, the Cube was eventually taken from him and lost below the surface of the Earth, ending its threat for the time being. Following this mission, Captain America began training Goliath and the other Avengers putting them through an intense hand-to-hand combat training. Henry later got permission to examine the Dragon Man android as part of his studies on artificial intelligence. However as he began his work, Dragon Man's former controller Diablo came seeking the creature and restored it to life, leading to a battle between the Dragon Man and Goliath. Goliath proved no match for Dragon Man's brute strength and Diablo took both Goliath and the Wasp prisoner. Hank and Janet were then taken to Diablo's castle in Transylvania. Using Jan as a hostage, Diablo forced Pym to begin building an army of Dragon Men in a plot to take over the world. Henry's fellow Avengers came to his aid, but not wishing Janet to be hurt, he was forced to fight his comrades until Hercules managed to defeat the Dragon Man and save her. Diablo was defeated soon after and taken prisoner, while his castle was destroyed.

Ultron

Creating Ultron

Hank managed to recover the Dragon Man and began examining it further in order to learn a means to create his own artificial intelligence. To this end he began developing his own robot with artificial intelligence that he called Ultron. Ultron's creation would have grave repercussions for years to come and had a many years to come. In fact many years in the future Ultron would become such a threat that the entire human race was faced with extinction. As a result the heroes Wolverine and the Invisible Woman travelled to this era from the future in order to try and prevent Pym from creating Ultron. Wolverine attacked Pym in his lab, and gravely wounded him. After convincing the Invisible Woman there was only one way to save their future, Wolverine then slew Pym. However when Wolverine and the Invisible Woman returned to their own era, they found different apocalyptic future had take the place of the world they escaped from. Wolverine then returned to the past to stop his past self from killing Pym. Stopping his past self, the two Wolverines, Pym, and the Invisible Woman discussed a possible solution. They decided that to save the future Pym still had to live to create Ultron. However they had him insert a secret program within Ultron that would prevent him from causing the events that led to the apocalypse that Wolverine had come to stop. Pym's memories of these events were then submerged so that they would not affect history. After this was complete, the time travellers left Pym to follow his destiny. As a result of this tampering, the Earth-616 universe returned to its proper course, while there were two divergent timelines: Earth-61112, the original future where Wolverine and the Invisible Woman came from where Ultron was poised to wipe out humanity; and Earth-26111, a timeline where the future Wolverine killed Pym creating a future that was ruled by the sorceress Morgan Le Fay. When Pym finally completed Ultron, using his own brain engrams to create its personality. The robots artificial intelligence caused its intelligence and independence to increase to the point where Ultron became autonomous, paranoid, and developed on Oedipus Complex. Ultron then used hypnosis forcing him to close up his home and forget that he ever created Ultron so that the robot could upgrade and perfect himself uninterrupted.

Later when Hawkeye learned that his girlfriend the Black Widow was a prisoner in an Asian country, he and Hercules went to rescue her and became prisoners of the Red Guardian. It was during this period in which Jan turned 23 and she inherited her family fortune. When the Avengers learned of this, Goliath and the Wasp joined their teammates on the rescue mission. The Avengers managed to rescue their captured friends, and return to the United States. Later when Iron Man's foe the Mandarin gathered a number of Avengers foes to try and take over the world, every active member of the Avengers at the time were gathered to face the threat. Goliath and the Wasp accompanied Iron Man to South America where they stopped the Swordsman and Power Man from destroying an entire city with a massive explosive sword. The other Avengers were able to stop similar plots and the entire team tracked the Mandarin to his hideout in Asia. Goliath and the others were then forced to fight each other thanks to the Mandarin's hate-ray, but they managed to destroy it. With his plan thwarted, the Mandarin then fled. For their defeat of the Mandarin, the Avengers were celebrated with festivities being held in Central Park. There they were attacked by the Super-Adaptoid, who was trying to complete its programming by killing Captain America. Goliath and the Avengers managed to defeat the android by tricking it into using all of its copied powers at once causing it to short circuit. On their way home, Goliath and the Wasp happened past Hank's old house. When Janet asked to go in and get some make-up she left there, Pym's mental conditioning kicked in and he convinced her that he was too tired to go looking, thus keeping Ultron's anonymity in tact.

