Janet Van DyneThe Wasp

Out of the Nest

Young socialite Janet Van Dyne met Dr. Henry “Hank” Pym when her scientist father consulted Pym about a device he’d built to pierce the veil between worlds. Later, when the elder Van Dyne was killed by an alien being with which he’d made contact, Jan impressed Pym enough with her passion to avenge her father that he cobbled together a suit and weapons for her to join him on that mission. Together, Ant-Man and the Wasp defeated the creature and Jan became Pym’s partner in his Super Hero career.

Hank and Jan grew closer as they shared adventures, though Pym maintained an aloof attitude toward his young partner, feeling as though he wasn’t worthy of her. Not long after the Wasp’s debut, she and Ant-Man fought alongside Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk to smash a scheme of Thor’s half-brother Loki and when the dust cleared a new fighting team was born. Thrilled to be among such legendary figures, Van Dyne herself coined their team name: The Avengers.

Wings and Stings

Hank Pym’s original equipment for the Wasp granted her the ability to shrink to insect size through a gas containing what he dubbed “Pym Particles,” until he refined the ability to be activated internally by force of will. Van Dyne can shrink to microscopic size, as well as grow large as a building, though she rarely utilizes the latter power.

While small, the Wasp grows a pair of insect-like wings with which she flies. These wings, once artificial, literally grow from her back, the result of Pym’s genetic implantation. In addition, Van Dyne can generate a bio-electric shock from her body that manifests as a powerful, debilitating “sting” for offensive purposes. The Wasp’s sting can render a normal person unconscious and even penetrate some forms of armor.

Nest Mates

Janet Van Dyne’s life has been closely intertwined with Hank Pym’s, creating a dynamic relationship that waxes and wanes through the years. Pym’s longtime mental instability not only drove the two to be married, but also disrupted that bond to the extent of causing long periods of separation between them. Though Jan often sees the man she fell in love with when she was very young, she also knows that being together with Hank is not always the very best thing for both of them.

As an Avenger, Van Dyne formed friendships with many fellow heroes, such as Jennifer Walters, AKA She-Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man. Though considered flighty by many of those she’s worked alongside, Jan can be a true friend, trustworthy and dependable, as well as steadfastly loyal. Recently, Jan has accepted Hank’s formerly unknown daughter Nadia into her circle and taken the girl under wing to guide her down the path of a hero. Nadia has grown so close to the Wasp that she’s adopted the name of Van Dyne as her own surname, replacing Pym.

Natural Enemies

Many of the first foes the Wasp faced in her career arrived due to her partnership with Hank Pym as Ant-Man, and later Giant Man and Goliath, to name a few. Among these enemies stands the criminal genius Egghead who framed Pym in an elaborate scheme to ruin him, the spinning Whirlwind (who formed an unhealthy obsession for Jan), and the robotic despot Ultron, who built female companions of his own to emulate Van Dyne’s relationship with his creator, Pym.

No Small Life

As the Wasp, Janet Van Dyne plunged into her role as an Avenger, but when seriously wounded by a henchman of the heinous Count Nefaria, she and Hank chose to retire their costumed personas and Avengers membership. Not long after, they returned to the team with Jan healthy again but Hank’s mental faculties and physical well-being deteriorated from many factors, including his prolonged size-changing.

Jan inherited her father’s full fortune on her twenty-third birthday, an event which seemed to exacerbate Hank’s feelings of insecurity. In secret, he created an artificial intelligence dubbed Ultron and eventually suffered a breakdown that drove him to submerge his true personality and resurface with a new one he called Yellowjacket. Bolder and more carefree, he proposed to Jan and the two were married, though Van Dyne admitted afterward she knew all along Yellowjacket was Hank.

Pym continued to suffer from mental instability, while Jan embraced her calling as a fashion designer complete with a business of her own to run. Hank worked to strengthen her powers as the Wasp, but when he grew physically and verbally abusive, and was put on trial by his fellow Avengers for dereliction of duty, Jan divorced him. Returning to full Avengers membership, she appeared more confident and competent without Hank and developed strong leadership qualities as the team’s chairperson. In her personal life, she took on brief relationships with fellow crusaders such as Iron Man and Paladin, but never anything lasting.

While leading the Avengers through tumultuous times like the Masters of Evil’s assault on Avengers Mansion and the Beyonder’s so-called “Secret Wars,” the Wasp earned the respect of her teammates, but her restless nature led her to frequently leave and rejoin the team, as well as rekindle and douse her relationship with her ex-husband, including their time with the West Coast branch of the Avengers.

Eventually, Jan came back east to the original Avengers and all the slings and arrows it offered. A brainwashed Tony Stark stole her entire fortune, she found herself mutated into a human-insect hybrid, then waylaid onto an alternate Earth for a year, and through it all she and Hank tried more than once to establish a happy medium for their relationship. Just when Jan believed Hank’s warring psyche to be fully healed, she reached out to fellow Avenger Hawkeye for a fling and began experimenting with growing large as well as small.

When the Super Hero “Civil War” between Iron Man Tony Stark and Captain America Steve Rogers, both dear friends of Van Dyne’s, escalated into open hostilities, Jan sided with Stark and supported his nationwide initiative campaign to train young heroes. A female Ultron manifested in the Wasp’s image to challenge the current Avengers, and Hank Pym was secretly replaced by an alien Skrull, unbeknownst to Jan. The Skrull-Pym injected her with a doomsday concoction that was triggered during the final clash between the aliens and Earth’s champions, forcing the Wasp to seemingly sacrifice herself to save everyone around her.

Hank Pym, in mourning for his ex-wife, refashioned himself as the new Wasp. Some time later, the Avengers received a distress call from the Underverse, a realm below the Microverse, and while answering it found a very-much-alive Janet Van Dyne engaged in fighting a tyrant of the diminutive plane. Returning to the real world, the original Wasp resumed her life and accepted Captain America’s invitation to join his new Avenger Unity Squad, a special team made up of both humans and mutants. While with the squad, Jan worked alongside the X-Men’s Havok and while stuck together in a possible future time, the two developed a romance that resulted in a daughter. Sadly, the child was stolen by the time-traveling Kang.

Recently, Jan witnessed the supposed death of Hank Pym and the arrival of his heretofore unknown daughter Nadia, who has taken on the name and motif of the Wasp with Van Dyne’s blessing and approval.