Ant-Man's Embarrassing Enemy, Egghead
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- Опубликовано: 6 ноя 2021
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Ant-Man's early Silver Age appearances were pretty wacky. Today, for fun, we break down a weird story involving his arch-enemy Egghead, a guy who is bald and people say is smart but doesn't seem to be too smart. 
Развлечения
I like how Egghead had to read several books and watch documentaries to reach “sticky paper stops bugs.”
There's a gel thing that you put next to ant paths, they'll eat it and take it to their anthill and they die in large quantities, impressive stuff
Sometimes the best ideas are the simpler ones.
He apparently didn't get that name from knowing things everyone and their grandma already knew.
Borax mixed with sugar best way to kill ants
He has no hair and nothing to live for, at least grant him this tiny victory
Unrelated, but I'm really surprised Ant-Man has never had a villain associated with anteaters. It feels so natural, but nothing has ever come up
Actually, I think it's in his next appearance that Egghead unleashes an ant-eater on Ant-Man. Iirc, he just punches it away cause the whole "still have the strength of a regular sized man" thing. Then Egghead ends up the issue contemplating shooting himself with a revolver.
You could even call him Aardvark if you want a cool name
@@jorgecaballero6215 you know what, you're completely right, Egghead's Final Search. Totally forgot about it
I Remember a Show Called Atom Ant Where a Phantom Thief Named Fancy Fingers Finnegan Unleashed a Anteater to Attack Him.
Spider-Man has the Scorpion. Scorpions eat Spiders.
EGGHEAD: "Help me, ants, and I will free you from Ant-Man!"
ANTS: "Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!"
If RUclips comment sections have taught me anything, it's that no matter what the topic there's always, ALWAYS an appropriate Simpsons reference to go along with it, lmao.
Hah! Beat me to it! It’s the FIRST thing I thought of!!!
I get that refference! The Simpsons, Deep Space Homer.
I've been betrayed by the ants before. They pretended not to know me at a party THEY invited me to and then laughed at me. They can be so cruel
🤣🤣🤣
The royal “They”.
I’m sorry to hear that man.. You need to find better ants.
This might just be schizophrenia sir. Please, take your medicine. There are no ants. There haven't been ants for years.
Sounds like a super villain Creation story to me
"You believe throwing dynamite is a martial art?"
"Hey, as long as it works"
Imagine what it inspired little kids to play with.
Dynamite Thor in a nutshell
And my friends thought I was crazy to play a character in our Champions TTRPG named "Collateral Damage Man."
@@tokenbastard4586 if it's a bad idea and it works, it's not a bad idea
I prefer to tie two sticks together and use TNT as nunchucks.
Considering Ant-Man's rogues' gallery contained communist gorillas from Berlin, a guy who picked the name Human Top and Madame X, a villain with the power of crossdressing, Elias Starr was at least using his head when he picked Egghead. They could have named him Hubert Dumpy in the mighty Marvel manner ;-)
I just read an early Fantastic Four comic which had an evil magnetic Orang Utan on the moon.
@@thedirectorschair1054 Good old Peotor! And don't forget his boss the intangible communist or his fellow simians: a shape shifting baboon and a gorilla strong enough to give Thing a hard time. Weird, wild, wonderful stuff.
Communist gorilla. Oddly enough, in my country, the leftists peronists called the antileftists "gorillas". So, here in Argentina, it would be a weird combination
I cited this in my own post, but another Silver Age title abound with really, really bad villains was the early Iron Man stories in Tales of Suspense. They were hysterical.
@@robvangessel3766 I also remember Iron Man having rollers in his armour, at least in Secrets Wars storyline back in the eighties. Plenty of silly things in superhero comic books. Gladly, they became more sophisticated as the years passed by
I always giggle when I see Kirby draw bald guys, all look like giant babies. Hilarious.
His villains all needed dental work.
His women all needed... work.
Not like Batman's Egghead. That dude was awesome, and was played by Vincent Price!
Eggs-actly.
Teaming him with Olga and her Cossacks was the best.
@@johnnyplunkett8532 is that from the original TV series? Cuz I have the box-set here, but haven't watched it all. They are good fun :)
@@joedent3323 it was third season I think.
@@johnnyplunkett8532 nice! I'll Google that at get it on the DVD player tonight! Cheers for the info mate
:)
The psychology of ants? "I think it all begin when I was a larva. I was never held as a pupa..."
Comic Tropes continues to be one of the best and most positive comic book channels. Really love your comedic videos of late, this one was a blast!
