Tales to Astonish #39
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTales to Astonish #39 marks the first appearance of the Scarlet Beetle, a radiation-mutated insect with human-level intelligence and telepathic control over other bugs — making him, structurally, the most thematically fitting villain Ant-Man ever faced: a creature who turns Henry Pym's own world against him. The story demonstrated that Marvel's early Silver Age anthology formula could generate genuinely recurring antagonists out of the simplest sci-fi conceits, and the Scarlet Beetle proved durable enough to harass successive Ant-Men across more than five decades of comics. Within the broader arc of Tales to Astonish, issue #39 sits squarely in the heart of the Lee–Lieber–Kirby Ant-Man run that was quietly building the insect-scale corner of what would soon become the Avengers' founding roster. The issue also deepens a key facet of Hank Pym's characterization — his refusal to destroy even a defeated enemy, choosing instead to cure the Beetle of its radiation and release it — a moral nuance that distinguished him from most contemporaneous superhero leads.
In "The Vengeance of the Scarlet Beetle!", a boy’s new Civil War toy soldier takes on a life of its own when an otherworldly invader from the sixth dimension attacks his home—only to vanish mysteriously after the lights go out. The next morning, the boy discovers the alien prisoner trapped in his model stockade, guarded by the very toy he’d placed there the night before. Written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Steve Ditko, with colors by Stan Goldberg and letters by Artie Simek, this eerie tale blends childhood imagination with cosmic intrusion, all framed by Jack Kirby’s dynamic cover and Dick Ayers’ sharp inks.
In "The Vengeance of the Scarlet Beetle!", a red beetle imbued with a human-like mind after a radiation accident sets out to conquer the world, stealing Ant-Man’s enlarging gas to command an army of insects. With Ant-Man’s help and his still-loyal ants, the battle for control of the city begins — but the true extent of the beetle’s plan remains unknown.
In a quiet moment before an otherworldly threat arrives, a boy named Billy Barton places a new Civil War toy soldier in his prisoner of war stockade. That night, an invader from the sixth dimension strikes, vanishing when the lights flicker out—only for the boy to find the creature trapped in his model cell the next morning, held fast by the toy soldier.
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The Ant-Man feature in Tales to Astonish operated on a clear creative division of labor: Stan Lee devised the plots, his brother Larry Lieber scripted the full dialogue, and Jack Kirby penciled with Dick Ayers on inks. Lieber handled every Ant-Man script from the hero's costumed debut in issue #35 through issue #43, and Wikipedia's account of the series confirms that the Ant-Man run was 'plotted by Lee and scripted by Lieber, with penciling first by Kirby.' Lieber himself recalled in interview that he wrote full scripts in advance for Kirby to work from, and it was Lieber who invented the name 'Henry Pym.' Issue #39 was released to newsstands on October 2, 1962, carrying a January 1963 cover date, at a moment when Kirby was simultaneously penciling all four of Marvel's active superhero titles — a workload that one contemporary commentator noted meant the Ant-Man stories received somewhat less of Kirby's full creative attention than Fantastic Four, even as they still displayed flashes of his characteristic dynamism in the insect-war sequences.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of the Scarlet Beetle (Earth-616), a common beetle mutated by atomic radiation to possess human-level intelligence and telepathic command over other insects.
- Story title: 'The Vengeance of the Scarlet Beetle!' — on-sale date October 2, 1962; cover date January 1963.
- Creative credits: plot by Stan Lee, script by Larry Lieber, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Artie Simek; Stan Lee as editor-in-chief.
- The Scarlet Beetle steals Ant-Man's size-changing gas canisters and uses the enlarging gas to grow to human scale, establishing early in-universe rules about how Pym's growth gas works on non-human subjects.
- Ant-Man defeats the villain not by killing it but by exposing it to his shrinking gas and then curing it of radiation in his lab, restoring it to an ordinary beetle — an atypically humane resolution for a Silver Age superhero story.
- The Scarlet Beetle went on to make multiple return appearances across Marvel continuity, including Iron Man #44 (January 1972), West Coast Avengers Vol. 2 #34, Sensational She-Hulk #60, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #24, and Avengers Origins: Ant-Man & the Wasp.
- The Ant-Man story was reprinted in Essential Ant-Man #1 (February 2002, black and white), Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man Vol. 1 (2006 and 2013 editions), the Ant-Man/Giant-Man Epic Collection Vol. 1 (2015), and in heavily edited form in Marvel UK's Hulk Comic #8–9 (1979).
- Issue #39 falls within Larry Lieber's consecutive scripting run on Ant-Man covering Tales to Astonish #35–43 — the nine issues in which Lieber, working from Lee's plots, established the core world-building of the Hank Pym feature before handing off to veteran writer Ernie Hart.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Uncanny Tales #54 (1957)
Reprinted in Out of This World #3 (1957), Amazing Stories of Suspense #22 (1964), Marvel Tales #4 (1966), Hit Comics #135 (1970), Hit Comics #137 (1970), Hit Comics #139 (1970), I Fantastici Quattro #2 (1971), Secrets of the Unknown #137 (1973), Le Tombeau de Dracula #11 (1974), Where Monsters Dwell #29 (1974), Uncanny Tales #8 (1975), Amazing Stories of Suspense #151 (1976), Los Vengadores #19 (1976), Marvel Tales #3 (1979), Hulk Comic #8 (1979), Hulk Comic #9 (1979), Amazing Stories of Suspense #184 (1980), Los Vengadores #14 (1981), Hulk #18 (1981), Hulk #19 (1982), Secrets of the Unknown #205 (1982), Hulk #21 (1982), Creepy Worlds #246 (1988), Essential Ant-Man #1 (2002) + 9 more
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