Tagged: Scott Lang

The Law Is A Ass #426: Ant-Man Doesn’t Right The Wrongs Of His Trial

I know you think you know where you are but you’re wrong. You’re 8-years old again, sitting in your dentist’s waiting room with a copy of Highlights for Children, looking at the “What’s Wrong?” puzzle on the back cover. Only this time, instead of one large picture full of things that are wrong to find, it’s 150 pictures. The 150 pictures that made up The Astonishing Ant-Man # 13.

Scott Lang, the astonishing Ant-Man eponymoused in the comic’s title, was on trial for a crime his daughter committed in an act of rebellion. Guess she had grown past the “Bad Boy” stage. In order to protect his daughter, Scott confessed to her crime and now was on trial.

I’m assuming the prosecution’s case came in badly for Scott; it usually does when the defendant confesses. But I can only assume that, because the story didn’t actually show us any of the prosecution’s case. The story started by showing a string of defense character witnesses all called to attest to the fact that Scott was a good guy.

And here’s our first “What’s Wrong?” Scott confessed, remember? Well the thing about confessions is juries tend to believe them. A lot. When the prosecution’s case includes a confession, that’s pretty much, “The state rests.” The defendant could introduce character witnesses that he’d been canonized for driving the snakes out of Ireland and inventing Triple Stuf Oreos; he’d still be convicted. Scott’s entire defense of character witnesses was pretty much the worst defense this side of, “Yes, the defendant ate his victims; but he didn’t eat them raw.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, Scott’s first two character witnesses were Machinesmith – a super villain who said Scott was a good boss, but so were his former employers Arnim Zola and Baron Zemo – and Grizzly, a super villain who said Scott was the only guy who would give Grizzly a chance after he committed all those murders. Which brings us to “What’s Wrong?” deuce, there’s no advantage in calling Nazi employees or mass murderers as character witnesses.

During a recess, Scott was sitting in the hallway. A correction officer was sitting right next to him, like about a foot away. That’s when the prosecutor, Janice Lincoln, approached Scott and told him the reason she left a lucrative civil practice in New York in order to prosecute Scott was Pym Particles, those wondrous things Hank Pym, the first Ant-Man, used to shrink to insect size. See, Janice was a lawyer who moonlighted as a super villain. (Yes, there is so a difference!) She resented the fact that her Beetle identity was the only insect-named character who couldn’t shrink. She told Scott she was going to bring his Ant-Man costume into court for a demonstration and if he provided her with Pym Particles from it, she’d throw the case.

And we have “What’s Wrong?” the drei heaves. No, not that a prosecutor offered to throw a case for a bribe. It happens. What was wrong is that no prosecutor would offer to take a bribe while talking loud enough to be heard by a defendant who was four feet away when a corrections officer was within earshot!

“What’s Wrong?” may the fourth be with you happened when the prosecution presented its demonstration with the Ant-Man costume. No, not the fact that the prosecution called the defendant as a witness. I assume Scott agreed to waive his Fifth Amendment as part of the bribery deal. It’s the fact that the prosecution was allowed to do this after defense witnesses had testified. The prosecution would have rested its case before the defense called its witnesses. The prosecution wouldn’t be able to re-open its case to put on new substantive evidence.

Now this being a comic book that had gone twelve pages without a fight it was about time for the super villains who wanted revenge on Scott to attack the courtroom. Can you guess what happened on Page 13?

Nine pages of fight scene in the courtroom with the judge and jury present later, the villains were defeated and the trial resumed. Which is “What’s Wrong?” the fifth – a fifth being what I need about now. Ant-Man just saved the lives of the judge and jury from some super villains. There isn’t a judge who wouldn’t declared a mistrial and then disqualify both himself and the jury from the case for the reason that Ant-Man just saved their lives. And that would tend to prejudice them in Ant-Man’s favor.

So trial resumed. Janice Lincoln told the court that she and the defendant had reached “a perfectly reasonable, totally illegal [emphasis mine] deal” which the defendant just broke so the prosecutor wanted to get back at him by calling her final witness and convicting him. And we have “What’s Wrong?” six in the city, the prosecutor just admitted in open court in front of a judge, jury, and court reporter that she accepted a bribe.

