By Nick Spencer, Ramon Rosanas & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9387-6 (TPB/Digital edition)
Scott Lang is an electronics engineer who turned, more out of boredom than necessity, to crime. Caught and imprisoned, he diligently served his time and upon release joined Stark Industries as a determinedly reformed character. Everything was fine until his daughter Cassie developed a heart condition which wiped out his savings and compelled Scott to look to old solutions to save her.
He was desperate to find the wherewithal to hire experimental cardiac surgeon Dr. Erica Sondheim and began casing likely money-spinning prospects. In the meantime, she was abducted by merciless industrialist Darren Cross who was currently using all the resources of his mega-corporation Cross Technological Enterprises to keep himself alive…
Now even more frantic for cash just to broach the impenetrable CTE complex, Lang went back to Plan A and burgled the lab of retired superhero Henry Pym, where he discovered the scientist/superhero’s old Ant-Man gear and size-changing gases. In a moment of madness Lang chose not to sell the stolen tech but instead used the outfit to sneak into Cross’ citadel and rescue Sondheim…
That plan wasn’t so great either as the dying billionaire, in a desperate attempt to stay alive, had been harvesting the hearts of homeless people to power an experimental device which subsequently mutated him into a monstrous brute. Scott eventually triumphed; unaware until the very last that Pym (in his guise as Avenger Yellowjacket) had allowed him to swipe the suit and was backstopping him every inch of the way. With Cassie saved, Pym then invited Lang to carry on as the new Ant-Man…
After long and creditable stints with The Avengers and Fantastic Four – during which time he died and returned (even giving Doctor Doom the most comprehensive defeat of his entire evil life) – Lang eventually found himself just another victim of economic downturn and went looking for a job with a former employer…
Scripted by Nick Spencer and illustrated by Ramon Rosanas, with colours from Jordan Boyd, Second-Chance Man collects 5-issue series Ant-Man volume 2 (March to July 2015) and opens with down-on-his-luck Lang joining a cattle call of super-types auditioning to be Tony Stark‘s new security chief…
The application process is a set-up but against all odds, Lang perseveres, proves Stark wrong and ultimately succeeds. He had to: his ex-wife had shown up whilst he was dead and won custody of Cassie…
Just when his life seemed to be going right for once, the former Mrs. Peggy Lang played her meanest trump card. Without warning she moved back to the family’s old home in Miami, removing Cassie from Scott’s superhero idiocies and fatherly influence and indulgence. Without missing a beat, Scott chucks his plush new Stark job and follows…
The second chapter finds our little hero targeted by failed super-villain the Grizzly, who has tracked him to Florida seeking revenge. Unfortunately, the Ant-Man he has a beef with is the third one (Eric O’Grady) and it takes all Scott’s fast-talking and ingenuity to escape getting squished.
When tempers cool, Grizzly is truly apologetic and Scott simply takes it in stride. He has bigger problems, such as trying to set up a small business as a security consultant. Banks don’t like lending to ex-cons – especially ones who have been declared legally dead – and he still has the worst luck in the world…
At one bank, a stunt he pulls to prove his hacking abilities results in a WWII robot stored in its vault running amok. Still, when Lang finds out where the bank got its own start-up funds from, he “leverages†them into extending him that business loan…
Flushed with success and revelling in Cassie’s approval, he then proves his sound business acumen by hiring Grizzly to be the muscle for Ant-Man Security Solutions, tragically unaware that the closest thing he has to an arch-enemy is already targeting him for death…
Erica Sondheim had moved on since her clash with CTE and is less than ecstatic when the company again kidnaps her. Although Darren Cross is long dead, his deeply disturbed son Augustine is determined to resolve his daddy issues by resurrecting the old bastard. Now that he has his cardiac surgeon. he only requires one more thing: the one-of-a-kind heart she fitted inside young Cassie Lang.
…And the first Scott learns of it is after the deadly Taskmaster attacks him… for old times’ sake…
By the time Ant-Man can act, it’s too late. Cassie has been spirited away by billionaire Augustine’s super-villain uncle Crossfire and prepped for surgery. At his wits’ end, Lang listens to Grizzly’s half-baked suggestion and hires another villain – biology-loathing living data-store Machinesmith – to get him inside Cross’ Miami factory. When the blistering three-pronged attack finally deposits the unlikely rescuers inside, the damage has been done: blockbusting Darren Cross is back from the dead and hungry for revenge.
Sadly for the resurrected rogue, everybody has underestimated Erica Sondheim’s ingenuity and the lengths a frustrated, pissed-off desperate Ant-Man will go to when his kid is threatened…
Augmented by a covers-&-variant gallery by Mark Brooks, Jason Pearson, Skottie Young, Phil Noto & Cliff Chiang, this slim tome is fast, furious, action-packed and astonishingly funny when it isn’t painfully moving or simply scary. Second-Chance Man is a delicious confection originally designed to relaunch Marvel’s most miniscule  movie sensation but which still punches way above its weight… and height.
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