Biography of the Wasp, 1965
The following is a biography of the Wasp for the year of 1965, in which she and Henry Pym left the Avengers and retired from adventuring for the time being.
Biography
The racket of the Wrecker
One day, Wasp and Giant-Man were visited in their apartment by a police officer, who told them that the police chief requested their presence at the station. There, the chief told them of a gang leader known as the Wrecker who had extorted protection money out of a number of establishments in Brooklyn. The chief asked for the heroes' assistance in bringing the Wrecker down with their own unorthodox methods. Hank and Janet, out of their superhero garb, traveled to one of the few stores in the area who refused to pay the Wrecker, and offered to buy the hardware store from the owner. The man eagerly did so, terrified of the threat of the Wrecker. It took no time at all for the Wrecker's men to hear of this purchase and confront Hank and Janet at the store with a protection contract, but the unassuming-looking heroes used their superior ability to beat up the gangsters and send them packing. Soon after, the Wrecker himself, donning a hood, came with an entourage of criminals and attacked the store themselves, but Giant-Man and Wasp were there to meet them. They defeated Wrecker and his cronies, allowing the police to arrive and take them into custody, but Wasp was knocked unconscious in the brawl. Giant-Man resuscitated her, and when she came to, he kissed her out of passion and relief. The police unmasked the Wrecker, revealing him to be the same man who sold Hank and Janet the hardware store.[1]
Attuma and the Atlanteans
Pym began developing a giant robot ant with the goal of studying ant behavior without using live specimens. So focused was he on his task that he treated Janet with careless cruelty, not realizing how mean he was being until the job was done. Distraught and determined to get over her misguided love for him, Janet took her belongings—minus any Wasp paraphernalia—and took a plane trip to an unspecified location, leaving a note behind telling Hank that she was leaving the duo. As the commercial plane flew through the air, it was suddenly overcome by a swarm of bubbles, which forced the plane to land safely on a nearby island. As the passengers left the plane, they were approached by a colossal treaded vehicle, a voice from which declared its allegiance to the mighty Attuma. The machine took the emptied plane into its hull and demanded that Janet come on board as well. The pilots of the plane attempted to stand up to the machine, but its driver, a helmeted Atlantean, came out and stunned them with a paralyzing ray. Desperate for a solution, Janet scoured her belongings and found the remnants of one of Hank's capsules. She consumed the crumbs, and though she didn't change size, she was able to send a brief cybernetic message to a nearby winged ant to get help. With her plan enacted, Janet went with the Atlantean willingly. Attuma and his followers released the plane and its other passengers, and studied Janet as a preemptive measure to prepare for an attack on the unknown surface world. However, it didn't take long for Giant-Man to arrive and bring Janet her Wasp equipment. The two teamed up and took down Attuma and the Atlanteans. So shocked was Attuma by the humans' bizarre powers that he claimed to be scared off of ever attempting to attack the surface world again. Later, Hank humbly asked Janet to come back to him, and she accepted, realizing anew that she needed him also.[2]
Early in the year, the Avengers foiled the malicious plans of the Mole Man[3] and Count Nefaria.[4] In the latter adventure, the Wasp was critically injured when a stray bullet from a Maggia henchman punctured her lung. Through a complex series of events, the Avengers managed to secure the help of Dr. Hjarmal Svenson, who was able to operate on Wasp in time and save her life.[5] Soon after, Hank developed a weapon attached to his helmet that allowed him to shrink or enlarge targets the same way he had been doing to himself. Janet also whipped up a new suit for him to replace his fairly comical attire.[6]
Madam Macabre's wizardly wig
Giant-Man and Wasp were visited at their laboratory by Madam Macabre, a woman making headlines for her supposedly scientific method of shrinking and growing objects. Wasp was her usual jealous self around the two, and saw herself out. Macabre claimed to Giant-Man that she had grown up in China as a disciple of the Mandarin, and had learned to change the sizes of certain plasticized metal objects with her mind after years of intense study in a monastery. She offered to team up with Giant-Man to conquer the world, but he laughed her off, and she declared that she would defeat him instead. Later, Wasp received an invitation to show up in costume to a high-class art gallery. She did so, falling into the obvious trap set by Madam Macabre and her underlings, Gogo and Kalya. The three used Wasp as bait for Giant-Man, who fell into his own trap upon arrival. The two heroes worked together to fight their way out, and exposed that the source of Macabre's powers was in fact a mechanical wig on her head. The two defeated her and brought her to justice.[7]
The green rays of doom
Giant-Man soon began to be antagonized by a station wagon firing a green beam at him. The beam weakened him, but he was able to fight back and chase the driver of the car. The driver fled for his life, leaving Giant-Man to discover a mobile laboratory in the back of the car. He brought it back to the lab to study it. There, Wasp confronted him with her concern that she was unable to keep up with him when he was bounding along in giant form: her wings were simply too small to keep up. Giant-Man presented her with a trained bee that she could ride at faster speeds. Later, Hank spoke to a physicist friend who said that he had been blasted with a green ray and lost all his knowledge of physics. Pym quickly understood that the man in the car had tried to take his knowledge as well, but it had been too weak to affect him in giant form. Soon after, while Wasp tested out her bee mount, she was fired upon by the green ray from seemingly out of nowhere. The bee bucked her and stung her, knocking her unconscious. Pym shrunk to her size and carefully removed the barb from her body. The green ray returned as he did so, but he knew that avoiding it could cost Janet her life. He successfully rescued her and soon passed out from the beam. He awoke later unable to shrink, but still capable of growing. Giant-Man then deduced that the person responsible had used the car's inner technology to trace the heroes' location: he used his cybernetic helmet to reverse the process, tracking the culprit to their hideout. There he fought a humanoid in a bulky orange-and-green costume. Before long, a green beam enveloped them both from above, and a mysterious voice chastised the villain, referring to him as Supramor: an alien who had come to Earth and attempted to use his native race's green rays to steal knowledge from the world's greatest minds in an attempt to conquer the world. A starship above beamed up Supramor, vowing to punish him for using their technology on a primitive planet, as well as to restore Earth and its people to their proper state. Giant-Man passed out and awoke soon after with his knowledge restored.[8]
