You forgot the Incredible Shrinking Ant-Man storyline and costume from.....Marvel Feature??? Which I kinda of enjoyed as a kid.

I've always like Pym in his Yellowjacket costume. I first encounteed it in Avengers #90 where he gets turned into a caveman (Shades of things to come!!!!?). It might have been the first time  I "met" Dr. Pym so maybe thats why I like it. He popped up a few issues later as Ant-man. Which didn't phase me a bit, but Yellowjacket was cooler. I was glad when Pym showed up in the YJ costume in the Avengers and Defenders later on. Not too thrilled with "wife beater" storyline even later. For me Pym is Yellowjacket, Scott Lang is Ant-Man and Bill Foster is Giant-Man. Too bad the latter two are dead and the former "tainted goods".

QUOTE: When Busiek started writing him he had already taken up the Giant-Man mantle at the end of Avengers v.1, and he rehabilitated him a bit to make him more viable as a hero, but then he went and put him back in the Yellowjacket costume, and despite the rehabbing of the character, when other writers [Austen and Bendis] saw him as Yellowjacket they couldn't resist rehashing his old issues.

My memory is fuzzy but wasn't there some sort of impostor character in Busiek's run?  It was during Alan Davis' short stint as penciller.

QUOTE: Pym was split in half with a different personality in each.  Yellowjacket was still the jerk.  In a PAD move, a third persona/trait, Hank Pym, brought them all together. So Busiek went there and fixed it again, but just like he did, everyone keeps re-visiting it.  They should have left it alone after Thomas was done.  Now he and Tony Stark are more than flawed heroes.  They are heroic flaws, which is okay in the real world, but I prefer my heroes to be inspiring role models.

Thanks, Ted.  Funny you should mention Tony Stark.  I was just about to say something about how he too has been blemished.

Honestly I liked Wasp as Giant Woman. I think she would use the Pym Particles like that on occasion. I would not want to see it all the time but as a once in a blue moon thing, its a neat visual.

Not that everything else Austen did wasn't complete shit.

Imagine a different world and a different fate for Henry Pym.  Consider how Pym could have been portrayed based on seeds in his earliest stories.  Please excuse the poor scans.

Here we see something very unusual in Silver Age Marvel - utter fear of a hero.  Of course, this is probably due to Larry Lieber being the scripter, not Stan Lee.  But it is important to compare this to other heroes.  I don't remember the continued complaints about Thor, Iron Man, or even Spider-Man by the criminal community.  Clearly, off screen, Pym is doing something right.

Later on we learn something else - Giant Man has a fan club.  Early Marvel often showed various fan clubs of heroes - Flash Thompson even organized one for Spider-Man, but the Giant Man fan club is notable for a few reasons.  One is that it is obviously well organized.  Another is that Giant Man takes a much more active role in it than other heroes.  He is a much more accessible hero than the dubious Spider-Man, the aloof Thor, the secretive bodyguard Iron Man, or even the FF.

This is proof of a popularity above most of other heroes.  This is not surprising.  First, Ant-Man was unusually effective against crime.  Second, he had a glamorous partner and then founded the Avengers.  Third, being giant is very affecting psychologically.   Even if he did not have the power of Thor or Iron Man, Giant Man would be intimidating and inspiring in ways the others were not.

It is common nowadays to denigrate Pym because of his multi-costumed past.  But it is also possible to see this as a strength.  He has a unique experience of fighting crime in many different ways as opposed to others, and this should give him better insight in defeating opponents and leading a team.  And as these panels show, there is no way Pym should be embarassed by his past - few other heroes have been seen so successful or popular.

Fan perception of characters is often based on the perception of the creators because their love or dislike of a character is obvious.  Formerly unpopular characters can become very popular in the right hands, and fan favorites can become yesterday's news if a writer does not care.  Roy Thomas, in particular, seemed unsure of Hank and subtly disparaged the character.  The seeds were sown during his reign, but it was possible to portray Hank much more heroically.

The failure of Pym as a solo title has less to do with flaws in the character, than his utterly lacklaster rogue's gallery and absence of supporting cast.  While his first stories lacked the flair of Spider-Man's, they were not noticable worse than Thor's or Iron Man's.  Both of those characters would later have much stronger stories based on an interesting cast and compelling villains - but alas Pym never got his chance.