The fact that Janice called a witnesses after the defense had put on its case is not our next “What’s Wrong?” Prosecutors can’t put on substantive evidence after they’ve rested their case. But they may put on rebuttal witnesses; that is witnesses called for the specific purpose of rebutting evidence offered in the defense case. These witnesses don’t offer substantive proof of the defendant’s guilt, they poke holes in the defense case.

“What’s Wrong?” seven come eleven (don’t worry, we aren’t actually going that high) happened when Janice called Scott’s ex-wife to rebut all the defense testimony of his good character. Janice proceed to lead her own witness by asking question after question which suggested its own answer. However, Janice soon learned she could lead her horse to the Kool-Aid but she couldn’t make her drink it. Because Scott’s ex testified about how wonderful Scott truly was and what a good father he was.

After that turn of my stomach – err events – the jury found Scott not guilty. No, that’s not “What’s Wrong? the eighth, man. I said the jury was probably prejudiced in Scott’s favor after he saved their lives from the super villains. I was right.

I mentioned in the last column that over thirty years ago “The Trial of the Flash”  storyline lasted two years and made lots of mistakes. “The Trial of Ant-Man” lasted only two issues but I’ll bet it made about as many errors in those two issues as “The Trial of the Flash” made in its two years. Any takers?

The Law Is A Ass # 425: Ant-Man’s Trial Has Character Flaws

The Law Is A Ass # 425: Ant-Man’s Trial Has Character Flaws

A long time ago in a multiverse far, far away…

The Flash went on trial for murdering Reverse-Flash in a multi-part story called The Trial of the Flash. As storylines went, The Trial of the Flash went on for…

Ever!

Okay, it went on for two years. But back in 1983 – before decompressed storytelling and multi-part stories designed to be binge-read in trade paperback collections – two years was forever. The second “The Law Is a Ass” I ever wrote was also my first column about The Trial of the Flash. Several more followed. How many more? Well let’s just say before The Trial of the Flash, and I, were finished, I had earned enough writing about it to pay off my mortgage, insure my kids had no student loan debt, and reduced the national debt to zero from the taxes I paid.

So you can imagine my trepidation upon reading Astonishing Ant-Man# 12. It was, you see, the first part of The Trial of Ant-Man. Still, a journey of a thousand columns begins with a single step, so let’s get started.

Ant-Man – the Scott Lang version, not Henry Pym or the one nobody remembers because even I had to look up Eric O’Grady – was on trial for a crime he didn’t commit. Of course he didn’t. When a super hero is on trial in a comic book you can be pretty certain it’s for a crime the hero didn’t commit. In comics the only thing more certain than that is death and resurrection.

The crime Scott didn’t commit? His daughter – and former super hero Stinger – Cassie Lang committed it. How did this one time Young Avenger go rogue? Long story short; like this. To protect Cassie, Scott took the blame. He said he kidnapped Cassie and forced her to participate in his crime. It was a noble gesture, but it had serious repercussions; as the whole “The Trial of the Ant-Man” title would suggest.

The trial started as most trials do with jury selection but as there is virtually no way to make the voir dire process visually or dramatically interesting, the story ignored jury selection and jumped right to opening statements. Starting with the opening statement of Janice Lincoln, the prosecuting attorney. Janice went for the jugular. Scott’s. She argued that the jury should ignore Scott’s good deeds as Ant-Man, as Scott had been convicted of several felonies, abandoned his family, burned his bridges with the respected members of the super hero community, recklessly allowed his daughter to be killed – but resurrected, see I told you – and kidnapped that same daughter to force her to be his accomplice in a heist. Probably the only reason Janice didn’t blame Scott for The Great Train Robbery is that Scott’s strong suit has never been silent.

There’s a name for that in the legal biz. We call it “putting the defendant’s character in issue.” We also call it improper. In a criminal trial, the prosecution is expressly forbidden from offering evidence, testimony, or even opening statements about a defendant’s bad character in order to prove that the defendant acted in accordance with that bad character. Or, in words that aren’t ripped from compelling prose that is the Federal Rules of Evidence, it’s improper for the prosecutor to prove or even argue that the defendant has been a bad person in the past so probably continued to be a bad person and committed the crime.

There are some exceptions to this rule. We won’t go into all of them, because only one of them applies to the story at hand. The prosecution may address the issue of the defendant’s bad character when the defendant puts his or her own character into issue first. If the defense offers evidence or argues that the defendant is a good person who would never commit the crime – in the legal biz we call that “opening the door” – the prosecution is allowed to walk through the open door and rebut evidence of good character with evidence that the defendant is a bad person who would commit the crime.