Fluctuating Powers

2nd Goliath costume

Goliath and Wasp's old foe the Human Top -- having reinvented himself as a new villain called Whirlwind -- decided to get revenge on his old enemies. Taking on the false identity of Charles Matthews, Whirlwind got a job as Janet's chauffeur. This allowed him to get close enough to his old foes to know when they would be alone in Avengers Mansion. At this time Henry began working on controlling ants again, focusing on red ants, a species that was previously resistant to his mental commands in the past. Whirlwind attacked and used a shrink ray to reduce Goliath and the Wasp down to ant size and then tossed them into the ants habitat. Without their control devices and their size changing powers negated by the shrink ray, the couple were forced to fend for themselves. Eventually Henry got to a miniaturized cybernetic control-center that he made and salvaged it to create a new ant controlling headpiece which worked on the red ant. The pair then escaped their death trap just as Captain America and Quicksilver forced Whirlwind to flee. They then reversed the shrink ray to restore Janet and Henry back to normal. Afterwords, the Avengers were rocked when Captain America suddenly decided to quit the team, making Hank the chairman to the Avengers. In order to get their minds off of this, Henry and Janet decided to take a trip to Las Vegas. The couple were called back to New York when Hawkeye received a distress signal from Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch stating that they had become prisoners of Magneto. However before they could deal with this news, the mansion was approached by the new heroic Black Knight. Mistaking him for their old foe, Goliath and the others battled him. It was during this battle that Hank began to discover his worse fears: that his growing powers were once again causing too much strain to his body forcing him to refrain from using them. After a brief battle they learned this new Black Knight was not a foe, and merely sought to warn them about Magneto's threat before he left, angry that they attacked him.

3rd Goliath costume

The Avengers were later dispatched to the United Nations Headquarters when Magneto, the Toad, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch appeared there. Magneto put up the false pretence that he came to the United Nations to petition them to allow Mutants to have their own independent nation under his rule. When he was flat out refused, he attacked the UN Assembly. While the Avengers came to defend the UN, Magneto used the opportunity to cause a guard's gun to fire, and used his magnetic powers to make the bullet crease the Scarlet Witch's brow, convincing Quicksilver to rejoin his side, and they soon fled. With no other choice, Goliath was forced to reveal to his teammates that he could no longer use his growing powers, causing even more strain between him and Hawkeye. They eventually calmed down and agreed to track down Hercules, who had been on a private mission for a number of days. They traced him to Mount Olympus where they assisted Hercules in his battle against Typhon who had banished the Olympians to the Land of Shades. Although they defeated Typhon and restored the Olympians, they lost Hercules as a teammate as his exile was lifted and he wished to return to his people. Goliath then began trying to work on a means of restoring his growing powers but these experiments proved to be nearly fatal, and a failure. Soon the Avengers were once again targeted by the Collector, who captured the Wasp, Hawkeye and Goliath. Before they were imprisoned they found that Thor was already the Collector's slave. Unwilling to have an "incomplete" Avenger, the Collector then began experimenting on Goliath to try and restore his powers. The Avengers however eventually broke free, forcing the Collector to flee. Later, with the help of Thor and Iron Man, Goliath got the assistance he needed to have his growing powers restored to their peak once again.

The Avengers were soon targeted by the Grim Reaper, who sought revenge against the Avengers as he blamed them for the apparent death of his brother, Wonder Man. Using his scythe, the Reaper put Goliath, the Wasp, and Hawkeye in a death-like state. Ultimately, the Reaper's plans were foiled by the Avenger's newest recruit the Black Panther who restored the Avengers back to normal. The group was next approached by the Angel who sought the Avengers to aid the X-Men in stopping Magneto's latest schemes. Finding that Magneto had bugged the Angel and knew they were coming, they set up an elaborate ruse to make it seem like they did not trust the Angel and were prone to in fighting among themselves. While the Avengers were busy fighting the X-Men, who were under Magneto's mind control device, the Angel got the drop on Magneto and destroyed it. The Toad then set the base to explode, and all parties fled the base, all save for Magneto who seemingly perished in the blast.

