Janet Van Dyne: The Wasp Appreciation 2020

[Electricmastro]

One thing where Jan is different from the other Silver Age heroines of Marvel is that Sue, Jean and Wanda have all been massively powered up over the years, almost to the point where you feel like writers are overcompensating for how weak they were portrayed in the '60s. That never happened with Jan, though Claremont did have Hank give her a small power boost in the Marvel Team-Up two-parter he wrote*. New powers usually don't stick around or aren't used much (like growing to giant-size) and she doesn't have the kind of powers that would allow for the kind of power creep and power hype the others get.

Which I think actually helped her, because it forced writers to find ways to make her useful that aren't based around constant power inflation (and the inevitable "too much power makes ladies evil" stories the other three have gone through). It does probably make it harder for her to get onto the team recently when so many writers seem to think the Avengers should be the most powerful team in the Marvel Universe, but I think that misunderstands what the Avengers are about.

*Marvel Team-Up 59 & 60 which, in my opinion, is the moment when Jan finally came into her own as a character, though not so much because of the power-up as because Claremont wrote her as one of his tough badass females, and she really needed that after so many years of mostly acting like a ditz.

I wouldn’t really say that Sue was as much of an incompetent ditz in the 60s as some people may make her out to be. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could make her competent when they just focused on that and tried, like in Fantastic Four #60 (March, 1967):



So yes, if they could display competence for Sue, then the same could be done for Jan, and it’s not all about blasting everything with cannon-levels of power either.

[K7P5V]

Hank was Yellowjacket at the time. And he's not been Ant-Man since then has he? Once Scott debuted, Hank was always Giant-Man or Yellowjacket, except for the period when he thought Janet was dead, and took the Wasp identity, and a period in the 90s when he had no costumed identity at all. Of course now, all five of Hank's hero identities (the fifth being Goliath) belong to someone else.

I've been told that a few stories under the Marvel Knights banner are considered out-of-continuity, but I remember Marvel Knight's Ant-Man's Big Christmas where Hank became Ant-Man again:

[Captain M]

I just caught up with the Tony Stark: Iron Man run for my Janet fix. Has she appeared in the 2020 Iron Man book? Has she been in The Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda series past the first two issue?

She made 2very brief cameos in IM 2020, and she appeared in issues 5 and 6 of AOW but to a very limited capacity

[Michael Watkins]

I've been told that a few stories under the Marvel Knights banner are considered out-of-continuity, but I remember Marvel Knight's Ant-Man's Big Christmas where Hank became Ant-Man again:

Yes, that story was disrespectful to both Janet (she adventured too) and Scott. It came out in 1999. So if you stopped reading comics at that point and skipped the cinematic universe, I guess that referring to Hank as Ant-man makes sense. He was also the Wasp. But strangely no one accidentally calls him that.

[Frontier]

I've been told that a few stories under the Marvel Knights banner are considered out-of-continuity, but I remember Marvel Knight's Ant-Man's Big Christmas where Hank became Ant-Man again:

Gale as in Bob Gale?

[Digifiend]

Yes. I'd never heard of that one-shot.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Ant-M...istmas_Vol_1_1

[klynn]

She made 2very brief cameos in IM 2020, and she appeared in issues 5 and 6 of AOW but to a very limited capacity

OK, thanks. Looks like I can wait for Marvel Unlimited for both. Boy I wish she was a significant character in a current or upcoming book. Very frustrating.

[K7P5V]

Gale as in Bob Gale?

Yeah, and here's his wiki entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Gale

[Holt]

One thing where Jan is different from the other Silver Age heroines of Marvel is that Sue, Jean and Wanda have all been massively powered up over the years, almost to the point where you feel like writers are overcompensating for how weak they were portrayed in the '60s. That never happened with Jan, though Claremont did have Hank give her a small power boost in the Marvel Team-Up two-parter he wrote*. New powers usually don't stick around or aren't used much (like growing to giant-size) and she doesn't have the kind of powers that would allow for the kind of power creep and power hype the others get.

Which I think actually helped her, because it forced writers to find ways to make her useful that aren't based around constant power inflation (and the inevitable "too much power makes ladies evil" stories the other three have gone through). It does probably make it harder for her to get onto the team recently when so many writers seem to think the Avengers should be the most powerful team in the Marvel Universe, but I think that misunderstands what the Avengers are about.

*Marvel Team-Up 59 & 60 which, in my opinion, is the moment when Jan finally came into her own as a character, though not so much because of the power-up as because Claremont wrote her as one of his tough badass females, and she really needed that after so many years of mostly acting like a ditz.

That and I kinda think she suffered from the same problem Ant-Man did, which is that a lot of people didn't think of shrinking as a particularly impressive superpower until the movies showed how cool it can be. The amount of people I've known prior to the EMH cartoon who would tell me Wasp was useless and didn't add anything to the team is quite large, despite that claim being demonstrably false.

[Electricmastro]

Huh, just read Tales to Astonish #44 (June, 1963), and I had no idea part of Janet’s origin involved her dad getting killed:

[Cruelrain]

Does anyone knows a Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) Respect Thread?

I only found one for her ultimate version

[Captain M]

Does anyone knows a Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) Respect Thread?

I only found one for her ultimate version

What do you mean by a respect thread?

[Cruelrain]

What do you mean by a respect thread?

Characters have Respect Threads about their abilities in combat, feats etc

Even characters like Tigra or Hellcat have it but Wasp doesn't, even when she was a founder member of the Avengers

She should a have a lot feats since she has a lot of apparences with the Avengers but no one did a Respect Thread for her...

[Captain M]

Characters have Respect Threads about their abilities in combat, feats etc

Even characters like Tigra or Hellcat have it but Wasp doesn't, even when she was a founder member of the Avengers

She should a have a lot feats since she has a lot of apparences with the Avengers but no one did a Respect Thread for her...

I have literally not seen these respect threads once on this forum, can you link one

[Cruelrain]

I have literally not seen these respect threads once on this forum, can you link one

I haven't seen Respect Threads on CBR as well but in Reddit there's a lot of them, It's weird cause even antman (Hank) has his own Respect Threads but not Wasp

That's why i say if someone knows a Respect Thread or thread with Wasp feats