Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review

Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review

Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review

Ant-Man & the Wasp has been an enjoyable adventure through the Microverse. Mark Waid has created a fun balance between the fun-loving Scott Lang and serious scientist Nadia Van Dyne. Though the conflict they are in is not world ending it could leave them with major changes if they don’t find a way to get back to their Earth. Can Ant-Man and the Wasp find their way back home? Or are they cursed to stay in the Microverse forever? Let’s find out with Ant-Man & The Wasp #5.

Writer: Mark Waid

Artist: Javier Garron

Colorist: Israel Silva

Story Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Ant-Man, the Wasp and Dalen Burr find themselves to be bigger than Earth. The Wasp quickly puts together that the Earth in front of them is not theirs since they are able to breathe in space and there is no Moon nearby.

Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review
Click for full-page view

Ant-Man and Wasp try to use their powers but are unable to shrink or grow. Wasp is not sure why they can’t use their powers since her suit is working properly.

Ant-Man mentions how “he” and Doctor Doom overcame the Chronosite. Wasp says that it was actually her and Doctor Doom that stopped Chronosite. She wonders how Ant-Man even knows about that adventure.

As Wasp thinks Ant-Man realizes something and is able to activate Wasp’s suit to cause her to shrink and grow. Ant-Man reveals that they must be entangled with each other and they can only make each other use their powers.

Now with this knowledge Ant-Man, Dalen and Wasp make their way through different Earths that have amalgamations of people from their Earth. They eventually make it back to their Earth and quickly fly back to Wasp’s lab.

Wasp and Dalen create a device to close the Quantum Gate and separate their connection to each other. When they activate the device the space-time continuum starts getting torn apart.

Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review
Click for full-page view

Confused Ant-Man and Wasp start freaking out that they will end up being like the other because of their connection. As they freak out Ant-Man realizes that they are still locked into the Quantum State, which is what caused space and time to rip apart when they activated Wasp’s device.

Wasp quickly creates a device to disconnect themselves from the Quantum Realm. Dalen uses the device and it successfully separates Ant-Man and the Wasp from their entanglement. Ant-Man thanks Wasp for giving his daughter the best birthday present.

A few weeks later Nadia Van Dyne meets Scott Lang at a baseball game. While they catch up a baseball hits Scott in the head. Nadia ends up reacting the same way Scott does when the ball hit his head much to their confusion. End of issue.

The Good: Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 wraps this mini-series in a satisfying but predictable way. There aren’t any big revelations made or life altering actions with severe consequences to what happened in this issue. Instead Mark Waid just simply focused on establishing what the dynamic between Scott Lang and Nadia Van Dyne is going to be moving forward.

Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review
Click for full-page view

As with the previous issues, what shined in Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 was the relationship between Scott Lang and Nadia Van Dyne. Waid has done a very good job building a partnership between the two. From the beginning it was clear there wasn’t much of a relationship between the two. But as this mini-series concludes there was enough screen time between Scott and Nadia that you could feel that they came away from this story as friends at the very least.

That friendship is something that was earned because Waid spent time showing how Scott and Nadia are equals. While Nadia clearly takes after her father and is the genius scientist it does not mean she is superior. Because she is still young and is prone to overthink she needs someone who is more lighthearted, like Scott, to balance her out. At the same time because Scott does not fully understand everything that is going on he needs Nadia to explain and come up with the final solutions for things. That balance gives the reader something to be connected to when it comes to this pairing.

Javier Garron once again delivered a very good looking issue. Throughout Ant-Man and the Wasp #5 Garron was able to flex his artistic muscle as Waid’s story had our leads go through different versions of the Marvel Universe. With each universe Garron was able to morph characters readers are familiar into fun combinations. Garron also did a good job with adding to how stressful this all was for Scott and Nadia as they had to deal with so many unknown elements to them.

Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review
Click for full-page view

The Bad: While Ant-Man and the Wasp #5 was a solid issue it wasn’t anything that will surprise you. It is one of those stories that you know the heroes will come out at the end without a problem. Waid didn’t add any sort surprise that would make this story standout from the basic superhero comic you expect to read.

What especially hurt Ant-Man and the Wasp #5 was the fact that Waid did not give our heroes a some sort of antagonist to go up against. There was nothing keeping them back from solving the problem at hand except their own freakouts. That made it harder to believe that they were dealing with something that was going to be tough to overcome once Ant-Man and Wasp calmed down. The lack of an antagonist was just a reminder of how we spent five issues without a true conflict that wasn’t Ant-Man and the Wasp’s own accidental doing.

Waid had a chance to do that with Dalen Murr. This character was as one-note as a supporting character gets. That was especially the case in Ant-Man and the Wasp #5. The only role Dalen ended up serving was pushing a button on the device that Wasp created to solve the problem. It would’ve been much more interesting if Dalen actually turned on Wasp and was the one that caused the entanglement between Ant-Man and the Wasp to be in the state it was. At least then the character would’ve done something to advance the plot. Instead Dalen is just a character that will be easily forgotten once the reader closes this final issue of Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Ant-Man & The Wasp #5 Review
Click for full-page view

Overall: Ant-Man and the Wasp #5 played it safe with how things ended. Fortunately the dynamic that Mark Waid developed over the course of these five issues between Scott Lang and Nadia Van Dyne was enjoyable enough to be satisfied with how the story concluded. Though that dynamic was not enough to create a compelling story that suffered greatly because it lack a true antagonist for Ant-Man and the Wasp to overcome. That problem makes Ant-Man and the Wasp only a comic I recommend those who are fans of these two characters pick up.