The Shrinking Man vs Ant-Man

So, I watched Ant-Man recently and loved it! Not just because I’m a massive Marvel fan, but also because I really enjoyed noticing the similarities between the movie and Matheson’s The Shrinking Man. I wrote a review on the novel a while back (which you can read here) and I was a little surprised to see so many connections between the two. The Ant-Man character was first introduced in Marvel comics in 1962, five years after Matheson had published his novel (1957). One of the first things I noticed, then, is that the main character in both the novel and the film have the same first name: Scott. Coincidence? I think not. 

The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson

The Shrinking Man is aptly named. It’s a sci-fi novel about Scott Carey, a man who shrinks uncontrollably more and more each day. Scott’s troubles begin when he accidentally swallows insecticide. Then, whilst on holiday, he is exposed to a cloud of radioactive spray (this guy can’t catch a break!). The combination of these two events cause him to start shrinking about 1/7 of an inch a day. Matheson makes the whole process sound a lot more scientific, but since that was an interesting part of the plot for me, I don’t want to say much more about it in case I ruin it for you (assuming that you’ll actually read the book that is. Which you totally should, because it’s awesome!)