Comics:Tales to Astonish Vol 1 54

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"No Place To Hide!"

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Tales to Astonish Vol 1 #54
April, 1964

Writers

Stan Lee

Pencilers

Don Heck

Letterers

Art Simek

"Conquest!"

Writers

Stan Lee, Larry Lieber

Pencilers

Larry Lieber

Inkers

Sol Brodsky

Letterers

Art Simek

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Tales to Astonish #53

Tales to Astonish #55

Appearing in "No Place To Hide!"

Featured Characters:

• Giant-Man (Henry Pym)
• Wasp

Supporting Characters:

Villains:

• Toro (People's Defense Force) (First appearance)

Other Characters:

Locations:

• Santo Rico

Items:

Vehicles:

Synopsis for "No Place To Hide!"

Watching the Huntley-Brinkley report, Giant-Man learns that the nation of Santo Rico had just elected El Toro as their new president. The report noting that even though the nation of Santo Rico is a democratic nation, the communist backed El Toro won by a landslide.
Giant-Man is then interrupted by the Wasp, who demands that they begin planning a vacation, to which Giant-Man declines because he's far too busy. This causes a brief tussle between the two, which was provoked by the Wasp so that Giant-Man feels guilty the next time she asks that they go for a vacation.
Later that day, the two heroes are bombarded by a surprise visit by their fan club. After hosting them for a brief period, they get a phone call from Washington D.C. asking them for assistance, and Giant-Man shoos his fan-club out of his lab. They manage to elude their insistent fans by shrinking down to ant size to leave the premises.
Arriving in Washington hours later, they are asked by the military to go to Santo Rico because they believe the election was rigged by El Toro and want to find proof. Accepting the job, the two heroes travel to Santo Rico in their civilian guises of Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne. Arriving there, Pym trusts Janet with the size changing capsules. They soon gain the attention of near by soldiers who find their activity suspicious and report it to El Toro. Toro figuring them to be American spies orders them captured.
When the soldiers come to arrest the two heroes, they grab Janet first, but not before she can hand Henry a growth capsule which allows him to become Giant-Man. Giant-Man does not manage to stop the soldiers from taking Janet away because he is soon knocked over by El Toro.
Struggling to his feet, Giant-Man vows to rescue Janet, but soon finds himself an easy target when El Toro orders his death and he is stick in giant size. Smashing through the city to get away from guards, Giant-Man manages to make his escape by hitching a ride on a train and laying low in the country side until dark.
Returning to the city at night, Giant-Man has the local ants find the location where they are keeping Janet and comes to her rescue. Regaining the size capsules and freeing the Wasp, the two heroes shrink to ant-size and hitch a ride on Janet's guards as they go to El Toro to report her escape.
Arriving in El Toro's office, Giant-Man and Wasp let their presence known, and El Toro attacks them. Giant-Man easily defeats El Toro and finds proof that the election was rigged by communist backers and reveals the truth to the people who dispose of El Toro and plan to have a new election.
Returning back to America, Giant-Man and the Wasp are congratulated for freeing Santo Rico from communists tyranny. After which Giant-Man is resigned not to do any traveling for some time to come, however the Wasp is still trying to decide where they should go for their next vacation.

Appearing in "Conquest!"

'Featured Characters:

• Giant-Man (Henry Pym)
• Wasp
  

Synopsis for "Conquest!"

Getting a phone call from Henry Pym to go out on a date, the Wasp has to decline because she is stuck at home babysitting the son of her sick friend. Ending her phone call, young Tommy asks the Wasp to tell him a bed time story.
She tells him a story about a ruler of a distant planet known as Shann, the people of Shann's planet are content and Shann is worried that this will mean that they will take him for granted and not be awed by his presence. He soon comes up with a solution to become exulted by his people again: invade another planet.
He soon preps his people to go to war against the planet Andromina, and has his people build weapons of war and space ships to attack the people. They find the people of Andromina are peaceful farmer folk, and are easily defeated. Shann has his troops destroy their cities and farm lands in the name of conquest until the people of Andromina surrender.
Shortly after their conquest of the planet, Shann is praised as a hero, but soon comes to realize that his decimation of Andromina's means of being self sufficient has forced him to provide to them so that they do not starve. Soon the people of Shann's planet begin having to work to sustain the people of Andromina as well, soon the people of Shann's home world grow to hate him for lowering their quality of life.
Soon, Shann realizes his own vanity has cost him the respect of his people. Finishing her story, the Wasp asks if Tommy like the story, however the boy is more interested in knowing why the Wasp only has her wings when she's wasp-sized only.

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See Also

• Discuss Tales to Astonish Vol 1 54 on the forums
• Cover gallery for the Tales to Astonish series

Recommended Reading

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Links and References

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