What's the Buzz on van Dyne...Part IV

Today we are finally going to get around to finally finishing or look the Wasp. I honestly have more respect for Marvel fans now; trying to keep the various titles and order of where stories are all throughout their various reboots...that is truly a job for an archivist.


When we left off, Janet was back to dating Hank, but that doesn't stop her from having a brief fling with Hawkeye of the Avengers (Avengers v3 #82 pictured above; one of her best covers in these years.) It was while discussing this little indiscretion with her friend the Scarlet Witch (she feared she was pregnant) that she accidentally mentions Wanda's own children, who were erased from her memory by arch sorceress Agatha Harkness. As the Scarlet Witch was already having difficulty keeping her sanity under wraps, this leads to Wanda going crazy. As chronicled in the Avengers Disassembled event, She-Hulk becomes hexed by Wanda and begins to rampage, ripping the Vision in half and putting our heroine in a coma. Henry rushes her to the hospital before returning to help finish She-Hulk. Hank then returns to the hospital, and once Janet wakes up the reconcile and leave the team.


One day Janet finds herself in space; this leads to the events of the Beyond! mini series. Janet is expected to fight to the death against some of the Marvel Universe's other heroes and villains, Janet becomes the group leader of them all and coordinates all tactics (This is one tough lady.) When Spider-man is revealed to be the Space Phantom, Janet manages to save the group from being trapped in Limbo, and they return to Earth.

The next large event that Wasp was involved in was Civil War. She comes out on the pro-registration side, (not surprisingly because she doesn't keep her identity secret from the general public.) She becomes the host of America's Newest Superhero, a show dedicated to find new public heroes and help the pro-registration cause. She becomes a member of the Avengers once again in the aftermath. During the Secret Invasion (Marvel just keeps having these large crossovers, don't they?), which was another large attempt by the Skrulls to conquer the Earth, Janet is one of the lead heroes that fights upon the start of the invasion. During the final battle, Janet was turned into a bio-bomb as the result of absorbing Pym particles, and Thor has to create a warp to another dimension to contain the blast. Janet is killed.

In the aftermath, Hank decides to take up the mantle of the Wasp, to keep her memory alive.

Normally, that would be it, but this is comics after all, and no one stays dead. It turns out that she was only shunted into the Microverse with Thor's act of heroism, and she is eventually able to use her Avengers communicator with help from one of the locals. Giant-Man, Captain America, Thor and Iron Man go there to rescue her, and find her doing what she does best, leading the charge against a dictator in the Microverse. Once the people are freed, the heroes return to our world.

Now personally funding the team in order to keep government interference with the Avengers to a minimum. In this time period with the Avengers, she begins to use her new abilities to grow to giant size more often than shrinking (she has had this ability for at least a few years, but I haven't had occasion to mention it yet.) The Horsemen of Death attack Earth, destroying it, but this is undone by Wasp and Havok (Earth's only two surviving humans) by projecting their minds into the past selves. While they had a daughter (named Katie) during this time who y rights should no longer exist, she was protected by Kang, who helped Janet and Havok in the first place. The two remain together after this event, and Immortus himself warns them of the danger the Red Skull is currently becoming.



The Red Skull is only defeated when Carnage sacrifices himself to contain a blast that would destroy all non-mutants in the group of heroes fighting him.Today, the Wasp continues to fight with the Avengers, and is still involved with Hank in small ways (like recognizing when Ultron was controlling him.)

Thus ends my tale of Janet (Dammit!) van Dyne for now. I have always enjoyed reading about her, particularly during the late 70s, early 80s era when she was chairwoman of the Avengers.  I find she shined best then. I don't think the intention was for her to be like this when she was first created, but, like all heroines, she has showed her courage and fortitude many times over the years.

After I complete another review of a comic my son will randomly pick from my collection (which has grown slightly since,) my hero stories will continue. It has been suggested to me that my next one be of the Marv Wolfman/George Perez created spicy Koriand'r of Tamaran, known as Starfire of the Teen Titans.

Ottawa News and Notes - Today I see that we have new Data on who is coming to Ottawa...and that includes Brent Spiner, Data from Star Trek, the Next Generation (among other favourites, like Independence Day.) They have also added Cooper Andrews from that show that involves the deceased, that saunter across the landscape. The countdown is on, and I feel it coming...


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