The Wasp

Van Dyne went ahead with his project, and several days later succeeded in aiming the beam at a distant planet. The planet indeed possessed intelligent, albeit monstrous, life and one of its criminals followed the beam to earth to escape prosecution. Once on earth, the extraterrestrial discovered Van Dyne and killed him in his laboratory not wanting a witness alive who had the means to contact the authorities on its home planet. After killing Van Dyne, the alien escaped to menace the rest of the city. Janet heard the noise of the brief scuttle from the adjoining room. She discovered her father body and uncertain of how to handle the situation, called Pym. Although Pym at first dismissed Janet’s call as a cruel prank, her story was verified when Pym, in his guise as the original Ant-Man, received a cybernetic message from his legion of ants which related the appearance of an alien in the vicinity of Van Dyne’s laboratory.

Pym went to investigate the scene as the Ant-Man. When Janet Van Dyne demonstrated previously uncharacteristic moral strength during the crisis, and expressed determination to avenge her father’s death, Pym revealed his secret identity to her and asked if she would undergo conversion into the Wasp, a superhumanly powered crime fightin partner for the Ant-Man. Janet readily accepted. Drawing on his recent scientific discoveries, Pym implanted cells beneath her skin at her shoulder blades and temples corresponding to those cells found in wasp wings and antennae, respectively. He instructed her on the use of the gas which he employed at the time to shrink to insect size. The result was the Janet Van Dyne could grow wings and antennae when she achieved wasp size. Outfitted in a costume of Pym’s desogn, the Wasp first mastered flight and cybernetic contact with insects on the misson to locate and vanquish the alien that had killed her father.

Ant-Man and the Wasp gradually fell in love, developing a crimefighting partnership which lasted through their participation in the founding of the Avengers and several of Pym’s identity changes. As Pym refined the biotechnology behind size-changing, the Wasp eventually became able to change size through mental command. The couple married several years after the Avengers were founded. Years later, after Pym suffered a series of nervous breakdowns and resigned active crimefighting, they divorced. The Wasp has been chairperson of the Avengers from time to time.

The Wasp can fly while wasp-size by means of wings which have been genetically grafted to a series of supporting rings, approximating artificially placed ligaments, on her spinal column and rib cage and made out of inert unstable molecules which can smoothly expand or contract as needed. These wings appear outside her body when achieves wasp-size and disappear beneath a genetically engineered ridge of callous, about 3/32 of an inch thick when she returns to normal size. She can fly at speeds up to 38 miles per hour for up to 1 hour before tiring appreciably. The Wasp has the maneuvering capabilities of an average wasp, such as hovering, darting forwards and backwards, and through intensive training she can fly upside-down. Due to the surface area of her wings, she can only pick up a half-ounce while flying.

The Wasp is an above average athlete who, through training with the Avengers, has mastered many combat skills.