It’s hard to be positive when keeping up with the current industry. Always drama from the creators and companies, always bad storytelling and stupid decisions. Atleast their are plenty of old comics to be positive about. That and indy comics and manga are the only thing that’s consistently good right now, the big two marvel and dc is a joke right now.
And refreshingly literate. So much so, that I posted one Comics Tropes to Bill Maher (the insidious ChickTracts, religion in comics). Chris is an ace analyst. I love his "you caught me in the middle of..." openers.
Also check out mr sunday movies video on egghead
RYAN, I agree with you! DC and Marvel, in addition to both being Superhero Comicbook Companies, they don't know when to leave well enough alone! For example, killing off people I like, keeping alive characters I don't like! Also, sometimes they publish a good comic. But as you read both DC and Marvel's reprint titles, you see how much they've lost over the years!
On the topic of ant pheromones, did you know that the ant pheromone for "Oh god I'm being crushed to death, please dispose of my mangled corpse for the good of the colony" is close enough to the cat pheromone for "I like this place and have decided to add a smelly reminder to it in case I forget" that cats go absolutely crazy over stomped ants.
This is actually what's in the majority of those scent sprays that companies sell to make cats less anxious about new homes.
That's actually quite fascinating.
To be fair, I would find a man throwing sticks of dynamite quite intimidating.
Also, Stan has admitted multiple times that he didn't know anything about science and would in fact just make stuff up.
Criminals: If we don't get rid of Ant-Man soon, we'll starve to death!
Also criminals: We'll give you a $10,000 down payment to defeat Ant-Man!
Also:
Ray Palmer: We could solve world hunger by shrinking food!
They're thinking 4 dimensional 🤔🤯🤫
I know right. 😁
To be fair shrinking stuff would lead to better transportation and thus less hunger
Palmer is right... Not only transportation. But you can grow more per field.
@@DSan-kl2yc Both of you are relying on assumptions about how shrinking works (does shrunken food preserve mass? does it require the same amount of water, sunlight, and nutrients?). Also, the important part is the ability to enlarge shrunken items back to their original size. Finally, it probably would be more effective to shrink the hungry instead.
As nutty as this story is, there’s still a certain charm in it that (for me, at least!) makes up for the lack of sophistication.
Totally agree, it’s got such a lighthearted and simple premise that comes together perfectly with the artwork !
Government: Ray you have over extended your chair budget for the month
Ray: Dammit! :)
My favourite character is the cop with the terrible attitude to gun safety. Like, "Well done, Ant-Man, you-" BLAM! "Guys, it looks like Ant-Man perished in his struggle!"
3:30
The entire idea of somebody picking up a chunk of a white dwarf star and hauling it to their car is so ludicrous it has me howling. For some idea of just how much your average white dwarf star weighs, a tea spoon of white dwarf material is stated to weigh as much as four billion tons, far exceeding the weight of Mount Everest.
It's the kind of silliness in comic books that I dearly love.
I mean, when you got something as unearthly and amazing as a chunk of a fuckin star, you'd put all your physical strength in getting that shit in your ride lmao
I still remember Egghead from the superhero squad where he was voiced by Newman from Seinfeld. Great fun! Great episode, sir!
SHS was the perfect piss-take of superhero cartoons.
He’s the voice I imagine for the comic. He probably could’ve actually been a good live action Egghead too.
I just hit eggheads age, so if marvel says I need an anti-aging machine, I guess I will have to hold some scientific minds hostage until I get one.
Gotta love how wacky they would get with some of this stuff. Whenever I see people complain about modern comics, I can't help but think of stories like these. Comics aren't always the highest tier of literature but if you don't take it all so seriously, it's still a fun experience. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to track down a copy of "All about Ants."
I love how weird and nonsensical the superhero origins were back in the day. Just some random scientist doing an oddly specific experiment that accidentally gives them superpowers, and instead of using this reality-breaking technology to revolutionize basically everything they just fight bank robbers.
In their defense, they usually claim that it was an accident, and therefor not reproducible, and sometimes the villains are still trying hard to reproduce it. Super-serum comes to mind, as well as some Hulk subplots.
@@jandrewmore If you can't reproduce it, then it's literally not science.
@@andybaxter4442Yeah, it wouldn't be. But in the case of supersoldier serum, for instance, the case was that Erskine was the only one who knew how to develop the serum. I guess he knew the procedure and ingredients by heart and had no assistants in the process, otherwise they could have just watched his papers to replicate it.
@@andybaxter4442 Nobody claimed that it was science.
