Sorry, Pym- You'll never look this good again.GIANT-MAN (Henry "Hank" Pym)
Created By: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby
First Appearance: Tales to Astonish #27 (Jan. 1962)
Role: The Failed Hero, Never Live It Down Guy (aka The Wifebeater), Growing Guy, Shrinking Guy, Third-Place Scientist
Group Affiliations: The Avengers, The Defenders, Avengers Academy
Avengers Grade: B-Level
PL 11 (189)
STRENGTH 2/13
STAMINA 2/14
AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6
DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 8
AWARENESS 2
PRESENCE 1
Skills:Athletics 4 (+6) -- Flaws: Limited to Riding
Close Combat (Unarmed) 3 (+9)
Deception 4 (+5)
Expertise (Science) 9 (+17)
Insight 3 (+5)
Investigation 4 (+6)
Intimidation 2 (+3, +11 Full Size)
Perception 2 (+4)
Persuasion 3 (+4)
Sleight of Hand 4 (+4)
Stealth 2 (+5, -12 Huge, +21 Tiny)
Technology 7 (+15)
Treatment 3 (+5)
Advantages: Equipment (Science Stuff), Fast Grab, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Inventor, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4, Set-Up, Teamwork, Ultimate Skill 2 (Science, Technology)
Powers:"Pym Particles"
Small Size (61) -- [62]
"Large Size- Over 100 Feet Tall"
Growth 11 (Str & Sta +11, +11 Mass, +5 Intimidation, -5 Dodge/Parry) -- (48 feet) (22)
Growth +6 (+17 Mass, +8 Intimidation, -8 Dodge/Parry, +2 Speed, -17 Stealth) -- (120 feet) (Flaws: Limited to Non-Str & Sta Increases) (6)
Speed 2 (30 mph) (2)
"Giant-Sized Fists & Feet" Strength-Damage +0 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Burst on 11 Ranks) (11) -- (12)
AE: "Hitting Power" Strength-Damage +2 (2)
Close Combat -2 (-2)
Enhanced Dodge & Parry 2 (Flaws: Limited to Top Size) (2)
"Small Size"
Shrinking 16 (+8 Dodge/Parry, +16 Stealth, -8 Intimidation) (Extras: Normal Strength) (48)
"Tiny Sized Fighting" Enhanced Advantages 2: Close Attack 2 (Flaws: Limited to Smaller Sizes) (1)
"Insect Wings" Flight 5 (60 mph) (10)
Movement 1 (Dimensional Travel- Microverse) (2)
"Shrink Others" Shrinking 16 (Extras: Attack +0) [16]
"Ant-Man Helmet" (Flaws: Removable) [8]
Affliction 4 (Will; Dazed/Compelled/Controlled) (Extras: Cumulative, Area- 60ft. Burst +2) (Flaws: Limited to Insects -2) (8)
Comprehend 2 (Speak to & Understand Animals) (Flaws: Limited to Insects) (2)
-- (10 points)
Offense:Unarmed +9 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Growth 8 +9 (+10 Damage, DC 25)
Growth 10 +9 (+12 Damage, DC 26)
Growth 11 +9 (+13 Damage, DC 28)
Full Size +7 (+15 Damage, DC 30)
Shrunken Unarmed +10 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Giant Fists & Feet +11 Area (+11 Damage, DC 26)
Initiative +3
Defenses:Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +2, Fortitude +5, Will +5
"Full Size" Dodge +3 (DC 13), Parry +3 (DC 13), Toughness +13, Fortitude +17, Will +5
"Smallest Size" Dodge +17 (DC 27), Parry +17 (DC 27), Toughness +2, Fortitude +5, Will +5
Complications:Reputation (Wifebeater)- He once smacked Jan while undergoing a mental breakdown. He still hasn't lived it down.
Reputation (Pymsuck)- Pym is known as a possibly-deranged loser amongst the super-community. He smacked his wife, lost to dozens of guys, and created The Avengers' worst enemy.
Vulnerable (Small Size)- Despite his added defenses at small size, Pym is highly-vulnerable to such comparatively-large targets. The smaller he gets, the more vulnerable he is- he treats all attacks from human-sized targest as Area Attacks if he is Shrinking 12 or smaller.
Vulnerable (Easy to Hit)- When fighting against a Full-Sized Hank Pym, any character may be treated as having the Power Attack Advantage, allowing them to go +5 to damage. He's such an big target that all his vulnerable spots are enormous.
Total: Abilities: 50 / Skills: 48--24 / Advantages: 14 / Powers: 86 / Defenses: 15 (189)
-Poor, poor Hank Pym. His auspicious origins as "The Man in the Ant Hill" made him one of the goofier Avengers right away. I mean, what big-league super-team had TWO shrinking members? So in comics, Hank was Giant-Man, which is a fully-retarded name, and the poor guy only gets slightly more cred. The problem? "Growing Guy" is one of the biggest fall guys in comics. Because he's NEVER just 'team powerhouse' (too many characters are Flying Bricks in this business), so he's always got to be the first guy getting his ass kicked by the new big super-villain. I mean, you can't just have Thor or Iron Man job out to Namor right away, because they're big-league heroes known for their great powers. Giant-Man, on the other hand, has the low-selling book, so you can cart his giant ass on out there to job out HARD to the Sub-Mariner, while he gets mocked for not being as strong as him, because hey, it still looks pretty impressive to send a 30,000 pound man out on his ass, right?
