Wasp (comics)

Superhero Origins: The Wasp

This miniaturized hero was the first female Avenger! Join http://www.WatchMojo.com as we will explore the comic book origin of Janet Van Dyne, otherwise known as The Wasp.

Janet van Dyne as the Wasp. Art by J. G. Jones.

Wasp (Janet van Dyne) is a fictional character, a superheroine in the Marvel Comics universe and founding member of the Avengers. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in Tales to Astonish #44 (June 1963).

“The Winsome Wasp”, as she is sometimes called, is usually depicted as having the ability to shrink to a height of perhaps several centimeters, grow to giant size, fly by means of insectoid wings, and fire yellow energy blasts.

In May 2011, the Wasp placed 99th on IGN‘s Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time. The character was ranked 94th in Comics Buyer’s Guide‘s “100 Sexiest Women in Comics” list.  Her early partner and fellow Avengers member, Henry Pym, temporarily took the codename of “The Wasp” while she was presumed dead.

Publication history

Janet van Dyne debuted as Henry “Hank” Pym‘s partner in Tales to Astonish #44 (written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby), originally only serving as his partner to avenge the death of her father, scientist Vernon van Dyne. Later in the same issue, she decides to stay with Hank only because she is in love with him, wanting him to realize that he loves her back. They both realize their feelings for each other in Tales to Astonish #56, although it is only later in the series that they act on them.

During her run in Astonish, van Dyne also joined Avengers in its first issue, along with her partner, Hank Pym. It is on this team that Janet becomes most well-known, at first the weak link of the team, but later on one of the smartest and craftiest members. She is the first one to propose to leave the team, after announcing how tired she is and how she wants to return to a normal life.  However, she misses being a superhero, and she returns to the team in issue #28. After marrying Hank in issue #60, Janet and Hank both decide to leave the team in issue #75.

Janet was a main character in Marvel Feature issues #6-10, and made sporadic guest appearances in various other books at the time.

Janet misses being a superhero, and re-joins the Avengers in issue #137, getting injured right away. After being rescued by her husband and hospitalized, Janet recovers and joins the team along with Hank.  Here she begins her longest run as a member of the Avengers. After being brutally slapped in the face by her husband, she divorces him, and in turn becomes the new Chairman of the Avengers, starting in issue #217.

Janet later resigns as Chairman, and joins the West Coast Avengers in issue #32, at first only to help stabilize the team after Tony Stark leaves, later becoming a full-time member in issue #42. Later in the run, she rekindles her old romance with Hank, and fully re-joins the Avengers.

Wasp returns in the 2010-2013 Avengers series, in the “End Times” storyline from issue #31 (December 2012) to its final issue #34 (January 2013).

Design

In his 1970’s run on The Avengers, artist George Pérez revamped the character’s costume a number of times, having a significant impact on the character’s development:

Origin Fictional character biography

The Wasp’s first appearance inTales to Astonish #44. Art by Jack Kirby.

Janet Van Dyne was born in Cresskill, New Jersey. She is initially a shallow, self-centered, flighty heiress and debutante, daughter of wealthy scientist Vernon Van Dyne. During an experiment, however, an alien monster is unleashed from an alternate dimension and Dr. Van Dyne is killed. Her father’s associate, Dr. Henry “Hank” Pym, has created a substance called “Pym particles”, which allows the user to grow or shrink in size, and has become the superhero Ant-Man. When Janet’s father dies, she convinces Pym to help her.  He gives her a supply of “Pym particles” and subjects her to a biochemical procedure which grants her the ability to grow wings upon shrinking. Initially, she uses a pin to poke people as means of a weapon, and she later uses a miniature air gun, the original wasp’s sting.  Eventually, she gains the ability to harness her body’s bio-electrical current and fire blasts of energy which she calls her “wasp’s stings”. Ant-Man and the Wasp defeat the monster and send it to its own dimension. Janet becomes Pym’s partner and falls in love with him before their first adventure, but Pym rejects her at first, afraid of what would happen if he were to lose her as he has lost his first wife, who has been killed.  Janet openly muses about her apparently unrequited feelings, often in front of him.  Pym rejects his feelings for her, but he later accepts them and tries to act on them.  Later, they begin dating.