Ultron Strikes

Eventually, Ultron had upgraded himself to the point where he felt ready to attack the Avengers in an attempt to try and destroy his "father". To this end, he adopted the guise of the Crimson Cowl. At this time the Avenger's butler Edwin Jarvis was in desperate need of money for his mother's medical treatments. As the Cowl, Ultron approached Jarvis, offering him the money he needed in exchange for details regarding the security systems at Avengers Mansion. Jarvis went along with the plan thinking that his employers would easily be able to stop their foe. Ultron however hypnotized Jarvis into doing his bidding. Ultron then formed a new Masters of Evil, which included past members the Radioactive Man and Melter, as well as Whirlwind and Klaw. Additionally, Ultron also hired the Black Knight, thinking him the villainous original, and not his heroic successor. When the Masters went to attack Avengers Mansion, the Black Knight tried to tip the Avengers off. This gave the Avengers a chance to fight back, but they were still captured and taken back to the Masters secret hideout. There Ultron had Jarvis "reveal" himself as the Crimson Cowl, while posing as a immobile mechanical construct of the Cowl. The Avengers were placed inside a neutron bomb which Ultron intended to use against the city of New York, but the heroes were freed by the Black Knight. During the ensuing battle, Ultron chose to reveal himself and his entire plot but managed to escape while his comrades were defeated by Goliath and the others.

Goliath vs Giant-Man

Before the Avengers could figure out why Ultron was seeking to destroy them, they received a call from Captain America and met with him at Dr. Doom's old castle. There Cap wanted to use Doom's Time-Platform to visit the year 1945 and confirm that Bucky had died during his battle with Baron Zemo in that era. Goliath joined the rest of the Avengers into travelling into the past where they would witness events as spectres while the Wasp stayed in the present to man the controls. While Janet was watching the controls, the time traveller known as the Scarlet Centurion used one of his devices to make Jan become sleepy and hit one of specific controls. This caused Goliath and the others to materialize before Baron Zemo. This led to a brief clash with the heroes before the Wasp woke up in the present and returned them to their native era. However instead of being transported to the present, they were instead transported to the alternate reality of Earth-689. Returning to Avengers Mansion, Goliath and the others were shocked to find what appeared to be the original Avengers meeting at their headquarters. This led to a brief clash where Hank fought an alternate version of himself in his Giant-Man persona. Escaping Avengers Mansion, Pym took the Avengers to Long Island university where Herodotus computer was being developed. There they learned that in this reality the Scarlet Centurion appeared before the original Avengers just after their battle with the Space Phantom and convinced them that in order to create an utopia, they had to destroy every other super-human on the planet. Seeing that their Earth-689 counterparts had created a fascist state, Pym and the others recovered the parts of Dr. Doom's Time-Platform, clashing with their counterparts once again. When they reassembled the Time-Platform and activated it, the Scarlet Centurion used it to enter that reality and attack them. Pym shrank down to ant-size and tampered with the controls shunting the Centurion away and transporting them to their native Earth-616. Returned to their proper time, the Avengers were visited by the Watcher who told the group that the Centurion was a past version of their old foe Kang the Conqueror.

While the Avengers were occupied, Ultron continued to plot against the Avengers, tracking down the Mad Thinker and forcing him to turn over the seemingly inert android body of the original Human Torch. Unknown to the two villains was the time traveller Immortus that used the Forever Crystal to create a chronal duplicate of the Torch as part of his ongoing plans to manipulate the destiny of the Avengers. One copy was taken by Ultron for his purposes, while another was left behind for the Mad Thinker to use for other purposes. Ultron then took his copy of the Torch and rebuilt it into a new android known as the Vision, using stolen brain engrams of Wonder Man to create the Vision's new personality. Ultron then sent the Vision to attack Hank and Janet and kill them.

