Ant-Man’s favorite ant died and I’m devastated

I have covered every issue of Marvel’s new Ant-Man miniseries in our weekly recommendations, because each issue shows me something genuinely delightful. Ant-Man communing with bees, Ant-Man renting space from an ant colony, or Ant-Man getting shut down by Blade. But this week’s issue — the first after a coronavirus-imposed hiatus, no less! — has broken my heart.

In this week’s issue, Pamela the ant landlord perished in defense of her colony. Pam let Scott Lang into her home, gave him her smell so that the other ants wouldn’t attack him, and let him stay even when he made chairs out of the colony’s eggs. She also recapped the story at the beginning of every issue. Truly, she was a renaissance ant.

I should have known that Zeb Wells and Dylan Burnett were setting my emotions up for a fall, and yet, Pam’s demise hit me like a ton of bricks. The little red ant built a colony in my heart, and she’ll always be there.

What else is happening in the pages of our favorite comics? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Polygon’s weekly list of the books that our comics editor enjoyed this past week. It’s part society pages of superhero lives, part reading recommendations, part “look at this cool art.” There may be some spoilers. There may not be enough context. If you missed last week, read this.

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Ant-Man #4

Image: Zeb Wells, Dylan Burnett/Marvel Comics

I’m making scream smell just reading this, POUR ONE OUT FOR PAM.

Harley Quinn #72

Image: Sam Humphries, Abel/DC Comics

Sparks are flying between Booster Gold and Harley Quinn as the Queenpin of Crime is between paramours at the moment. With a new creative team coming on after issue #75, this is probably all flirting and drama — but it’s still pretty cute.

Ghost-Spider #9

Image: Seanan McGuire, Ig Guara/Marvel Comics

The thing about Spider-Gwen — she goes by Ghost-Spider now — is that in her home dimension, she’s very nearly the only superhero in New York City. Cue the return of young, rich instagram influencers Sue and Johnny Storm, after their mysterious disappearance. The storms are acting extremely sketch, and after all, the Fantastic Four are not good guys in every universe.

Lois Lane #10

With its 10th issue, Lois Lane is pressing one of my biggest comic book joy buttons: Relatively mundane superheroes reckoning with the multiverse. She’s gathered three women — Renee Montoya, Jessica Midnight, and Sister Clarice — who somehow have all started to remember their “pasts” from other universes.