-Problematically, while the Avengers was initially an "All Our Solo Guys in a Team Book" team, they cancelled the Giant-Man & The Wasp series first out of the rest (their book NEVER sold well, even at the height of the Silver Age- they're like Hawkman & Atom in that sense), meaning they essentially got demoted to "always Avengers" guys, meaning that if they weren't in an Avengers book currently, they were out of comics PERIOD, like Hawkeye, Black Knight, etc. Not that many of these characters are BAD, it's just that if the current Avengers scribe doesn't care for them, they're up s@#* creek without a paddle, because you won't read ANY stories featuring them.
-What's funny about Pym is that his single most famous incident (the infamous "Wife Slap") was one single action undertaken by a deranged man suffering a mental breakdown, and was not entirely his fault. It just goes to show you... you gotta be careful as a writer, or you'll accidentally ruin a guy forever, ESPECIALLY if they're one of the least popular Avengers. Technically he can excuse it with the breakdown thing, but nobody's really buying it. Humorously, PETER PARKER once slapped his wife too, and HE didn't have a legit psychological disorder at the time- he was just buggered-up from the Clone Saga. But so few people were reading at that time (and it was overshadowed by dozens of other idiotic stories) that it got glossed over and forgotten. Funny stuff.
-So in the end, Hank's big problem isn't that he's a TERRIBLE character, because he's really not. It's just that he's not a GOOD ENOUGH character- his comrades in the '60s were iconic guys like Iron Man, Thor & Captain America. He was replaced by Hawkeye & The Scarlet Witch. Later Avengers writers all threw in their iconic characters (Black Panther, Vision), Mary Sues (Mantis, Monica Rambeau) and assorted rookies... but Hank Pym just wasn't the equal of almost any of those characters. Not EVERY character could be a great one-- Hank is hardly worse than Triathlon, Silverclaw or (barf) Deathcry, to say nothing of Gilgamesh or Dr. Druid. Another problem: Hank is redundant. He's nowhere NEAR as strong as Thor, despite being larger. He's a super-scientist on a team with Tony Stark on it, and later there are other smart Avengers. He's not a good tactitian, he's not a good Leader, and he's not the best fighter. For character purposes: he can't be the Team Rebel (Hawkeye), Team Bad-Ass (Cage, Wolverine) or Team Joker. In short: Hank has NOTHING TO OFFER THE TEAM, as a fighter or as a character, other than being a big warm body who can possibly act as a Secondary Scientist and object of pathos.
-But the problem is, writers CONTINUOUSLY tried to force Hank onto the team, or have guys pull a "Poochie" on him and always be talking him up. His more recent Avengers run featured him as a "Scientist Supreme" that everyone pimped as a high-level uber-genius, and it came across as pandering Shilling of the Wesley (TV Tropes lingo there). "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" takes the approach of making Hank smarter than Tony Stark, which is probably a good idea. This is probably the most problematic thing for the character- over-pushing just makes everyone hate him. The Cartoon Pym is popular based off of some discussions I've read, but until he overtakes Comics Pym (unlikely) in the fans' minds (though "Avengers Academy" is doing an OK job making him a dull but steady teacher character), we'll always have the "Pym Problem". It's why we don't get to see Giant-Man & The Wasp in the upcoming "Avengers" movie. But hey, and least he's not Aquaman.
-Hank Pym with his standard power-set is basically a highly-strong gigantic guy who can alternatively become very, very small. Both of these are kind of annoying to deal with, as the acceleration in Strength from growing gigantic is quite immense, and so I just kind of said "meh, he's still PL 11, no matter his size" and stuck him at Growth 12, with some boosts to showcase his greater size. See, Hank can do +15 Damage at top size, which would normally make him a PL 12, but he's limited to being only +7 Unarmed in that case (and he's not as strong as a Strength 15 guy either- it's just his huge fists doing the damage). He normally sticks to Growth 8-11 (24-48 feet tall) for combat reasons (kinda hard to protect your teammates when you could squish them accidentally) and logistics (his giant feet would smash up everything around him). He can get bigger than 72 feet tall pretty easily. He can, of course, push himself to higher heights with Extra Effort, based off of what the artist thinks he should look like.
-Now, I was thinking of making Pym a PL 10 because frankly, he sucks, but what the hey- at large enough sizes, he becomes a pretty good hero. He has to be Growth 12 at least to start hitting his PL caps, and he NEVER hits them defensively- Growth is still fairly limiting defense-wise unless you're absolutely tough as hell to start with, so ol' Hank is PL 9 at maximum size that way (He isn't that tough either at max-size- I've seen him go down to a single leg-pressure-point shot from The Taskmaster, who is NOT super-strong, and was KO'd seconds later with a neck shot- Growth Guys are NOT that tough). Considering how easily he goes down sometimes, it makes sense. He's also very, very smart, being below Reed but Tony Stark's equal in the straight-up Ability Score, but lesser at Science & Technology in general (he's the master of Pym Particles, but his other inventions consist of a robot that improved itself only AFTER it broke free from his dumb ass, and a helmet that lets him talk to bugs).
-All of the various traits of large size & small size are separated into separate power-groupings, one Alt-Effecting off the other. It's not a big points-cheat, saving only four points (since the Shrink Others thing sits outside the array). Note another side thing I add to Growth-guys at large enough size- Area-Effecting Damage, letting him stomp & squish groups of people at once- but only 30-foot wide Bursts.
-Some new bits for an update to His Royal Suckiness. The Growth specifics are changed now that I know some spiffy side-rules for Growth guys (allowing for Flawed Growth to reach higher heights), as well as adding in another Vulnerable Complication- ANYONE can Power Attack such a large target.
by vuron » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:23 am 
. I figured it only fit since she was REALLY half-assed back in the day, and is suddenly X-Men level now.