There are two differing accounts of the Vision's first encounter with the Avengers. In the first account, the Vision attacked Janet's apartment just as Hank left to work on a bacteria culture. Hearing Janet scream for help, Pym raced to her rescue to find the Vision had passed out on the floor. Goliath and the Wasp took the Vision back to Avengers Mansion to examine him, learning that he was an android. The Vision then revived and a battle broke out which ended abruptly when the Vision overcame Ultron's programming. The Vision then led the Avengers to Ultron's hideout where Ultron's body was seemingly destroyed by the Vision. Another account states that on the night in question, Hank and Janet had an argument over the amount of time that Hank was spending on his research and how it was neglecting their relationship. This took place at Avengers Mansion and when the Vision attacked, Hawkeye and the Black Panther were there to help. They were also attacked by Ultron at the Mansion and it was here that the Vision seemingly destroyed his creator. The Avengers then began trying to uncover the mystery of the Vision, and decided to make him a member of the Avengers. While the Vision was recounting what he knew about his own creation, it also caused Hank to remember his own hand in creating Ultron and the mystery was finally resolved. Curious, Hank managed to recover Ultron's head and with Iron Man reactivated it to learn why the robot turned against its creator. Ultron explained that it considered organic life weak and that the it was determined to eliminate all organic life to replace it with mechanical perfection. Pym then shut down Ultron before the disembodied head could attack him. While Ultron appeared to be defeated, he would return to menace Pym and the Avengers again many times in the future.

Yellowjacket

Hank called in Iron Man, Thor and Captain America to discuss the addition of the Vision into their ranks, accepting the responsibility as chairman and the pressure he would be getting from both the NSA and SHIELD regarding the matter. Not long after it was agreed that the Vision was to become an active member of the Avengers, SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell had the Vision arrested for interrogation over possible connections to the missing Super-Adaptoid. Pym was furious over this action and he demanded that Captain America get him an audience with SHIELD director Nick Fury. The meeting with Fury was tense, but a request was put to the table for the Avengers to follow a lead on the Adaptoid. Fury asked the Avengers to assist them in investigating reports that A.I.M. had created an army of Adaptoids to attack a small island off the coast of the Philippines. Pym accepted the mission on the condition that SHIELD release the Vision, whom they cleared of any connection with the Super-Adaptoid anyway. When they arrived over the island, the Avengers Quinjet was shot down and Hank ordered his teammates to shut down the AIM facility on the island while he dealt with the army of Adaptoids alone. Growing to giant size, Henry evacuated a nearby village and then faced the army by himself. Reminding himself that they were not living beings, Pym allowed himself to go into a berserker fury, rending the Adaptoids apart with his bare hands and destroying them all even though they had mimicked all the powers of every Avenger to date. While Hank destroyed all the Adaptoids, the Avengers destroyed the AIM facility, however the original Super-Adaptoid managed to escape capture. Hank was found in among the scattered remains of the Adaptoid army in a state of shock. After being treated by SHIELD for his injuries, he was released, but the Avengers were given grief over being incapable of capturing the original Adaptoid. After getting reamed out by both Nick Fury and NSA special agent James Murch, Hank was plagued by nightmares that evening. Awoken by these nightmares, Hank went out to his lab and in a fit of rage began smashing his equipment. A combination of his emotional stress and the chemicals he inadvertently exposed himself to trigged a schizophrenic episode. His memories of Hank Pym were submerged and his inhibitions were pushed to the fore. He developed a new identity and costume, calling himself Yellowjacket. Unaware of who he was he also fabricated a story in which he believed he had defeated Goliath in battle, shrinking him down to size and leaving him to die at the hands of a spider.

