While redheaded Russian spies, grumpy wizards, and even talking raccoons have become household
names, one of the first Avengers has flown way under the radar for far too long.
From her first appearance in 1963 to her latest incarnation, the Wasp has been setting milestones.
For a character known for shrinking, she's grown more than just about any costumed hero
in Marvel's pantheon, so here's the untold truth of the Wasp.
Avenger Assembler
It’s taken some time or the Wasp to get her due in the MCU, but in the comics, she
was there from the beginning.
Along with Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, and Ant-Man, The Wasp was one of the original five members
of the team that appeared in Avengers #1 — and she even gave the team its name.
After the Hulk asks what the heroes should call their new team, the Wasp suggests "Avengers,"
and Ant-Man approves the name before she even gets to finish the sentence.
With one heroic pose, the team has been christened, and the name has stuck for Earth’s Mightiest
Heroes ever since.
Janet takes the chair
Along with being a founding Avenger and the one to name her home team, the Wasp is a landmark
Avenger in that she was the team's first female chairperson, keeping her job through a healthy
chunk of the '80s.
In Avengers #217, the Wasp called for elections for a new chairperson, nominated herself,
and quickly won, with the support of Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man.
She was a popular and effective leader, and remains one of the few Marvel heroes who can
give orders to Captain America without making you wonder why he'd follow them.
Save for a brief leave of absence when the Vision took over the team, the Wasp remained
chairperson for five years until Avengers #278, when she stepped down after a brutal
storyline that saw the Masters of Evil successfully invade Avengers Mansion and, among other things,
beat their butler, Edwin Jarvis, so badly that he wound up in the hospital, and put
Hercules in a coma.
The Wasp that almost was
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Wasp isn’t the Janet Van Dyne that we know from
the comics.
Instead, that codename went to Hope Van Dyne, played by Evangeline Lily.
She first appeared in 2015’s Ant-Man and finally got her own super-powered shrinking
costume in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
In a 2012 Q&A, however, Avengers director Joss Whedon revealed that she almost made
her way to the big screen a few years earlier.
Worried that Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t return to the MCU as Black Widow, Whedon wrote
what he called “a very Wasp-y draft” that featured the tiny heroine in a tribute to
the Wasp’s status as a founding Avenger.
Obviously, Black Widow did stick around as a core member of the team, but finding out
how close we got does leave us wondering: why not have both?
The Girl who was The Wasp
Stieg Larsson’s novels about antisocial hacker Lisbeth Salander were published posthumously,
but were popular enough that author David Lagercrantz was tapped to continue the series.
In the first of Lagercrantz's additions to the Millennium series, The Girl in the Spider's
Web, Lagercrantz reveals that was Janet Van Dyne who inspired Lisbeth to give herself
the hacker ID of "Wasp," as well as inspiring the wasp tattoo on the back of Lisbeth's neck.
At first glance, it would be easy to assume that Lagercrantz is simply an old Marvel fan
who threw in his own childhood favorites, which checks out when you discover that the
book also included villains using names like Thanos and Zemo, but the author insists this
isn't the case.
Speaking with The Verge in 2015, Lagercrantz claimed he hadn't read Marvel comics as a
child and that he was googling the Wasp while trying to figure out why Larsson gave Lisbeth
the codename.
According to him, his image search turned up a character who looked exactly like Lisbeth
Salander.
If there's anything that would make a Marvel fan raise an eyebrow at Lagercrantz's story,
it's the notion that he was able to find a picture of the Wasp that looked anything like
Lisbeth.
The only times Janet Van Dyne looked even slightly goth were alternate universes.
Seven names aren’t enough
2009’s Secret Invasion event concluded with, among other things, the apparent death of
Janet van Dyne.
Four years later, it was revealed that she’d actually been trapped in a microscopic universe
instead, because in superhero comics, that’s something that actually makes a lot of sense.
In the meantime Hank Pym — Janet’s ex-husband and on-again/off-again lover — paid tribute
to Janet by taking up the name of "The Wasp", and led a new lineup of Earth's mightiest
heroes in the pages of Mighty Avengers.
What makes that notable is that it’s actually just one in a string of codenames Pym has
given himself.
Over the years, he’s been known as Ant-Man, Giant Man, Goliath, Gigantus, Yellowjacket,
Doctor Pym, and even Ultron.
It's enough to make you wonder if the guy was just waiting for Janet to die so he could
add one more superhero name to his collection.
The Unstoppable Wasp
The most recent heir to take up the mantle of the Wasp is Nadia van Dyne — daughter
of Hank Pym and Hungarian scientist Maria Travoya.
The new Wasp first appeared in a 2016 Free Comic Book Day issue and soon was a regular
member of the All-New, All-Different Avengers.
Nadia is an interesting fusion of her father, her namesake, and the Black Widow.
Raised in the same infamous Red Room that made Natasha Romanoff the spy she is, Nadia
escaped only when she was able to get her hands on the Pym particles that fueled her
father’s powers.
After a reboot of Avengers, Nadia enjoyed a shot at her own ongoing title, the only
solo Marvel Wasp title ever.
For eight issues, she starred in The Unstoppable Wasp, and founded her own team: the Genius
In action Research Lab, also known as the Agents of G.I.R.L.
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