In her opening statement, defense counsel Jennifer Walters told the jury all about what a good person and upstanding hero Scott Lang was; ending with “I’ve seen it with my own eyes – this man is a hero.” It was after Jennifer Walters made this opening statement that Janice Lincoln made her opening statement and assassinated Scott’s character like it was that other Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. (What? Too soon?)

So what’s my problem with Ms. Lincoln’s opening statement? After all, if the defense put Scott’s character in issue – and it did – then the prosecution would be allowed to rebut that claim of good character with an argument of bad character. My problem is that if proper trial procedure had been followed – and the story went out of its way to establish that the trial judge, the Honorable Ronald Wilcox, was a no-nonsense, by the book judge who would follow proper procedure – the prosecution would not have been allowed to make the opening statement that it did, because the defense wold not have put Scott’s character into issue yet.

Proper trial procedure dictates that the prosecution makes its opening statement first, because it has the burdens of producing the evidence proving the defendant guilty and persuading the jury that the defendant is guilty. The prosecution makes its opening statement before the defense makes its opening statement. In a real trial, not one that played with proper procedure for dramatic purpose, Janice Lincoln wouldn’t have been able to attack Scott’s character in her opening statement, because she would have given it before the defense opening statement and before Jennifer Walters opened the door to Scott’s character.

Oh, I’m sure that Ms. Lincoln would have had her opportunity later in the trial. The defense’s sole tactic was to convince the jury that Scott Lang was a hero who wouldn’t commit the crime, so the defense was going to open that door eventually. Then all that other bad stuff about Scott’s character would have come in. In the legal biz we have a name for that, a bad idea.

Here’s a piece of advice to all you future lawyers out there: If you put your client’s character into issue, the prosecution is allowed to counter with proof of your client’s bad character. So don’t put your client’s character into issue when your client’s closet has more skeletons than The Pirates of the Caribbean.

Mike Gold: One Pill Makes You Larger, One Pill Makes You Ant-Man

The cool part about that first Ant-Man movie trailer is when Scott Lang asks Hank Pym if it is too late to change his code name.

The costume was nice and the scenes with Paul Rudd riding an ant were fun, and I’ll go see it and all that – but for me, the big “sell” is that Haley Atwell (Agent Carter) and John Slattery, the “older” Howard Stark, are in it. No knock on the character and certainly none on Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas, and both seem like great casting choices.

The fact is, Ant-Man is Marvel’s Aquaman. No, I don’t mean Ant-Man is another really lame rip-off of the Sub-Mariner, I mean… well, about a thousand years ago Saturday Night Live did a superhero party skit and all the other heroes mocked the poor bastard because all he could do was get real small. At the Superhero Cafeteria, Ant-Man and Aquaman sit together but have nothing to say to each other.

I read “The Man In The Ant-Hill” as a kid. Tales To Astonish #27, January 1962. I was 11 years old and I loved it. I was thrilled to see Marvel bring Pym back as a superhero after the success of Fantastic Four. And within a few months… I was bored. They introduced The Wasp and I liked her, but I guess that didn’t help sales. They made Ant-Man into Giant-Man and that didn’t help. He later became Yellowjacket. Then other people became Ant-Man. Then Pym turned into a real asshole. When you think about it, the little critter’s been a D-Lister for 53 years.

But I think the movie is a good idea. They’ve got their own continuity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and maybe they can put this one over the plate. The li’l guy’s been trying so long he deserves it.

The current comic book incarnation, launched to take advantage of the movie publicity, focuses on the fact that Scott Lang is a well-meaning loser and that Ant-Man… well, he is one as well. Not bad, but these days comic book series come and go with alarming frequency. Confounding frequency, in fact, but I thank the publishers for giving us so many convenient jumping-off points. I wouldn’t be surprised if this latest Ant-Man series lasts no longer than the others.

That SNL sketch had Garrett Morris playing Ant-Man. He’s quite an accomplished actor, one who had been in movies before SNL and hasn’t lived off of his teevee rep for the past 35 years. I really wish he had a small part in the movie.

Small part. Get it?

(As noted yesterday, Denny O’Neil will be back in this space next week, thereby returning Mike Gold to Wednesday mornings where he belongs.)