Yellowjacket

As Yellowjacket, Pym began busting up criminals all over the city before going to Avengers Mansion, subduing Jarvis and then demanding that the group give him membership. At the time, SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell was in the mansion and in scanning Yellowjacket's face he found that it was a match to Henry Pym. When the Avengers took private council to consider Yellowjacket's demands Sitwell revealed this to them and also called in SHIELD psych specialist Agent Carver. Carver explained that Pym was going through a state of schizophrenic behaviour and that by exposing the truth to him could do more damage than good and cautioned the Avengers to play along with his delusions until further examination could bring about a treatment. The Avengers grudgingly agreed to do so, although Janet found herself uneasy with seemingly doing nothing for her lover. It was then that Yellowjacket "revealed" that he had "killed" Henry Pym. This led to a clash between Yellowjacket and the Avengers, which ended with the heroes defeat and Janet as Pym's prisoner. It here that Yellowjacket gave into his passions and kissed Janet and the two began talking about their future together. When the Avengers later "rescued" Jan from Yellowjacket, she informed the group that she intended to marry Yellowjacket, much to their shock and surprise. Nick Fury was called in, and he was unimpressed with the situation, but Janet insisted that this was something that had to be done. Fury and the other Avengers conceded, agreeing to put on a mock wedding and keeping the truth of the situation a secret to avoid public embarrassment. As the wedding was being planned, Yellowjacket was plucked out of time and brought forward many years into the future.

Destiny War

In the not too distant future, long time Avengers associate Rick Jones became the target of Immortus who sought to kill him in order to prevent a future where the Avengers become a galactic fascist milita that dominated over the known universe. At the time, Rick was taken by the modern day Avengers to the Blue Area of the Moon so that the imprisoned Supreme Intelligence could determine why the Destiny Force was slowly killing him. When Immortus attack, Rick was defended by two unlikely allies: Immortus's younger self, Kang the Conqueror and Libra, formally of the Zodiac crime cartel. While Kang fought off the legion of warriors that Immortus pulled out of different eras, Libra and the Supreme Intelligence helped Rick channel the Destiny Force to pull various Avengers out of time to help defend him. Yellowjacket found himself pulled to the present time along with Captain America, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Songbird, as well as the Wasp, and Pym's present day self who at that time reassumed his Giant-Man identity. The gathered Avengers helped the Supreme Intelligence, Libra and Kang defend Rick Jones, driving off Kang's forces. In order to get away, Libra led the Avengers to a place between time to regroup. When the Wasp and Giant-Man realized that the version of Yellowjacket they were dealing with was from the past in which Hank was going through his schizophrenic period, they refrained from revealing his true identity. This created tension between the Wasp and Yellowjacket, who from his point in history was destined to marry her, unaware that this marriage would have a tragic future ahead of it. After learning of Rick's importance from Libra, the Avengers refused to stand aside while others fought for the destiny of humanity, and convinced Libra to bring them to Chronopolis the home of Kang, a place which touched all points in history at once. However when they arrived they found that it was under attack by the forces of Immortus.