@@andybaxter4442 yeah, more like "lab mistakes". But then happened a lot with other popular heroes tok like Spider-Man or the Flash
"But how will it react on a human's mind?"
Reminds me of Astro Guy/Atomic Guy from the King of The Monsters game; A brilliant scientist who made himself giant to fight the kaijus, only to find that his intellect isn't so sharp as a giant and eventually deteriorated into a mindless brute.
The early Silver Age is so full of these weird, quirky stories, I love it. A lot of Flash's encounters with his Rogues in this era always seem to head towards body horror if played straight
The writing in these episodes cracks me up!
If Egghead isnt the main villain in Hawekeye we riot. We need a proper adaptation of this utter G.
During a summer in the mid-80's, Hook's drugstore sold bags of 3 Marvel comics for less than the price of one new comic. I bought a bunch of bags and managed to collect the Egghead kidnaps Pym storyline in Avengers which is covered in this video. Am I the only one who felt the story of Pym building a weapon under the noses of his captors was a mirror of the Iron Man origin story?!?
At least Egghead isn't a racist stereotype like DC's egg like villains.
If you mean "Egg Fu" from Wonderwoman, he was in ways a cultural stereotype, but that's not the same as racist. The traditional modes of dress of a region (and all countries have them) and other societal traits cannot be pointed at and called "racist", they exist (or once did) and are often visually interesting. People today aren't content and scapegoating everything and everyone with accusations of "racism" seems to ease their dissatisfaction.
Dude he’s a giant egg with a fu manchu mustache who speaks in broken engrinsh. I don’t think we need to Intellectualize it too much, its pretty racist my guy
Personally, I'm still pissed that they never explained why he even looked like an egg.
Seriously, what's the reasoning behind it? Why is there a gigantic egg-shaped dictator? Why does everyone act like it's the most normal thing in the world?
@@matteomastrodomenico1231 it wasn't meant to be taken seriously - its just a yoke.
@@joedent3323 Shame on you.
Actually...there IS a book called "All About Ants" by Larson & Larson...and it's an impressively robust and detailed myrmecological summary.
So Egghead plan was spreading gossip 😆
Seeing these early comics really makes me appreciate how well they reworked Ant-Man for the movies, so it's more interesting. The art was really good though
Tbf the Ant-Man we see in the movies isn't the same as this one, Scott Lang is relatively new in comics too, he's the 3rd or 4th Ant-Man
@@gusbabiski hes the second ant man. Hes been around since '79. There have been ant men after him though like Eric O'Grady (the irredeemable ant man)
@@plain3089 Eric is my second favorite Ant-Man after Hank Pym
@@wowisntitanamazinglyamazin9550 Isnt O'Grady the perverted AntMan that spied on his ex on the shower
@@jesusramirezromo2037 Yes otherwise he wouldn't be the Irredeemable Ant-Man. Still a very entertaining character
He reminds me of the Wonder Woman Villian Egg Fu which is even more ridiculous. I looked him up thinking he was a carryover from the golden age, but he was created in 1965 by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru!
If Egghead exists in the MCU, then it wouldn't surprising if Will Ferrell gets the role since he played Megamind, hence the size of his BIG BRAIN.
He was in Ant-Man and the Wasp, played by Michael Cerveris
Yes its just SPOILERS.....
He died from an explosion along with his wife and his daughter became the Ghost in the MCU.
@@bryedtan I checked it out and I never noticed that when I first watched the film. Thanks for clearing that up.
He is in the Movie, just not as Egghead
Egghead in any villain teamup: WE'VE GOT TO KEEP OUR COMPOSURE!!!!!
9:37 I’d like to think that the $10K figure was used because $10K sounds like a lot to the kids reading the book at the time but not very much to adults. So while the target audience, children, are like “Wow that’s a lotta money!” Adults can just chuckle because they know that Egghead actually isn’t very intelligent.
You missed in the atoms origin that he did try to replicate the tech shrinking based on the water and lens and it doesn't work. It turned out that it's just his body's unique chemistry. So his tech wouldn't have worked on anyone else.
Later(bronze age) he gets it to work on others and anything though.
I’m surprised that Ant-Man biggest enemy isn’t a can of Raid
I don't know why Egghead didn't use an insecticide. The people who hired him didn't specify if they wanted Ant-Man dead or alive.
What a perfectly good missed concept, DC had on their hands; 'Type-Righter, rights wrongs by throwing exploding miniature typewriters at villains'. Oh, well. At least they'd have winners down the line like the Human Cannonball and Priveteer.
