They killed the badass Ant-Man.

No, that’s not an oxymoron.

Marvel Comics and writer Rick Remender have gone and killed Eric O’Grady, the foulmouthed, perverted lout who dared to call himself a superhero! Those bastards! Eric O’Grady was an awesome superhero! He was uniquely uncouth in a world of boy scouts and white knights. He was a sleazy douchebag who literally used his shrinking powers to spy on women in the shower. But that was an endearing quality!

Don't pretend you wouldn't do it

The O’Grady Ant-Man is going to be missed.

And his death is actually a very good example of what’s wrong with death in comic books today. Follow me for more after the jump.

In the grand scheme of things, Eric O’Grady is a nobody character. He is perfectly suited for canon fodder. He’s got his fans (like me), but he’s been living on borrowed time ever since his own series was cancelled after only 12 issues back in 2007. Not to mention the fact that Ant-Man is a very important character in the Marvel canon, and they couldn’t have just anybody using the name. There’s supposed to be a movie in the works (by Edgar Wright, so it’s going to be amazing!), and the movie sure as heck isn’t going to be about the Eric O’Grady Ant-Man. That guy is a total perv!

The only way to travel

But he was a perv in a good way, in an entertaining way.

Allow me to explain: There have been 3 Ant-Men in the history of Marvel Comics. All have the same M.O. of using a device that allows them to shrink really small and telepathically control ants. First was Hank Pym, who back in the 1960s was one of the founding members of the Avengers as Ant-Man. So like I said, the character is important, brand-wise. But Pym is a super-scientist who didn’t stop at Ant-Man. He’s more famous as Giant Man, able to grow really tall instead of shrinking. The second Ant-Man was Scott Lang, a two-bit thief who stole the Ant-Man costume, but then used it to help people. Pym caught Lang, but allowed Lang to keep the Ant-Man gear if Lang would continue to be a hero.

And he was. Lang eventually also joined the Avengers as Ant-Man. But he was later killed off. That left the Ant-Man identity open. Then in 2006, writer Robert Kirkman (the mastermind behind The Walking Dead) created a series called The Irredeemable Ant-Man, about a new Ant-Man, Eric O’Grady. What was special about this series was that, as I said, O’Grady is pretty much a bastard and a jackass, but he had enough sense to want to do good and help people – as long as there’s something in it for him. It made for a fascinatingly selfish superhero.

One with amazing orange muttonchops

O’Grady was a low-level SHIELD agent (I think he answered phones), who just happened to stumble upon Hank Pym’s lab at the SHIELD base. O’Grady and a buddy stole the new Ant-Man armor that Pym was working on and had some fun with it. Then O’Grady’s buddy got killed, so O’Grady stripped the costume off his corpse and fled, stealing the armor from SHIELD. What was great about the series was just how much of a lout Ant-Man was. He shrank down and spied on women in the shower; he saved mugging victims and then had them buy him dinner; he tried to hook up with his dead buddy’s girlfriend; he slept with another superheroine, but then ditched her when he found out she had a kid. This guy was a total bastard!

Which, quite frankly, is why I think his series was cancelled. Not a lot of people wanted to read about a bastard protagonist. It takes a special kind of fan, one deeply entrenched in superhero comics, to recognize the genius of it.

Anyway, so the series was cancelled and Marvel shipped O’Grady off to a few different titles as a supporting character. He was a member of the Initiative and the Thunderbolts, neither of which was written by Kirkman. So he didn’t have the same spark, but he was still something of a bastard with a heart of not-quite-gold.

This is him after beating up a teenage girl

After the Thunderbolts collapsed (long story), O’Grady was recruited by Captain America himself to join the Secret Avengers. This team is basically the Avengers’ black-ops squad. Which frankly has never made sense to me, since they’ve hardly done anything that required being ‘secret’. They still fight bad guys and save the world just like the normal Avengers. There’s no particular reason to be secret about what they do. But what do I know.

I can remember reading an article by original Secret Avengers writer Ed Brubaker where he likened O’Grady to a new Hawkeye. He’s the guy who is a little abrasive and untested, but give him time and he might surprise everyone. I liked the sound of that.

Even if he got a stupid new costume for the team, based on the classic original Ant-Man.

They basically just added lame shoulder pads

But then Brubaker left the series after only a few issues, and Secret Avengers was passed around to several different writers, not all of whom used Ant-Man. So the cast of Secret Avengers was never allowed to grow as a unit, so Ant-Man never bonded with anyone. Which brings us to the revamped series by Rick Remender, which has an almost entirely new cast.

Very stealthy...except for the flying guy wearing the English Union Jack on his chest!

In Remender’s second issue, Secret Avengers #23, O’Grady is killed by the new villains, The Descendants. He dies trying to save a little boy, so at least there’s that. Remender has him go out thinking he’s a hero.

But here’s the problem with a death like this: it doesn’t matter.

Death has been a joke in comic books for a long time, ever since DC ‘killed’ Superman in the 90s. They brought him back soon after, claiming that the death was just a fake out. Since then, comic books never let a hero stay dead. They always come back. Captain America made national news when he ‘died’, but he was back less than two years later. Human Torch ‘died’ in early 2011 – and he was back before the end of the year. Death just doesn’t last anymore. So why should we, as fans, have any faith in it? Why should a character’s death matter to us if we know they’re going to come back before too long?

It’s a question that the comic book companies don’t have an answer for.

But then we get to a guy like O’Grady who just doesn’t matter. If he’s really dead as of Secret Avengers #23, then so what? Who cares? As I said, he hasn’t been on the team long enough to develop any bonds with his teammates. Nobody cares about him. Nobody cares that he’s dead. Nobody will mourn Eric O’Grady.

Especially not in his lame gray costume

Likewise, nobody will care about the villains who killed him. The Descendants are brand new. Nobody has ever heard of them before. This is a typical sort of move: having the new villain kill one of the heroes to make them seem more badass.

It’s the very definition of Ant-Man being fodder. Or a jobber, in pro-wrestling terms.

But here’s the thing: nobody cares about the Descendants. Secret Avengers is at the bottom of the Avengers ladder. Brubacker had an idea for it once upon a time, but now it’s just kind of hanging in there coasting on the Avengers name. So chances are the Descendants will never be heard from again. They will be defeated and nobody will ever care. That’s just how it works. There are dozens of superhero comics, and each one tries to introduce new villains. Few manage to stick around for long because mostly people want the classic villains.

And there is nothing about these Descendants that has staying power.

They will be defeated and the world will never care that they existed in the first place. And then they’ll forget about Ant-Man too. So his death was just a slate clearing. Which s just an utter waste of such a unique and fascinatingly wicked character.

I mean, it also can’t be any coincidence that Scott Lang was brought back to life only a few weeks ago.

When one Ant-Man lives, another must die; it is the prophecy

Well I will miss Eric O’Grady. He was a bastard, but he was a fun bastard. And maybe he’s not really dead. Maybe it’s a feint. Remender gave this interview once to Marvel. It sounds promising. But maybe it was just misdirection.

Maybe he’s really dead. And few will mourn Eric O’Grady, the badass Ant-Man.