The Avengers came to Kang's aid, but they were too late to stop the forces of Immortus from nearly wiping out Kang's Anachronauts. Reuniting with Kang, the Avengers learned that Immortus was after the Heart of the Infinite, a chronal power that would allow Immortus to alter history without creating divergent realities. Soon they were too overpowered by the forces of Immortus, and Kang convinced the Avengers and Rick to flee outside of the time stream in his Sphinx craft while he tried to go after the Heart. Although the Avengers managed to escape, Kang failed to stop Immortus from claiming the Heart and using its power to condense all the power of Chronopolis into it, creating the powerful Forever Crystal. Unwilling to stand on the sidelines, the Avengers once again decided to go into the heat of battle, using the Sphinx ships computers to pinpoint what points in time that Immortus was seeking to manipulate. Isolating three different points in time, the Avengers split up into groups to investigate the chronal anomalies. During this period, Yellowjacket was spurred by the Wasp, and decided to focus his attention on Songbird. He continued trying to romance her when he was paired off with Songbird and Hawkeye to travel back in time to the year 1873 to investigate a chronal anomaly in the town of Tombstone, Arizona. There they found that the town was actually under the control of Kang the Conqueror and he was being opposed by the western heroes Two-Gun Kid, Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid. Before Yellowjacket and Hawkeye could come to the cowboys aid, Songbird stopped them explaining that this Kang was a past version of the one they met and that this plot was stopped by the Avengers in both Hawkeye and Yellowjacket's future. Through their entire mission, Hawkeye was trying to convince Yellowjacket that he was really Hank Pym, after seeing him unmasked. Yellowjacket continued to deny this reality. When the trio returned to where they stashed their chronosphere, they were shocked to find the past version of Kang waiting for them. Unaware of their mission, or that they were helping his future self, Kang claimed their Chronosphere stranding them in the past and tried to bury them alive. The trio survived and they were confronted by what appeared to be three more western heroes: the Black Rider, Reno Jones, and Kid Cassidy. However, as Hawkeye was a western buff, he soon realized that they were impostors when he remembered that Kid Cassidy had died prior to the year 1873. The trio attacked these impostors and were shocked to find that they were really Space Phantoms in disguise.

Agent of Immortus

The trio then went back into town to try and recover their Chronosphere from Kang's citadel in town. Sneaking around the battle between the cowboys and Kang's forces, Yellowjacket realized that Songbird suddenly had a more intimate knowledge of Kang's technology and that she was reciprocating and knocked "her" out revealing that she was replaced by a Space Phantom. With Songbird freed they recovered the Chronosphere and returned to the Sphinx ship outside of time. When the other Avengers returned from their points in history and compared notes, Yellowjacket attempted to continue his flirtations with Songbird. Having had enough, Songbird berated him, telling Pym that in her time the Wasp is her best friend and she and Hank were married once again. Soon the Avengers all agreed to take the fight directly to Immortus in Limbo. When the group arrived there, they were quickly detected by Immortus and split up. Yellowjacket found himself in a dark room with only a mirror that forced him to see the reality he denied up to this point: that he really was Henry Pym. Not liking a future where his Yellowjacket persona is lost to his original and meek Pym personality, Yellowjacket decided to do something about it. Realizing that he could control the "Limbo-bugs" that existed in the citadel of Immortus, Yellowjacket tracked their foe down. Instead of attacking Immortus, Yellowjacket offered to help him in his task if Immortus agreed to change history so that he kept his Yellowjacket personality and was able to marry the Wasp. An offer which Immortus agreed to give. The other Avengers eventually managed to escape Limbo and return to the Sphinx craft outside time and space. However, they were unaware that Yellowjacket had bugged them all with Limbo-Bugs which allowed Immortus to follow them. After the Avengers forced a Space Phantom to reveal all the times Immortus manipulated their pasts, they were attacked by Immortus and Yellowjacket and knocked out.

Yellowjacket then assisted Immortus in showing the other Avengers what was at stake. Immortus transported Yellowjacket's teammates to the future of Earth-9812 and Yellowjacket used the Limbo-Bugs to make them resemble that realities version of the Guardians of the Galaxy in order to force them to battle the Galactic Avenger Battalion. When the battle seemed lost, Yellowjacket and Immortus pulled the time displaced Avengers between points in time to stand in a mock trail before Immortus' masters the Time-Keepers. When Yellowjacket learned that the Time-Keepers were determined to destroy 42% of the all possible futures that could potentially lead to the future of Earth-9812, thus causing genocide on a chronal scale, Yellowjacket turned on his employers. Freed by the Destiny Force, the Avengers attacked, and were soon joined by Rick Jones who arrived with Kang and the Supreme Intelligence. The Avengers and their allies attacked the Time-Keepers who fled to the "End of Time" to use the Forever Crystal to power a Chronal-Cannon that would wipe out the desired timelines. When the Avengers followed, the Keepers pulled various evil alternate-reality versions of the Avengers to face them. As the battle seemed lost, Captain Marvel switched places with the future counterpart of Rick Jones and both Ricks used their combined Destiny Forces to bring more allies to help their fellow Avengers. Ultimately, the heroic Avengers won and Kang slew the Time-Keepers. With the Forever Crystal in his possession, Captain America destroyed it to ensure its power would not be abused. With their quest finally over and their destinies their own to make, the Avengers were returned to their proper times. Yellowjacket was arrived in his own era just moments before his wedding with his eras Wasp. His memories of the Destiny War quickly faded from his memory, and history resumed on its proper course.