Ray Palmer was clearly unconcerned about dying as he needed an excuse to get away from the abusive Jean Loring and Hank Pym was both still likely grieving over the death of his first wife while suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder. But Darrell Dane has no excuse!
Did Ant Man accidentally step in someone else's flypaper so he designed those boots? This comic is hilarious
This is easily my favorite episode you've ever done. Love it so much
If you did a series where you take a villians convoluted and silly plan and then proceed to dunk all over it like you did here....well, I'd be down. Video had me LOL-ing throughout.
19:17 Eww, that's disgusting. Imagine being oily all over your body in a spandex outfit.
Awesome video. I’m so glad you’re doing weekly’s again. Your my Favorite channel on RUclips
I like how Egghead reads books about ants and then gets it all wrong. In fact he invents ant biology.
Good old egghead, the greatest, most cleverest villain of them all
I love that Kirby crackle background, nice touch
So close to 150k, man. Hoping your channel grows fast.
Jack Kirby could draw anything and make it interesting. Even the NFL.
Another banger video! Content like this is why I became a patron last week.
there are too many hilarious parts of the vid to list...aMAZingly done!!!! the panel reading, the review of little details in each panel...im in tears and watching it again lol
I like the idea of the fundamental misunderstanding in Egghead's plan. Imagine some lunatic coming to you, offering to liberate you from the tyranical rule of someone who is just your buddy.
With drones now Dollman would be awesome. I liked him riding on a dog. I never understood why they switched Giant Man to that dull Goliath costume. Ant Man got to be a Big movie star while the Atom got stuck as a Small CW character and Doll Man is a C list Tiny part. Doll Man used to be Huge back in the day.
I always loved Gil Kane’s artwork. Prior to Byrne, Kane and Colan’s art were always instantly recognizable.
Imagine learning that ants were talking shit about you
In another universe there’s a video entitled Egghead’s Embarrassing Enemy, Ant-Man.
I keep getting caught off-guard seeing you in my sub box, the more frequent uploads are awesome. Thanks for the great content!
The little bits of humor you interject into your script are great. Keep the vids coming!
Egghead told the ants to bring antman to that specific window
the ant smoothie joke actually concerned me, because it just feels like something that would happen in the more obscure depths of comic book history lol
although, probably as a villain's origin
You didn't have to show a gaint picture of a spider, ya know...
As someone who loves Ant-Man because of Earth's Mightiest Heroes,
this coupled with your commentary was a treat. You do the comedy and critique mix quite well
Steve Gerber did a nice job with him on Giant-Sized Defenders # 4 (1975) and Mike Friedrich used him well in Marvel Feature # 5 ()1972). That's about it . . . .
Chris, I love the Kirby-esque animated background
The problem with Ant Man is his size gesture from tiny Ant to Mouse size with no explanation. Atom had controls to do that. Doll man had a dog and toy planes to travel with. Riding an Ant would take a week to get places.
17:48 I nearly spit out my morning cup of coffee to laugh at that Ant-Man line! 😂
Watching your intro in half speed makes it even more epic!
I've been really enjoying your 30 minute or longer videos specially at work. Good stuff. Thanks.
I love when you cover goofy old comics and riff on them, great stuff, thanks for doing it
Those greedy vain ants, I hope insects have learned their lesson since this comic.
I have the man in the anthill comic and egghead's first appearance.My father gave them to my older brother and i got a hold of them.Even as a kid i thought those stories were silly but they were kinda fun.
Egghead looks like the type of fella to fight a hedgehog
The panel of him shooting himself up with the needle is amazing lol Superpowers activate!!! Needle time!
"less than intimidating" is the nicest POSSIBLE way that you could have described Doll Man
Your production value and scripting has skyrocket, man! Great stuff!
Great to have Comic Troupes back on a weekly basis! Love that you highlight not only great comics but also the ridiculous/fun as hell ones.
Great Video Chris It Great That Your Uploading More Recently.
"The government calls him Egghead? That's a _lawsuit_ buddy!" 🤣🤣 It's amazing how some of these late 50s/early 60s stories go, though. Between the Marvel Monsterbus set & all the MMW & Timely's Greatest, I have read some *weird* shit 😳 Makes me wonder, though, if there was an ant radio station... What music would they play?
Adam and the Ants obvs : )
Yeah - " AntMusic " (oioioioi); unplug the jukebox / and do yourself a favour.
Alien Ant Farm
@@Trtevoorryu yes! Well done :D
Maybe its a Nickname or as a Insult.
