Sunday, March 11, 2018

Wasp Facts

Are you a fan of Janet Van Dyne? Well, here are One Dozen Wasp Facts!
1. Janet Van Dyne was a founding member of The Avengers and the first female member. In addition, she came up with the name "The Avengers". Although she started out being their weak link, she grew to be very crafty and had even led The Avengers on several occasions.

2. During a time when her former husband was mentally unstable, Janet was slapped across the room by Hank Pym in a 1981 story. Editor Jim Shooter claimed it was written that he hit her by accident while gesturing for her to leave him alone, but what artist Bob Hall drew became an infamous aspect of Hank Pym's character, forever solidifying him as a "wife beater" to the readers.

3. Hank's shameful act was made all the worse in Mark Millar's "The Ultimates" which showed a version of The Avengers a bit less glamorous than the main canon. In The Ultimate Universe, Janet was a mutant with the power to grow wings and shrink herself and Hank used her mutant DNA to create Pym Particles and achieve his Giant-Man form. Unknown to the public, Hank and Janet have an abusive relationship. When Captain America found out, he hunted Hank down and beat him near to death.

4. During George Perez 1970's run as artist for The Avengers, The Wasp would change her costume almost every other issue. It became a running joke and even led The Wasp into a clothing design career. She has also been the host of a reality show called "America's Newest Superhero".

5. After Hank, Janet briefly dated Tony Stark until she learned he and Iron Man were the same person and she didn't want to be dating a friend of Hank's. She dated the anti-hero Paladin, she was once seduced by Magneto, she had a fling with Hawkeye, and had a romantic relationship with Alex Summers-younger brother of Cyclops and the X-Man known as Havok. She and Havok are even married in an alternate future and have a daughter. She and Hank have tried to date again a few times.

6. During the event "Secret Invasion", Janet was seemingly killed by a sabotaged sample of Pym Particles. In the wake of her death, Hank took up the mantle of "The Wasp". In 2010, The Avengers received a distress call from the Microverse where Janet had been apparently trapped.

7. Hank Pym's evil robot-Ultron-created a wife named Jocasta from the body and mind of Janet and he named her Jocasta. Jocasta, much like Ultron's other creation-The Vision-she betrayed her creator and became an Avenger. When Hank became The Wasp, he had Jocasta act as his partner.

8. In 1970, Thor villain Enchantress once disguised herself as the superhero Valkyrie and used mind-control to convince The Wasp, Black Widow, Medusa, and Scarlet Witch to rebel against their male teammates and form The Lady Liberators.

9. In "Marvel Zombies" a zombified Wasp discovers her husband Hank has been keeping a drugged and slightly eaten Black Panther hostage in secret from the other zombified Avengers. To keep her quiet he grows giant and bites her head off. She is seen in sequel book later to have her severed head on a robot body. In the "Ultimate Comics" Universe, Wasp is killed and partially eaten by The Blob. Hank grows giant, bites off Blob's head, and throws in into the ocean. In the young reader's book "Marvel Adventures"-which exists in it's own universe-Janet is Giant-Girl. She is independent of Hank, but got a suit charged with Pym Particles from Hank Pym, who is an employee of her father. She is a member of The Avengers and is presumed younger than her canon counterpart. In the "MC2" universe Hank and Janet had children, Henry Jr. and Hope. The two sadly died when their children reached their teens and formed a group called The Revengers. Their goal was to destroy A-Next, the next generation of Avengers because they believed they should inherit the Avengers legacy. Henry-as Big Man-betrayed his sister Hope-as Red Queen-and joined a government sponsored superhero team. Hope Pym was seen once more in the Marvel Cinematic Universe once again as Hank and Janet's daughter, but this time as an adult who wanted to follow in her father's footsteps. She takes on Janet's mantle of The Wasp in "Ant-Man & The Wasp".

10. Following Hope's decision to become The Wasp at the end of "Ant-Man", Mark Waid and Alan Davis created a new Wasp (with a costume similar to the MCU version of Janet) named Nadia. She was the illegitimate daughter of Hank and his Russian girlfriend Maria Trovaya from before he met Janet. Maria had Nadia in secret and Maria was killed by foreign agent. Nadia was locked away in The Red Room-the same place Black Widow received her training-and escaped when she was a teenager. She became the new Wasp, joined The Avengers, and became close to Janet. So close in fact that when Nadia had to choose a surname for U.S. citizenship she chose the name "Van Dyne".

11. Off the back of her TV career and fashion career, Janet funded The Avengers for a short time.

12. In Janet's first origin story in 1963's "Tales to Astonish #44", her father was experimenting with alien transportation and brought a creature known as Pilai from the planet Kosmos. An entirely liquid-based being, the alien killed Janet's father. Janet went to her father's friend Hank Pam-who she knew was Ant-Man-and demanded the two of them team up to defeat the alien and avenge her father. After she had wings implanted into her and received Pym Particles, Janet became The Wasp, they defeated Pilai, and became superheroes.
Thanks for reading.

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