Wedding

The wedding

Unknown to Yellowjacket, his teammates were still struggling with how to deal with his current schizophrenic personality, with the Wasp insisting that the wedding had to go through, much to the protest of both the Avengers and SHIELD. Nonetheless, the wedding continued on under SHIELD supervision with all the super-hero guests invited accepting the "twist" wedding. Unknown to all at the time, the catering staff had been replaced by the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime who sought to get revenge against Thor by attacking him at the wedding. The villains hid Princess Python's pet boa constrictor in the wedding cake and when Janet went to cut it, the snake attacked. Seeing Janet in peril, Yellowjacket at first cracked under the pressure until suddenly he used his growing powers "revealing" that he was Henry Pym the whole time. He and the Avengers easily defeated the Circus of Crime and turned them over to the authorities. With Pym's mind seemingly restored to health, he accepted the fact that he was married to Janet, as the wedding was technically legal anyhow. After the wedding, Hank was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation from Agent Carver, who reported back that while Hank was seemingly back to normal, his mental state was still far from stable. Hank and Janet were returned to the Mansion just as Hawkeye, the Vision, and Black Panther took down the Super-Adaptoid. Later after a SHIELD debriefing over recent events, Hank and Janet decided to leave the group for their honeymoon and reflect on where their relationship was to go from there, but Hank vowed that when they returned they would devote themselves to the Avengers one hundred percent.

The Honeymoon's Over

During their honeymoon, Hank deduced that his growing powers was what was partially responsible for his schizophrenic episode and decided to retire as Goliath in favour of maintaining his Yellowjacket identity, using his shrinking powers once again. Initially, Hank and Janet returned to Avengers Mansion to destroy his latest and most powerful growth formula. However before he could, the Avengers were called by what appeared to be Nick Fury and asked to rescue the Black Widow from captivity in the Caribbean. Yellowjacket and the Wasp accompanied the Avengers on this mission, but Hawkeye -- given his past romantic relationship with the Black Widow -- was ordered to stay behind. This turned out to be a trap set by a partnership between Egghead, the Mad Thinker, and the Puppet Master, part of a plot to conquer the world. However while the Avengers were sent on a wild goose chase, Hawkeye took Pym's growth formula and abandoned Goliath costume and rescued the Widow from the villains who had her prisoner at Coney Island, although the villains escaped. The other Avengers soon learned that the trio of villains plotted to use a massive satellite to hold the world hostage. When they returned to base they found Hawkeye missing and began searching for him. However Goliath and the Black Widow safe and sound, the Avengers were then visited by Golitha's brother, racketeer Barney Barton who provided the group with the location of Egghead's satellite in exchange for being allowed to join them and redeem himself. The Avengers stormed the satellite but were immobilized by some puppets made by the Puppet Master. Barney then seemingly sacrificed his life to stop Egghead, who managed to escape. Egghead continued to target the Avengers, seeking to get revenge against his old foe Henry Pym. He hired the Swordsman to capture both Pym and Hawkeye, unaware of their recent changes in identity. Swordsman, having a past with Hawkeye accepted the job. However, when learning that Clint Barton abandoned his Hawkeye identity for Goliath, he mistakenly assumed that Henry Pym was Goliath and Hawkeye and kidnapped him, leaving the unconscious Yellowjacket behind after his attack on Avengers Mansion. Goliath later revived and captured both the Swordsman and Egghead.

