Stop Or I'll Squirt

Can YOU

Name This Marvel Villain??

Our mystery villain's identity can be found in this dramatic splash panel from the opening page of Tales To Astonish #37:

Um, that's "Protector," by the way. Apparently the Protector had his own creative team so flustered with excitement that no one thought to check the spelling of his name on the very first page of the issue. And with good reason--the sheer potential for a dramatic battle was enormous. After all, this guy went up against Ant-Man. You can't get more high-profile than that.

On the other hand, if someone told me that this "Ant-Man" character would one day be a founding member of the Avengers, I'd have to question the sanity of any writer who thinks that a character who can be foiled by a water pistol is Avengers material:

Keep in mind that Ant-Man retains his full-size strength even when shrunk (which he notes in this very issue)--yet apparently he can't resist a tiny amount of water flowing toward a grate. Perhaps the Protector is really battling Anemic-Man.

As for the Protector, he was basically a small-time extortionist who bullied local shop owners for "protection" money. To back up his threat, he seemingly possessed incredible strength, as well as a disintegrator gun. Yet Ant-Man, posing as a new shop owner, gets to see the Protector's methods first-hand, and is able to deduce his secrets for the police:

I hope they managed to calm down that poor kid from the street and return his water pistol to him. Think how much he can brag to the other kids that his pistol took out Ant-Man. We might just be seeing a super-villain in the making.