Pot Calling The Kettle Black Goliath

You know, if I were going to write a history of, say, the Rutles, even though they were a fictional group, I would try to get the "facts" right, try to make sure that what I wrote was consistent with the fictional but known history of the group.

Which brings us to "Avengers Assemble: The Oral History Of The Earth's Mightiest Heroes by Brian Michael Bendis".

That's the title of the back-up text pieces that have been running in all of the issues of the latest incarnations of The Avengers and New (New) Avengers. Why do we have these? Perhaps as a justification for charging us $3.99. Perhaps as a trial balloon for releasing the collected "oral history of the Avengers" in trade. Maybe it's just a hobby, and Bendis likes to do it, and he'll keep going until he completes all 700+ issues of Avengers...but he'd better pick up the pace, because as of last week's Avengers #6, through 9 chapters he's only up to Classic Avengers #30 or so.

Which brings us to this week's entry, when we're covering the return of Goliath and Wasp to the team, and Hank Pym was trapped at...well, let him tell you himself (via Bendis):

12 feet? Let's fact check that, from Avengers #29:



And Avengers #30:


The stories themselves, and every online reference I could find, says Pym was stuck at 1o feet. Not 12, 10.

Now, it took me all of 2 minutes to look this up, and Bendis surely has Avengers resources that far outstrip mine. Yet when he's doing this little project of his, he can't bother to actually look up this fact? Sure, it's trivial, and in all honestly, it's far less of a boner than, say, Stan getting Bruce Banner's name wrong. But that trivial fact is the basis for this entire chapter of the "oral history," and even if these are fictional characters, don't you want to get the "history" right??

[And, before anyone goes "meta" on me, and suggest the Pym interviewed here was a Skrull and this was a tip-off; or that Pym self-aggrandizing his ten feet into twelve was a subtle sign of his lack of confidence and mental problems; sorry, no No-Prize. Because I could get "meta" back on those, if I choose. There are plenty of "editorial asides" in the "book" where the "author" could have pointed out Pym's error, and certainly would have done so if the purpose was to draw in question Pym's memory; and if there was any doubt this was the real Pym, would the publisher still be publishing this with all these interviews intact, given the Marvel Universe public's antipathy for the Skrulls??]

Anyway, then we get lots of quotes from scientists upbraiding Pym for his scientific ethics. Included is this:


Yes, that Bill Foster:

I guess the rules of scientific experimentation are as amendable as the laws in the Book of Oa, eh? "You do not experiment on yourself...unless you've 'perfected' the formula and Tony Isabella wants to create a new hero."

So yeah, you'd think that Bill Foster would be a little bit less self righteous in denouncing Pym for doing what he did. Or, at least, that Bendis would write him as less self-righteous.

Ahh, but he's dead, anyway, so what's the big deal??