Janet van Dyne (Earth-616)
From Marvel Database
Contents |
History
Early life
Janet van Dyne was the daughter of world-renowned scientist Vernon van Dyne. Early in her life, she was a flighty, self-centered dilettante living resplendently on her father's fortune. She had an on-and-off romantic relationship with the world-renowned soldier-of-fortune called Paladin. When an alien brought to Earth during one of her father's experiments murdered the elder van Dyne, Janet contacted his colleague, Dr. Henry Pym. She told Pym of her resolve to bring her father's killer to justice. Pym revealed his secret identity as Ant-Man, and Janet underwent a biochemical process involving his Pym Particles that allowed her to shrink to insectoid proportions and to grow wings. Furthermore, Pym outfitted her with wrist devices which allowed her to discharge blasts she called her "wasp's stings".
Early career
Jan's attitude towards crime-fighting was, at first, very carefree. She saw it as her way of attracting attention from Hank. Still the shallow socialite early in her career, Jan would often comment on the attractiveness of Thor to try and elicit jealousy from her partner. The studious Pym began to experiment with Pym Particles, and found that he could cause himself to grow beyond his normal height. By this time both crimefighters had been exposed to the Particles long enough to change size at will rather than rely on gas capsules or potions, and Jan could fire her stinger blasts without the aid of wrist devices. Changing his costumed identity to "Giant-Man", Pym eventually experienced bodily strain because of the process' physiological effects. Because of this, Pym decided to take a break from costumed adventuring. With the stress of constant threats from Pym's enemies (such as Egghead and the Human Top (later Whirlwind) as well as confronting Kang the Conqueror and the Masters of Evil with the Avengers, Jan was ready for a break herself. Meanwhile, Thor and Iron Man took leaves of absence from the Avengers, leaving Captain America to preside over a new incarnation of the team. Jan remained in her civilian career as a fashion designer, with Pym continuing his scientific pursuits.
Sometime later, however, Pym and van Dyne learned that the Namor the Sub-Mariner was heading for New York City. Fearing trouble, they decided to alert the Avengers. The Wasp was captured by first Namor's foe, the undersea barbarian leader Attuma, and then by the Collector. In order to help the Avengers rescue Janet, Pym decided to use his growing power again, he donned a new costume and adopted the new name of "Goliath".
Marriage and Divorce
Pym had always loved Janet, but various inhibitions kept him from proposing to her - feelings of inadequacy due to her wealth chief among them. One day, while he had still not fully mentally recovered from the stress of accidentally creating one of the Avengers' greatest foes in the form of Ultron, Hank had a lab accident with experimental gases. These caused a reaction in him that broke this inhibitions down, and induced a severe case of schizophrenia. This was his second breakdown, the first having been after his first wife, Maria, had been killed. Believing himself to be a new person named "Yellowjacket", Pym broke into Avengers Mansion and told the team that he had killed Henry Pym [1]. When the team attacked him, he captured The Wasp and escaped. Soon after, the Avengers were shocked to hear that Janet, who suspected it was Pym all along, was going to marry him. Their wedding at Avengers Mansion was attended by a who's-who of active superheroes at the time. Immediately following, the Avengers were attacked by the villainous Circus of Crime. Janet later felt guilty at having taken advantage of Hank's mental state to finally get married, but the couple was happy...at first.
Hank later had a third breakdown, during which he was captured by Ultron, reverted to his earliest days as Ant-Man, and made to attack the Avengers. During the fighting, it was The Wasp who took down her wayward husband. Janet later suspected that this, being brought down by his own wife, may have further exacerbated Pym's fragile mental state. Meanwhile Hank became overbearing, paranoid, and verbally abusive, releasing pent-up tension resultant of his sense of failure in science, made worse when compared to his wife's financial success.
When the Avengers were battling the Elfqueen, Hank blasted the her from behind during a lull in the fighting while Captain America was trying to talk her down. This began another round of fighting that Captain America charged Hank for reckless behavior, since bystanders could have been killed. This began Pym's fourth nervous breakdown. He decided that if he could built a robot to attack Avengers Mansion, he could defeat it and be a hero in the eyes of his team-mates. He included a special hidden weak spot on the robot just for the occasion. When Jan protested, Hank lashed out, brutally striking his wife. His plan went awry, and when the robot attacked the mansion, it was The Wasp who disabled it. In the court-martial, Pym was stripped of his Avengers membership. Meanwhile, Jan began divorce proceedings.