Chris's shrunken Ant-Man voice is the funniest thing ive heard all week lol
Hey Chris! Hope all is well! Thanks for the content, keep up the exceptional work! 10/10 as always!
I love seeing antman with his ants in kirbys style
I love the snark on this video, Chris.
My first exposure to Egghead was a Deadpool issue in which he kills cloned dead villains. I remember Deadpool doing a joke on the slogan "Incredible deadable EGGHEAD!" and Deadpool promptly kills him.
I have forever had an exercise where I see some bald headed guy on TV and wonder if the head shape means he could easily play Egghead.
Great trip through Marvel’s silver-age….would love your thoughts on the bizarre hulk adventures in Tales to Astonish!
Hahaha "I shall give you ONE SUGAR CUBE"
Thank you for making a video about this. I was actually thinking about this the other day and I couldn’t remember if it was actually real or not.
Gold & Silver Age comics are like fever dreams 🤣
Fantastic show! Those early Ant-Man stories with Egghead certainly were silly!
I love the Egg Head from the 60s Batman show! He's even appeared in the comics. And the lego batman movie.
"you you're rising to your feet,the paper isn't sticking, why??" Lol too funny.
Doofus though he is, at least Egghead has classy taste in cars.
Boy, Egg Head is one of the villains of all time.
I always saw Darren Cross in the Ant-Man film was a subtle reference to Egghead. Not just because Corey Stoll is bald, but the scene where Scott falls into the container, Cross gloating over capturing him looked like something from the comics.
3:18 those bits of chair look like wood though, which would be organic
Holy shit, it's the first time I return to your channel in a long, long while, and it immediately struck me that now you probably have the BEST intro on this RUclips segment. Amazing!
The version of Egghead in the superhero squad cartoon was one of my favorites. Wayne Knight's performance was hilarious! I'd love to see more of Egghead, but as more of a comic relief than a serious threat. Or maybe Egghead has really brilliant and dangerous plans against other heroes, but he just hates Hank Pym.
Enjoyable video, as always.
I also enjoy how your east coast accent was strong in this one!
I think Egghead needs his own origin movie.
Egghead: creates device that communicates with ants!
Decides to steal money instead of selling the idea, or hiring other ants to steal the Wentworth (whatever they're called) jewels
I know this guy from that one episode of Super Hero Squad, where he’s just as incompetent
"Because most people don't need help to destroy a typewriter" lol this was an amazing line.
Speaking of Golden Age, I loved your entries about 711 and Dynamite Thor (farting his way across land and ocean) . They were hysterical. When I look at reprints of Silver Age Ant-Man, I think of some of them as almost a Gldn Age throwback. Kirby's high points were magnificent, but let's face it, he had his campy moments too, as illustrated by Egghead (walking in from Dick Tracy?). Maybe because he was cranking out so many books, he sometimes threw a Hail Mary, facing deadlines. (Check out "Mister Doll" in Tales from Suspense #48, Iron Man!)
That was Ditko, though . . . .
@@johnminehan1148 Ah, my bad. Yeah, I didn't notice that. All those guys had their highs and lows.
The part with a nylon lasso, ie nylon being some amazing new thing at the time this was written that they talk about like we talk about carbon fiber... it makes me wonder if scientists simply hadn't yet discovered the pheromones ants use when this was written, or it was something that hadn't disseminated through the public yet. Because it feels like pretty common knowledge today, like it would be weird for anyone who isn't an idiot to not know that... it's probably something that is commonly taught in jr high science and wasn't back when the people who wrote these went to school, something like that... it doesn't take an entomologist to know that about ants, you know?
edit: Oh wow, the part where he talks about ants not having primitive motives like greed or jealousy etc... lol, yeah, because they are far too primitive to have any emotions or even anything we might remotely describe as a consciousness, they are not far away from natural automatons. It takes quite a lot of neural evolution to reach the point where emotions even exist. Fish and reptiles have zero emotions, while they are creatures more on our scale with defined brains... but they are still missing a further huge step and brain structures. That's why Octopi are so awesome, because they have actually developed a real consciousness with emotion and intellect, yet via the invertebrate branch that has such a vast gulf between it and other creatures with consciousness or sapience like mammals and birds, and in a totally different form, with the brain spread out into many smaller sections throughout its body. We need an Octopus man, who would be like spiderman but would also have the brain structure of an octopus, and his thoughts would be mysterious and inscrutable to the human reader, but still fit with the story and his actions. That would be the best.