Tales to Astonish #55
On the Trail of the Human Top!
Giant-Man and the Wasp are entertaining the members of their fan-club by showing them footage of their last battle with the Human Top, a villain that proved almost impossible to catch.[1] The film concludes with the Human Top being captured when the police closed off an entire block with a chain-link fence, allowing Giant-Man to finally capture the crook. Although the Top, aka David Cannon, is in prison, the Wasp fears what might happen if he ever got loose.
Little do they know is that the Human Top is planning his escape at that very moment. Since he was arrested, Cannon has been acting like a model citizen. Biding his time until the guards stopped watching him all day. The moment a guard is no longer posted outside his cell, Cannon begins to spin so fast that he cannot be seen by the naked eye. When a guard does come by, he thinks the Human Top has escaped. When his cell is opened, the Human Top races out his cell and is able to jump the prison walls before anyone can realize how he got out. Hours later, the Human Top robs a bank.
By this time, Giant-Man and the Wasp have sent their fan club home and are watching the news. when they hear about the Top’s escape and subsequent robbery, the pair head to the bank to look for clues. Giant-Man is able to swing over to the bank with ease thanks to a series of flag poles rigged up with tension cables. When he arrives outside of the bank the front entrance is swarmed with people. Unable to make his way in, Giant-Man takes a shrinking pill to get inside at ant-size. Resuming normal size once, inside the bank, Giant-Man and the Wasp learn about the Human Top’s robbery.
Knowing they can’t possibly catch their foe by chasing him, the pair return to Hank Pym’s lab to come up with a plan. They are unaware that the Human Top is actually following them back to their base of operations. Once there, the Human Top steals Giant-Man’s belt of size-changing capsules and uses one of the growth capsules to increase his size. Spinning as fast as possible, the Human Top is now able to generate wind with the force of a tornado. He manages to blow Giant-Man into a closet and lock the door. Chasing the Wasp, the giant Human Top manages to catch her in a jar like a bug. He then escapes with the Wasp as his hostage.
Giant-Man is able to get out of the closet by commanding his ants to take a reducing capsule from his discarded belt and uses it to become ant-size. Using flying ants to catch up with the Human Top, Pym returns to giant-size to fight his foe. I the ensuing battle, the Wasp is freed and she commands some termites to compromise the roof of the building Giant-Man and the Human Top are battling on. When the Top ends up falling through the roof, he quickly surrenders but vows to defeat Giant-Man and the Wasp the next time he gets out.
Recurring Characters
Giant-Man, Wasp, Human Top
Continuity Notes
Giant-Man and the Wasp’s battle with the Human Top took place in Tales to Astonish #50-51.
Topical References
The footage of Giant-Man and Wasp’s battle with the Human Top is depicted as being played on a black-and-white film projector.
The Gypsy’s Secret
The Wasp is trying to get Henry Pym pay attention to her but he is too engrossed in his experiment. Returning to normal size, Janet warns Henry that he might not be satisfied even when he finishes his experiment. This pique’s Henry’s interest and she decides to explain what she means by telling him her latest story called the “Gypsy’s Secret”
The story is about a Romani man named Gorko who claims to be the only person who knows the secret of alchemy. Although he can easily change lead into gold and thereby live like a king, Gorko instead wanders the country looking for the only thing that is important to him, using his skills only to purchse the things he needs to survive another day.
One day, Gorko’s wagon got stuck in the mud and he goes to a nearby castle for assistance. The owner, Baron Radzik, refuses to help a “filthy gypsy” and orders the hounds to be released. The Baron changes his tone when Garko offers to pay him in gold for assistance. Radzik is a greedy man but is reluctant to accept, assuming that it is stolen. That’s when Gorko reveals that he can turn lead into gold. This changes Radzik’s tone, but he demands to know how to pull this off. However, Garko refuses to reveal his secret.
Furious over this denial, Baron Radzik locks Garko in his dungeon until he agrees to reveal his secret. Saying the formula is too complicate to remember, Garko convinces Baron Radzik to return to his wagon. Once inside, a cage drops down over the startled Baron. Suddenly a rocket ship blasts off from inside the wagon. As it turns out, Garko is an alien from another world. Taking off his human mask, the alien creature explains that he was sent to Earth to collect a specimine for a zoo on his world. However, until this moment he had the difficult task of finding someone on Earth that would not be missed. As a final jest, Garko gives Radzik his formula anyway since gold is considered one of the most worthless metals on his world.
When Janet finsihes her tale, Hank is inspired to quit his current experiment to do something else. While Janet hopes this would include taking her out for dinner and dancing, Hank disappoints her by trying to figure out a formula to turn lead into gold.
Recurring Characters
Giant-Man, Wasp
Topical References
The term Gypsy has since become considered a prejorative term by some of the people who were traditionally referred to by that term. The proper term is Romani, as they originated from Romania. I have retained the original title of the story here because that’s what the story was called. I also retain the use of the word when a character uses it in disparaging terms.