Avenger

Soon afterward, the superhero team, which Janet herself dubbed the Avengers, forms. Hank and Janet are among its founding members.  Still shallow, Janet frequently comments on the attractiveness of her male colleagues, especially Thor, in order to provoke jealousy from Pym. Never lacking confidence or bravery and by nature an outgoing personality, Janet is always in the thick of battles with villains, who include Norse gods and aliens. Early on in her Avengers career, she is wounded in battle against Count Nefaria.  Although she and Hank take occasional leaves of absence, the two have almost always remained members, staying on reserve when not on active duty. After their first leave of absence, she and Pym, as the first Goliath, rejoin the Avengers and battle the Collector.  During the course of their many adventures as Avengers, Janet grows as a person, becoming a resourceful and seasoned hero. Several years later, she is elected leader of the team.

Marrying Hank Pym

The Winsome Wasp captured by John Buscema as a 1960’s glamor girl.

Janet hopes on several occasions for Hank to propose.  Their wedding comes about in a convoluted manner, beginning when new vigilante Yellowjacket breaks into Avengers HQ, demanding to be admitted as a member of the team and claiming to have killed Henry Pym. He knocks Janet unconscious and kidnaps her. Not believing that he has killed Hank, Janet attempts to find where Yellowjacket is holding him, but instead determines that Yellowjacket is Henry Pym. Before revealing this, and during the period in which Yellowjacket still believes himself to have killed Hank, Janet marries him. The wedding itself is a tense affair, made worse by an attack from the Circus of Crime. During the fight it is revealed that Yellowjacket is Pym, who has a severe case of dissociative identity disorder caused by a lab accident. Janet realizes this very early on and takes advantage of it to marry Hank.

Janet later leaves the Avengers, though she has other adventures before rejoining the team.  She becomes temporarily trapped at insect size, and battles Whirlwind, Para-Man, and Dr. Nemesis.  She also battles Equinox alongside Spider-Man and Yellowjacket; during this time her powers are augmented.

Rocky times

Janet’s relationship with Pym becomes rocky, as he suffers a further series of mental problems, exacerbated by the stress upon his body from his frequent size changes and exposure to chemicals. Janet is kidnapped by a brainwashed Hank, and her brain patterns are used to create Jocasta, an intended wife for Ultron.  Janet later rejoins the Avengers without Pym.  Years later, Hank has a complete breakdown, becoming paranoid, overbearing, and verbally abusive.  When Janet discovers that Hank has concocted a plan to make himself look good in front of his teammates by staging an attack upon them which only he could stop, she attempts to dissuade him and he strikes her.  The plan backfires and Pym is exposed, disgraced, and expelled from the Avengers.  Janet divorces Pym soon after, and then becomes Avengers chairperson; with the Avengers, she arrests Yellowjacket.  She eventually surrenders her Avengers chairmanship to the Vision. Despite these hardships, Janet remains with the team and even begins dating other men, including Tony Stark, and Paladin.  With Paladin, she battles Baron Brimstone, and shortly thereafter she resumes her Avengers chairmanship.  Janet eventually steps down as chairperson again, and leaves the Avengers.  Jan battles the threat of Red Ronin alone.  She later joins the West Coast Avengers.  Initially, Janet is still acting as a leader, to the chagrin of other West Coast Avengers teammates who desire that role. During this time, she resumes a romantic relationship with Hank. Although she is elected as a regular member of the Avengers West, Janet chooses to become a reserve member.

Several years later, Janet returns to the Avengers, first at reserve status, and later as a full member of the team. During the Destiny War, the Janet of the present becomes the leader of a team of Avengers assembled from different time periods, cited as being chosen due to her “inner strength and flexibility to give the team direction without exerting too much control.”  After the Destiny War, Janet returns to work with the Avengers once more, taking up leadership of the team and commanding the team through a number of conflicts, including Kang’s invasion of Earth.

