With Earth's overabundance of super-powered threats, the Marvel Universe has no shortage of supervillain prison facilities and Ant-Man ran the tiniest one. From The Raft, just within reach of Ryker's Island; to The Vault, home of both technological and super-powered threats; to The Cube, the S.H.I.E.L.D. operated holding facility used for containing hostile extraterrestrials, Marvel has no shortage of specialized holding facilities. Becoming a fixture in his lauded She Hulk run, recurring Marvel writer Dan Slott (The Superior Spider-Man, Silver Surfer) introduced a fascinating new supervillain penitentiary, steered by Marvel's smallest Avenger.
In this vastly heightened world, staying ahead of countless villains becomes increasingly difficult for the superheroes. The Pym Experimental Penitentiary Number One, which becomes known as the Big House, is given life by original Ant Man and founding Avenger Dr. Hank Pym. Ironically, the Big House, located in New York, acts as a maximum-security prison facility for Earth's most dangerous supervillains with both the facility and its inmates shrunken down. Given the prison's miniature size, the Big House does not generally require the need for a handful of prison guards that the average holding facility would. As its prisoners are much smaller than the personnel, the lower vaults of the Big House are reserved with a stockpile of reducing gas canisters occasionally used by the enlarged guards and doctors on staff to either contain or treat prisoners.
Shortly following its introduction, it becomes clear that there are still a few flaws that may need to be worked on pertaining to the Big House. When Fantastic Four adversary The Mad Thinker orchestrates a covert prison break with the aid of several other villainous inmates utilizing the facility's coveted reducing gas, Mad Thinker and his cohorts successfully hitch a ride back to New York City via the skin of an unaware She Hulk. Most of the escapees are eventually returned to their prison quarters by both She Hulk and Pym, in his guise as Yellowjacket, but the general security of the miniature complex is significantly called into question.
In the aftermath of the Big House prison break, it does not take long for construction to commence on Hank Pym's next major technological venture, the Pym Experimental Prison Number Two, otherwise known as The Lang Memorial Penitentiary (titled in memory of deceased Ant Man successor Scott Lang). Quickly nicknamed by the prison staff as the Ant Farm, The Lang Memorial Penitentiary remains within the confines of the original Big House with the facility's most vicious inmates now placed within their own ant farms, supervised by ants. To limit further contact with the inmates, many prison guards are given cybernetic helmets, allowing the staff to communicate with the ants in the same vein as Ant Man himself.
Though not currently featured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Big House has translated over to the small screen with the relatively short lived but beloved animated series Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes, with Ant Man remaining its founder. Since the establishment of the Big House facility in Slott's She Hulk comics, the prison has housed mainstay Marvel villains Mad Thinker, The Wrecking Crew, Rhino, Electro, Whirlwind, Absorbing Man, and several others.
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