Shortly after this, Captain America led the entire world to believe that his identity as Steve Rogers was a false identity, forcing him to create a new one and struggle with his new life of anonymity. Cap's distance from the team worried Yellowjacket, the Wasp and the other Avengers. Later when Cap's arch-nemesis the Red Skull used the Cosmic Cube to swap their bodies, Cap in the Skull's body attempted to warn the Avengers. Yellowjacket, the Wasp and the others attempted to subdue the "Red Skull". When the Avengers and the Cosmic Cube controlled Sharon Carter proved incapable of destroying the Captain America, the Red Skull banished him to Exile Island. Ultimately, Cap managed to defeat the Red Skull and return his mind to his proper body. Yellowjacket next joined his fellow Avengers to meet with Adamantium inventory Myron MacLain to test the durability of the metal. When it proved as indestructible as claimed, the Vision -- acting on secret programming planted in his mind by Ultron -- stole the Adamantium and the Molecular Rearranger needed to forge it to rebuild his creator. The Adamantium constructed Ultron-6 then attacked the Avengers. Yellowjacket and the others were no match for this neigh invulnerable incarnation of their foe and he easily defeated them. Recovering, they followed Ultron back to his former hideout where the robot plotted to set off a nuclear explosion to destroy the city. This nuclear holocaust was stopped by the Vision who finally managed to shake off Ultron's influence and save his comrades, but Ultron escaped. Seeking to lure Ultron into a trap, Yellowjacket contacted the Black Panther and had him ship them some Vibranium from his homeland of Wakanda. Then, Hank allowed himself to be hypnotized into thinking he was Myron MacLain with the hypnotic suggestion to constantly think of the phrase "thou shall not kill". Then, posing as the noted scientist he presented a speech to the United Nations. As expected, Ultron went after "MacLain" to siphon his knowledge of Adamantium so that Ultron could create an indestructible robot army. Instead, when Ultron attempted to drain "MacLain"'s mind he absorbed the hypnotic command. Fighting it, Ultron attempted to self destruct, but the the blast was contained by the Vibranium, and Ultron was seemingly destroyed in the process.

Game of Galaxies

Yellowjacket vs the Sub-Mariner circa 1941

Yellowjacket, the Wasp and the rest of the Avengers came to the aid of their teammate Iron Man who was in the middle of a battle with an Iron Man LMD. While they arrived too late for the battle, Iron Man had destroyed his robotic doppelgänger, but at great strain to his frail heart. At the time the Avengers did not know that Iron Man and Tony Stark were one and the same, and were shocked when they unmasked Iron Man's armor to find Stark wearing it. Stark covered for his double identity by telling them that the "real" Iron Man was on another mission leaving him to defend his business alone. The Avengers rushed Stark to a hospital for treatment. There they were attacked by Kang's Growing Man. The group tried to stop the Growing Man from kidnapping Stark, but the entire team found themselves transported to the year 4000 AD of Earth-6311 by Kang. There they learned that Kang had entered a contest with the cosmic being known as the Grandmaster for the life of his lover Ravonna. To this end, Kang agreed to pit the Avengers against champions of the Grandmaster's choosing. While Captain America, Goliath, Thor and Iron Man were pitted against the Grandmaster's Squadron Sinister, Yellowjacket, the Vision and Black Panther found themselves transported to France circa 1941. There they were forced to battle that eras Captain America, Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. The three Avengers eventually defeated the three Invaders thanks to the Visions phasing powers and were brought back to the year 4000 AD.

With the heroes victorious, Kang sought to destroy his foes, but the Wasp -- with the unexpected assistance of the Black Knight -- freed Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and Goliath. They then attacked Kang and freed the others. The Grandmaster then offered Kang an opportunity: either having his love Ravonna restored to life, or be given the power to destroy the Avengers. Thirsty for revenge Kang chose the latter, but failed in doing so as the Black Knight was not a member of the Avengers and he easily defeated Kang. The Grandmaster then returned the Avengers and their ally back to their own era. Yellowjacket then joined his fellow Avengers in accepting the Black Knight into their ranks.