Janet and Hank’s relationship remains strong for some time. On a trip to Las Vegas, however, she turns down Pym’s proposal, saying she wouldn’t marry him again.  She has a brief fling with fellow team member Hawkeye, but returns to Hank.

Avengers Disassembled

While discussing her fling with Hawkeye with the Scarlet Witch, a slightly tipsy Wasp confesses to a pregnancy scare and inadvertently mentions Wanda’s own children, whose unnatural existence Agatha Harkness has erased from the Witch’s memory. The Wasp’s slip of the tongue, combined with the Scarlet Witch‘s increasingly unstable and growing powers, cause Wanda to suffer a mental breakdown which leads to the events of Avengers Disassembled. Janet is knocked into a coma by a rampaging She-Hulk during an attack on Avengers Mansion by the Scarlet Witch. Hank watches over her in the hospital, and when she recovers, they reconcile. The two retire from the Avengers in order to pursue a new life together in Oxford.

Beyond!

Janet is pulled into space and placed in a situation where she is expected to fight to the death with other heroes and villains. Instead of following the wishes of the Stranger—who they thought to be the Beyonder—Janet falls into the leadership position for the group, giving tactical orders in battle and calling upon her years of experience with the Avengers to handle the threats thrown at them. After tension between her and her ex-husband, Janet explains to Medusa why she can’t reconcile with him, despite an attempt to do so while in London. Upon learning that the Space Phantom has taken on the form of Spider-Man, Janet leads the group against him and keeps one of the team from being trapped in limbo when the Space Phantom attempts to take his form.

Civil War – (comics)

During the superhuman Civil War, Janet is pro-registration and suggests that they push forward the fifty-state initiative to get things under control after the Thor-Clone kills Bill Foster, an event which she is very upset by. She also becomes the host of a pro-registration reality show called America’s Newest Superhero.

Mighty Avengers

Janet is selected as a member of the Mighty Avengers by Carol Danvers and Tony Stark as part of the Fifty State Initiative.  During its attempt to destroy humanity, she correctly determines that Ultron has taken over Iron Man’s body.  When alien symbiotes attack New York, Janet uses a refined growth formula given to her by Hank Pym—who, unbeknownst to her, is actually a Skrull impostor—which allows her to shift to giant-size without side effects. During the beginning of the fight, she is briefly turned into a symbiote monster before a cure is created by Stark.

Secret Invasion

Janet is among the Mighty Avengers who are fighting heroes from the Skrull ship. She is later seen with the rest of the Avengers heading to New York to confront the Skrulls. While fighting the Skrulls, the true purpose of the serum that the Skrull Hank Pym has given her is revealed. After Queen Veranke is thought to be dead, Skrull Pym presses a button that makes Janet increase in size rapidly. She realizes that the “new” particles Pym has given her are turning her into a bio-bomb. Janet is seen growing to a huge size, emitting lethal amounts of black-purple energy, and about to explode. Janet tries to flee the battlefield, trying to take as many Skrulls with her as possible. Thor uses Mjolnir to create a spatial warp in order to save both the heroes and the city, apparently dispersing her into nothingness. Thor is devastated by the act and vows to avenge her.  After accepting her death, Hank Pym resolves to take up his fallen ex-wife’s mantle and becomes the Wasp.

Return

Following the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, it is revealed that Janet has not died after all, but has been shunted into the Microverse by Thor’s spatial warp in the same spot that she appears to have died in Secret Invasion, where she claims to have been trapped for 10 years. Using her Avengers communication card she is able to send a signal with help from a local being called Cru-Sani. Giant Man, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man go into the Microverse to rescue her and find her alive and fighting against an evil despot called “Lord Gouzar”, who has conquered the Microverse. After defeating him and liberating the Microverse from his tyranny, Janet and her fellow Avengers return to their normal universe.

After a brief hiatus, Janet returns to the team as a member of the Avengers Unity Squad. In addition to serving on the roster, she privately funds the team in order to avoid the problems that would come with government sponsorship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(comics)