Continued Avengers service and Chairmanship
Over the years, Janet had become a seasoned hero, a far cry from the ditzy thrill-seeker she had been while teaming with Pym as Ant-Man. She continued service with the team after Hank's fourth breakdown despite the tremendous stress of the situation. After the divorce she at times revisited her old dallying romance with Paladin.
The Wasp was elected as chairman of the Avengers, a position she held for a long while, having been molded into a savvy and able leader. Janet and several other Avengers were among the group of heroes summoned to Battleworld by the Beyonder to fight in his Secret Wars. During the conflict, The Wasp crash-landed an aircraft stolen from Magneto and took refuge with the outcast Lizard. She was gravely wounded by The Wrecker when the Wrecking Crew was dispatched by Doctor Doom to retrieve the Lizard. In a death-like state, she was revived by the alien healer Zsaji.
While chairman, she led the team in discovering Jean Grey, an X-Man long thought to be dead. Black Knight had an unrequited crush on her for some time, while Hercules chafed at being given orders by a woman.
The most serious test to her leadership ability came when the Masters of Evil under Baron Helmut Zemo attacked and conquered Avengers Mansion. With every other active team member incapacitated and a small army of supervillains holding their headquarters, it was up to The Wasp to assemble a rescue squad and mount the assault to retake the mansion.
Eventually Hank's mental balance returned and was reinstated as an active Avenger. Janet was briefly assigned to the West Coast branch after this. The two managed to rekindle a friendship and, some years later, a romance. While on a trip to Las Vegas, however, Jan turned down a proposal of Hank's; she said she would not marry him again.
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After sustaining severe injuries during the Crossing, Pym put Janet through the same process that had originally given her her powers. This temporarily mutated Janet into an almost completely wasp-like form. In this form, she was among the Avengers who seemingly gave their lives to absorb the energy of Onslaught, in reality being shunted to an alternate dimension. She was later returned to normal by Franklin Richards, and helped to re-assemble the team after this event. Following a membership evaluation after dealing with Mogan le Fay, Wasp was left in a reservist role for a time. She was pulled into the Destiny War along with Hank Pym, and eventually re-attained full membership and even the chairmanship.
Janet hosted "America's Next Superstar" for a time.
After he rejoined the team, Jan had a dallying affair with Hawkeye, which left Hank reeling. She soon returned to her longtime, if rocky, flame. Around this time, Jan also began using Pym Particles to grow to immense heights, just as Hawkeye (as Goliath) and Pym had done.
An offhand remark from the Wasp to the Scarlet Witch regarding the latter's "children" accidentally ignited Wanda's breakdown that left the Avengers disassembled. During the chaos, the Wasp was badly injured by She-Hulk, leaving her in a brief coma. It was Hank who brought her to the hospital and stayed at her bedside as she recovered. During this time they seem to have finally fully reconciled. Shortly thereafter, Pym received a fellowship at Oxford, and the two moved to England to reconcile and take a break from crimefighting. The two decided not to renew their relationship, although they remained on good terms. Their rooming together did not last for long. Tired of his dedication to his work, she eventually left him and returned to the U.S. to resume her own duties as a fashion designer.
Civil War and the Mighty Avengers
During the superhero Civil War, Janet and Hank both supported the Superhuman Registration Act and thus joined Iron Man's Pro-Registration Superhero Unit, with Hank helping spearhead the movement. She hosted a pro-registration reality TV show, America's Newest Superhero. Jan was distraught when her friend Bill Foster, a leader of the opposing Secret Avengers, was killed in battle by a clone of Thor.
At the end of the Civil War, Janet was recruited by Iron Man and Ms. Marvel to the Mighty Avengers. She participated in the retaliation agianst the Mole Man's biological creations, but when Ultron infected Iron Man by downloading itself into his Extremis armor and held its own against the remaining team, she resorted to calling her ex-husband Hank Pym for help. Janet and Hank were not technically on very good terms even as friends and she was unaware that he had been a skrull imposter for several months. She continued to serve with the Mighty Avengers against an alien symbiote-infected populace in New York, and even arresting Doctor Doom.