Some time later, Baron Zemo gathered a rearranged version of the Masters of Evil, springing Black Knight and Melter out of prison to fight side-by-side with Enchantress and Executioner. The Avengers fended them off, and Zemo apparently killed himself accidentally when Captain America trailed him to South America. Black Knight and Melter were returned to prison, but the Asgardians escaped capture. Afterward, Thor hastily returned to Asgard to handle urgent personal business. Iron Man, Giant-Man, and Wasp decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from the Avengers, worn out from the constant fighting. In their stead, they recruited reformed villains Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch. Thor was also quietly phased out of the team, as he remained occupied with Asgardian concerns. Captain America returned to the U.S. and became the new leader of the team effective immediately.[9][10]
Return of the Human Top
While out training at giant size (fifty feet tall) in rural New York, Giant-Man was hit by a small solo airplane. He managed to block the collision with his arm, but the pilot fell from the crash. Giant-Man fell down catching him and knocked himself out on a tree as he landed. The pilot was in fact the returning Human Top, trying to crash into Giant-Man more directly to kill him. Hank came to, confused, and returned to the lab to tell Janet all about it. Hank had become unable to shrink to ant size since his encounter with Supramor's green ray without suffering severe dizziness. As such, he instead focused on empowering his growing skills, and had managed to remain stable at 35 feet tall, far above his previous limit of 12. Unfortunately, this change also greatly decreased the speed at which he could grow to giant size, from near-instantaneously to a minute or so. Pym remained faithful that he would be able to become "Ant-Man" again one day, but he put that persona aside for the time being. Instead, he gave Wasp a modified cybernetic helmet that allowed her to communicate with wasps. Soon after, the Human Top infiltrated Giant-Man and Wasp's home, equipped with a new flight-enabled suit, and stormed out through the window, taking Wasp captive.[11]
Top led Wasp to a construction site, where he had a large pit trap prepared for Giant-Man to fall into when he inevitably arrived. The trap was hidden beneath a mock village, and was mechanically powered to shut when Giant-Man fell into it. It further contained an intense freezing mechanism to quickly freeze his captive in ice. Janet sent a wasp to Hank to bring him to her: when it arrived, his only way of getting to Janet effectively was to enlarge the wasp and fly on its back at normal size. He did so, returning the wasp to normal size as he approached Janet's location. The gigantic hero fell into Top's trap as intended, and a frantic Wasp followed him in. Top froze the two, creating a huge Giant-Man-shaped ice statue, inside of which Hank and Janet cuddled together at normal size to keep warm. Thinking himself victorious, Top pulled the statue out, allowing Giant-Man and Wasp to escape and knock him into the trap instead. They quickly pulled him out, freezing him just well enough for the police to retrieve him. Ashamed at another occurrence of letting Janet fall into danger, Hank vowed to her that things would be "different," which she interpreted as a possible indication of retirement.[12] Hank and Janet were not seen in public for some time, and even missed the landmark wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm.
See also
References
- ↑ Tales to Astonish #63a: "The Gangsters and the Giant!" (January 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Burgos, Carl (p), Stone, Chic (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
- ↑ Tales to Astonish #64a: "When Attuma Strikes!" (February 1965) Lazarus, Leon (w), Burgos, Carl (p), Reinman, Paul (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
- ↑ The Avengers #12: "This Hostage Earth!" (January 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Heck, Don (w), Ayers, Dick (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
- ↑ The Avengers #13: "The Castle of Count Nefaria!" (February 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Heck, Don (p), Ayers, Dick (i), Simek, Artie (let).
- ↑ The Avengers #14: "Even Avengers Can Die!" (March 1965) Ivie, Larry, Larry Lieber, and Stan Lee (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Heck, Don (p), Stone, Chic (i), Rosen, Sam (let), Lee, Stan (ed).
- ↑ Tales to Astonish #65a: "The New Giant-Man." (March 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Powell, Bob (p), Heck, Don (i), Gail, Sheri (let).
- ↑ Tales to Astonish #66a: "The Menace of Madam Macabre." (April 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Powell, Bobby (p), Ray, Frankie (i), Gail, Sheri (let).
- ↑ Tales to Astonish #67a: "The Mystery of the Hidden Man, and His Rays of Doom!" (May 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Powell, Bob (p), Stone, Chic (i), Simek, Artie (let).
- ↑ The Avengers #15: "Now, by My Hand, Shall Die a Villain!" (April 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Heck, Don (p), Demeo, Mickey (i), Simek, Artie (let).
- ↑ The Avengers #16: "The Old Order Changeth!" (May 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Ayers, Dick (i), Simek, Artie (let).
- ↑ Tales to Astonish #68a: "Peril from the Long-Dead Past!" (June 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Powell, Bob (p), Colletta, Vince (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
- ↑ Tales to Astonish #69a: "Oh, Wasp, Where Is Thy Sting?" (July 1965) Hartley, Al (w), Powell, Bob (p), Giunta, John (i), Rosen, Sam (let), Lee, Stan (ed).