Our team prevails by chapter's end, changing the monster back into his weedy Banner self (where he's promptly straitjacketed), then hushing up the scientist's involvement in the Hulk rampage. But despite - or perhaps because of - this victory, we don't end Book One on a happy note. In the final chapter, we get a depressing glimpse into the married life of Hank & Janet Pym.

Still sulking over the fact that he got his ass kicked in the Big Green Fight, Hank holds up in his lab. When wife Janet attempts to pull him out to a dinner at Tony Stark's, he snaps back jealously, and things escalate into a full-blown physical fight between the two. The panel where Hank first hauls off and hits his wife is even more dismaying than the scenes where Hulk threatens to rape Betty (if only because we know that the good guys are gonna prevent that appalling act from happening), and are about as far from the original characters as you can get. But does the scene make any sense?

As it plays, the moment works. Millar & Hitch do a decent job building their scene (we're given a hint that this is not the first time the two have come to blows) and even capture such subtleties as the moment where, mid-fight, Janet apologizes for starting a conflict that really is more Hank's fault than hers. The fight also ends on an ambiguous note: Janet being overwhelmed by ants that have attacked her on Hank's command (as he tells her in an ominous full-face close-up, "You shouldn't have made me look small, Jan!"), then a full-page scene of Pym seated in the wreckage of lab, bemoaning what he has done. Very effective.

And yet - and yet . . . for the first time since I started this series, I suddenly find myself growing all fanboyish. A bit that I would've accepted in a newish superhero title like The Authority can't help but feel off when it's built around characters who've been around for ages, even if they are supposed to be the new-&-improved Ultimate versions. It's not like I have any great love for the first Hank Pym. Truth be the told, the original version was a stiff. But I'm even less enamored w./ the idea of making the guy a wife beater. Call me old-fashioned.

In the end, the issue ultimately comes down to this: when does revisionism cross over into shock value contrariness? It's a dividing line that probably varies from reader to reader, but we all recognize when it's been crossed. It's that moment when you suddenly feel a sinking sense of betrayal by the actions of a bunch of featherweight figures on glossy paper.