During the Skrull invasion on Earth, she along with her Mighty Avengers teammates and the New Avengers confronted a skrull spaceship in the Savage Land and opposed many skrulls who appeared as many them in older (70s) wardrobes. Both Avengers groups were taken back to New York by Mister Fantastic and agent Abigail Brand of S.W.O.R.D. to confront the skrulls in a final battle. What Janet was unaware of, was that the growth serum that the Skrull Hank Pym (Criti Noll) had given her a month ago was tampered with and was designed to transform her into a monolithic, explosive bio-weapon. Criti Noll survived the battle long to activate the new growth serum in a desperate attempt to destroy the Earth following the supposed death of Veranke in the last battle. Growing hundreds of feet tall with highly visible, and unstable energy searing out of her body, Janet's former teammate and fellow founding Avenger Thor used his hammer to minimize the damage of the explosion by turning the energy exerted by her body to herself as exploded and swore to avenge her death.
Hercules and Amadeus Cho encountered Janet in Erebus, where she was trying to work a slot machine in order to attain resurrection. The former was excited at the sight of her but she took no notice of him and Aegis warned him that he could only take back one soul and he shouldn't waste it on her.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Size Reduction: Due to long-term exposure to Pym Particles, The Wasp can reduce herself in size, down to the dimensions of the insect from which she takes her name, roughly 1/2 inch in height. She usually chooses not to retain her standard density while at this reduced mass, but can choose to do so at will. The "lost" mass is shunted to a pocket dimension for later retrieval. Additionally, she retains full-sized strength while at reduced size.
- Flight: due to small implanted insect wings, at speeds of up to 40 mph. These are functional when she reduces herself to less than four inches in height.
- Wasp's Sting A powerful bioelectric blast from her hand that has been shown to be capable of cutting through concrete.
- Insect Communication and Control: through the use of her retractable antennae, in a manner similar to Ant-Man's Helmet. She rarely chooses to utilize this ability.
- Size Addition: The growth process requires the rapid acquisition of bodily mass, presumably from an extradimensional source. This extradimensional mass fortifies all of her cellular tissue, including her bones and muscles, enabling her to support her increased weight, and giving her superhuman strength. Perhaps due to the bodily strains that her ex-husband Hank experienced as a side-effect of such powers, Janet uses these powers only in emergency, preferring to shrink to her wasp-sized form.
Abilities
Talented Fashion Designer: Janet is a very talented fashion designer. During her early days as the Wasp, she would constantly make new costumes for herself and wear different ones for almost every new mission. Over the years her talent earned her a spot in the fashion market on great demand. Janet 's talents also extend to designing costumes for other superheroes; especially her Avengers teammates. She presently possesses enough costumes to fill either an entire closet or two.
Multilingual: She can speak American English and Spanish.
Skilled Combatant: Janet has adapted to a special kind of hand-to-hand combat that was created by her ex-husband Hank Pym, which takes advantage of the fighter's insect size against a much larger form and physique enabling them to strike pressure points before the opponent even realizes what happened. She was also trained in multiple martial arts and unarmed combat fields by Captain America making her into an adept combatant.Strength level
Janet has the strength of a normal human female of her age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise. The Wasp retains the same level of strength when reduced in size, and increases geometrically when she chooses to use her growing powers. At 10 feet tall, van Dyne can lift (press) 1000 pounds, at 25 feet tall she can lift (press) 10 tons, and at 100 feet tall, van Dyne can lift (press) 50 tons. The higher van Dyne grows past 25 feet, the more of her strength she has to use simply to support her own enormous mass.
Paraphernalia
Equipment
formerly Avengers Identicard. Also, Jan originally required gas capsules to alter her size.Transportation
Avengers QuinjetWeapons
formerly Jan originally required wrist devices to use her "Wasp's Sting."
Trivia
- Wasp chose the name Avengers for the team, and The Vision also took his name from a description of him by The Wasp.
- Was once temporarily possessed by the Power Prism fragments, briefly acting as Dr. Spectrum.
Appearances in Other Media
The Wasp was part of the roster in the Avengers: United They Stand animated series in the late '90s (voices by Linda Ballantyne). She is also in the direct-to-DVD animated films Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Avengers 2, though these are primarily based on the Ultimate Universe. The Wasp appears as an NPC in the video game Captain America and the Avengers; as a mission coordinator in the NES version and briefly helping players attack enemies in the SNES/arcade version.
Links
- Appearances of Janet van Dyne (Earth-616)
- Character Gallery: Janet van Dyne (Earth-616)
- Images that feature Janet van Dyne (Earth-616)
- Fan-Art Gallery: Janet van Dyne (Earth-616)
- Quotations by Janet van Dyne (Earth-616)
- Fan page (in English and Italian)
- Marvel Directory
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