An Ant-ertaining Read

Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr.
Book Review by Michael Isenberg.

Tomorrow marks the premiere of the latest ant-ry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ant-Man and the Wasp, which for some reason means it’s in theaters today. I’ll let you know what I thought of it, but in the meantime, since this is Nerds who Read, here’s my review of the Ant-Man prose novel Natural Enemy. Yes, there really is such a thing as an Ant-Man prose novel.

Published in 2015 to coincide with the Ant-Man origin movie, Natural Enemy picks up about ten years later. Scott Lang has had many adventures in the Ant-Man suit, and mastered his powers of shrinking to ant size, communicating with ants, and kicking ass using his proportional ant strength. He’s fought side-by-side with the Avengers a number of times and even developed a friendship with Tony Stark. Still, rather than saving the world with the big boys, Scott prefers to fight crime in his New York neighborhood. Indeed, we first see him in an action-packed takedown of an armed robber in a Third Avenue bodega.

Scott’s primary motivation in keeping a low profile, indeed his primary motivation in everything, is his daughter Cassie, who we’re told about two hundred times is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN HIS LIFE. You may recall from the first movie that it was to be with his daughter that Scott wanted to put his life of crime behind him, straighten out, and fly right. She was about five years old back then. Now she’s a teenager and living with Scott. It’s not exactly clear how his ex-wife, who has very little good to say about him, allowed that to happen, rather than taking Cassie with her when she moved out west to take care of her ailing mom, but anyway, that’s the living arrangement. Nor is it clear how Scott affords his Upper East Side apartment on his salary as a cable installer, but we are assured the apartment is a small one.

So he’s got his life in order and his daughter with him. But his world is turned upside down when one of his old criminal associates, Willie Dugan, busts out of prison and goes on a killing spree, rubbing out members of the old gang who he blames for his incarceration. The FBI shows up at Scott’s door and insists on providing him, Cassie, and Cassie’s mom with round-the-clock protection. Or maybe it’s the US Marshal’s Service—the author seems to treat the two, which are separate agencies, as interchangeable. Needless to say, with an FBI agent (or US Marshal) following Scott wherever he goes, it puts a crimp in his ant-manning. Cassie’s mom is furious and threatens to take Cassie away. The only one who enjoys the situation is Tony Stark, who texts, I’m looking for a recommendation for a babysitter, maybe you can help me out, Little Guy. I hear you’re using a good one.

But the FBI (or US Marshal Service) isn’t prepared for the likes of Dugan. He manages to kidnap Cassie and holds her prisoner in an old house out in the boonies. Scott must slip away from his minders, don the Ant-Man suit, and jump from car to car to hitch a ride upstate in order to confront Dugan and rescue his daughter. But when he gets there, he finds that Dugan is merely a pawn in a larger, more sinister plot.

I found the characters in Natural Enemy to be a bit cardboard. I’ve already commented on Scott’s one-note motivation. The female characters are even less developed. When Scott has a date for coffee with “Anne with an e,” she turns out to be a stereotype of the bitter divorcee who can’t talk about anything on a date except how awful her ex-husband is. And Cassie is another stereotype: despite some interest in technology, she’s basically the cliché teenage girl who only thinks about cute boys.

But of course, nice as it would be to have some depth of characterization, the main reason one reads a superhero novel is a good story with plenty of action. In that department Natural Enemy delivers. The story is well-paced, taking its time to unfold (which I like). The action scenes are spaced out just right to keep things moving along. There’s some humor, a couple good twists, and then a sprint to the climax.

One of my favorite scenes was one in which Cassie steals the Ant-Man suit, to get revenge on another girl who was mean to her (over a boy). Although that motivation is childish, we share with Cassie something we can no longer get from Scott: the thrill and wonder of being ant-sized for the first time, seeing the world from an ants-eye view, and experimenting with amazing new powers.

I’m seeing mixed reviews for Ant-Man and the Wasp, so I’m not sure what Ant-Man fans should expect at the theater this weekend. But I imagine they’ll come away wanting more Ant-Man, either because it was that ant-astic, or because it was that disapp-anting. Either way, I definitely recommend Natural Enemy.

Michael Isenberg drinks bourbon and writes novels. His latest book, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092, and tells the story of the conflict between science and shari’ah in medieval Islam. It is available on Amazon.com