In this case, though, the 'power dynamic' is slightly skewed by 'starving grad student ends up with millionaire heiress celebrity whose dad pays his tuition?'
Hank being five-ish years older than Janet is just part of the story, and, while their relationship imploded, I don't think the age difference really had much to do with it. (There's also the squicky 60s era mentality of both Reed and Hank being the absent-minded professors who seem barely aware that Sue and Janet are already planning their weddings, as women of that era tended to be written as obsessed with dragging the clueless men to the altar. Didn't matter if it was Jean and Scott or Peter and MJ, the girl was usually one who initiated things, and the boys generally seemed bemused and bewildered by the whole notion of romance.)
Yeah, that's why I'm not a huge fan of Silver Age portrayals of women, or Reed + Sue in general. It can work once or twice but not for all couples.
I guess 5 years older isn't a huge gap. It's just, after everything which has come out in the last few years about power dynamics and things like that, I've grown a little uneasy about these things. Maybe I'm overreacting.
Many years ago.
It enabled Wasp (Jan) to have the powers that she does today at the level she has them. Before that, they were very much weaker.
It is always good to go back and read the histories and older stories of the characters to see how they have progressed through the years.
[Quote Originally Posted by Thor-El 10-15-2020 12:32 PM]
"Jason Aaron should know there is already a winner of the Phoenix Force and his name is Phoenixx9."
Like a Red Dragon, The Phoenix shall Soar in 2024!
[Quote Originally Posted by Thor-El 10-15-2020 12:32 PM]
"Jason Aaron should know there is already a winner of the Phoenix Force and his name is Phoenixx9."
Like a Red Dragon, The Phoenix shall Soar in 2024!
While I should preface this by saying that I hated with a fiery passion just about every single *other* thing about the Ultimates, the idea of the Wasp being a mutant, able to naturally produce bioelectricity, whom Hank then enhanced with shrinking tech and stuff, was interesting. 616 Janet's changed over the years from a 'wasp's sting' that was a bracelet that shot little needles (with paralyzing venom?), to zaps, to generating her own zaps that have sort of meandered between electrical and force bolts, over the years, IIRC.
That's more complicated than it needs to be, IMO, and I wouldn't mind a streamlining of Janet and Hank's origins, [fanwanking begins!]where her mutation kicked in at puberty, she started shocking people (fortunately mostly staff, who can be paid to keep their traps shut), and developed a reputation as having a quirk for fashion because of her habit of wearing long opera gloves and fancy outfits that would go with those gloves (which she was wearing to avoid skin contact with others!). Her rich dad picks up Hank, perpetual graduate student working on his third unrelated PHD (entomology, no, computer science, no wait, particle physics?) because he's got ADD out the wazzoo, and offers to pay his wild tuition bills in exchange for help 'fixing' his daughter. And no, Hank doesn't 'fix' Janet. He instead further empowers her and helps her realize her dream of being a superhero! (Dad was pissed.)[/fanwanking ends]
Having at least some of her power come from *her* and not stuff Hank did to her, feels like a step in a good direction.
(That said, I'm fine with at least some of her power, the Pym particle-derived size-changing, coming from tech. Spider-Man, with both innate powers and tech web-shooters, or Captain America, with innate super-soldier body and shield some scientist made are fine examples of folk with mixed origins where not everything in their utility belt comes from the same manufacturer.)
I thought the Ultimates take was quite different too.
If I am remembering correctly, the 616 Jan started out using a regular stick pin which was large and bulky for her to maneuver. The she got wrist mounted air-blasters for stacatto bursts. Then she got small needles with knock-out drug on them. Later she wore neuronic frequency step-up dischargers that were said to use her bio energy from shrinking (60's-70's). After Hank modified her serum, Jan did not need the bracelets anymore and her Wasp's Sting was much more powerful than ever before. Jan can even use them while at normal human height (5'4"), and while powerful, are no where near the power as when she is tiny.
[Quote Originally Posted by Thor-El 10-15-2020 12:32 PM]
"Jason Aaron should know there is already a winner of the Phoenix Force and his name is Phoenixx9."
Like a Red Dragon, The Phoenix shall Soar in 2024!
Idk. I like how she asked to have these powers. It makes her more than just a passive character. The whole "I got my powers without my own control" is already a common trope. And these powers can still be a part of her body. I do think streamlining things helps, but I like her to be in charge of what happens to her
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I do like how you're thinking, but I was thinking more of her being the source of (at least some of) her own powers, and not all of them being stuff she got from Hank, and the gloves notion would mean that she had already come up with a workaround to a zap-touch (and her dad didn't want her to become a super-hero, he wanted her 'cured' of this unwanted mutation, and she chose a very different path, to embrace it instead).
I do definitely like the idea of her being more in ownership of her blasts, and less 'I begged my boyfriend to give me powers.'
But I do get that getting them as a mutation (or even an accident) is also less empowering than if *she* was the scientist and gave them to herself. (Which is a problem for lady heroes in particular. Bruce Banner does science! And gives himself powers. Jennifer Walter, gets them from Bruce... Hank Pym does science! And gives himself powers. Janet van Dyne, gets them from Hank... Reed Richards does science! Sue, was also on the rocketship. Tony Stark! Science! Pepper Potts, secretary, who Tony later made armor for as well. It's changed in recent years, with characters like Ironheart and Lunella and Sun Girl and Toni Ho and Nadia making their own tech, or doing their own science origins, to the point that there's almost a glut of girl geniuses...)