sonotadream

For a bit of backstory, Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1940 to be an explicit anti-Nazi, pro-intervention in WWII figure (and because editor Martin Goodman wanted a superhero to rival Superman). He quickly become Timely Comics most popular character. His popularity declined after the war and he was pretty much out of print until Stan Lee (whose first writer job had been with a Captain America story) decided to bring him back - in Stranger Tales #118, as a fake out.

That story seemed to be popular enough, and Captain America returned for real in Avengers #4.

Avengers (1963) #4 - Stan Lee/Jack Kirby

We catch up with Namor after his fight with the Avengers - wandering the ocean, still looking for his people and swearing war on humanity.

He ends up in the Arctic, where he finds an Inuit tribe worshipping a figure trapped in a block of ice - not a lot of cultural sensitivity in display here. Namor takes his anger out on the tribe and hurls the block of ice into the sea.

The current drags it South and the ice starts melting, revealing a human man. It comes across the Avengers submarine and they pull him aboard, where everyone recognizes the figure as Captain America, who has been missing since the end of the war.

Tales to Astonish (1959) #27, #35, #44 - Stan Lee/Larry Lieber/Jack Kirby

Another superhero taking over an anthology series - or not.

Created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby, Ant-Man never got as popular as their other creations. According to Lee, it was because artists never got the hang of drawing Ant-Man in a way that would emphasize his tiny size.

Hank Pym is a scientist specialized in cell biology. He created a pair of serums that make things smaller and then return them to the original size - he later develops them as gasses.

He decides to test the serum on himself. Unfortunately, it works faster than Hank expected and he's unable to grab the growing serum before it's out of reach.

In his panic, Hank runs outside and catches the attention of some ants, so he decides to hide inside an ant-hill - it looks like he's not very good at making decisions under pressure…

He falls into some honey, but a nice ant helps him to escape. “He" (like bees, worker ants are all female; the writers seem unaware of that fact) also helps Hank later to climb a wall to get to the growing serum.

The story ends with Hank destroying the serums, deeming them too dangerous, and going back to more conventional science.

However, the character was brought back - the first story sold well and Lee thought making him a superhero would be fun - so Hank changes his mind and recreates the serums. He also researches ants and, theorizing they use their antennae to communicate, builds a special helmet that allows him to imitate them. It works so well Hank develops a communication network with the city's ants. In truth, ants preferred method of communication is making chemical trails with pheromones, but let’s give the authors the benefit of the doubt and assume they were working with current information at the time of writing.

He also develops an unstable molecules suit with steel mesh, that's very useful to protect from soldier ant's mandibles.

He gets a chance to test his new gadgets when foreign communist agents invade the lab where he's working on a secret government project. Hank gets locked in his office, giving him ample time to change clothes and size, find the nearest ant-hill and become “alpha" ant. He leads the ants inside the lab, gets his coworkers free and sends the ants against the commies, defeating them.

I didn’t feel like reading the rest of the Ant Man stories, so let’s just skip ahead for the introduction of the Wasp.

Janet van Dyne is the daughter of another renowned scientist who is working on a way to make contact with beings of another planet, if they exist (I guess he doesn't read the Fantastic Four comics). He is successful, but the being that travels trough the Professor's rays down to Earth is a criminal and intends to make earthlings his slaves, something he failed to do back home, in Kosmos.

He kills Professor van Dyne using his telepathic powers. Janet finds him and calls Hank, the first person she can think of to help her. Thinking she's just a bored society girl playing a prank on him, Hank dismisses her, until his ant spy network confirms the death of her father.

Hank had been thinking about a finding a partner. When Janet vows she'll avenge her father, no matter what, he offers her the job and Janet becomes the Wasp.

Hank also implants some special cells on Janet, so that, when she becomes small, she gains both wings and antennae of her own.

Ant Man flies along with her by firing himself out of a mini-cannon.

With the help of the ants, Ant Man and the Wasp find the creature from Kosmos and destroy him.

There's a bit of friction going on between the two: Janet wants to prove herself and is maybe falling in love with Hank; Hank keeps thinking she's a child, but also being reminded of his wife.

For a bit of tragic backstory, Maria was the daughter of a Hungarian political dissident, but she wanted to return to her country, thinking that being married to an American, no one would recognize her. Tragically, she was wrong. Her murder is why Hank wants to use her powers for justice.

The stories are nice enough, but it’s hard to get invested in the character when you know where things are headed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