Since the
last issue, Ant-Man has become well known to the public as a mysterious hero
who helps out the police, miraculously knowing when he is needed. As the story
opens we find three crooks have locked themselves in a bank vault with a time
lock; Ant-Man arrives and enters the lock, turning the tumblers manually and
freeing the crooks. He then vanishes as mysteriously as he came….
Word of
Ant-Man’s exploits has reached the Soviet Union where their top agent, Comrade
X, is ordered to learn Ant-Man’s secrets for the Russian cause. Days later, a
young woman visits a police station, desperately seeking Ant-Man but the police
don’t know how to contact him. We learn the truth: a network of ants all across
the city sends messages along the chain to Hank Pym who suits up and catapults
himself to the police station, in time to see the woman entering a taxi.
Ant-Man sneaks into the cab and hides in her purse so that when she reaches her
hotel room he surprises her by suddenly showing himself. The woman outlines her
tale of woe: she fell in love with a man whom she then learned was the Soviet
spy Comrade X—and then he dumped her for another woman. Now she wants revenge
and informs Ant-Man that Comrade X is in the US to discover the hero’s secrets
and he can be found aboard the freighter at Pier 89….
That night,
Ant-Man sneaks aboard the freighter, only to fall into the villain’s trap as he
and his ants are trapped in a glass box the size of a small fish tank. Ant-Man
sends a message to more ants via the air holes in the tank and soon a massive
swarm of ants invades the ship and frees the hero from the fish tank. He heads
to the radio room, conks the operator, grows to full size, and summons the
Coast Guard. The ants lock the ship’s crew in their quarters while the hero
confronts the villain. But Comrade X knows he is there and threatens him with
DDT. The ants turn out the lights and Ant-Man ties the baddie’s shoelaces
together. Comrade X falls to the floor and the ants pull off his rubber mask,
revealing him to be the woman who sent Ant-Man on the mission—which is no
surprise to him as he spotted her rubber mask and voice synthesizer when he
rode in her purse. The Coast Guard arrives to capture the Commies and Ant-Man
takes his leave….