The Death and Return of The Wasp, Janet Van Dyne

Here’s a look at the death and return of the Wasp during Brian Michael Bendis’ run on Avengers as well as during the Marvel event called “Secret Invasion”. We do this in honor of the return of the Wasp, or rather the original Wasp, Janet Van Dyne in Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp (review here)

So without much delay, the death and return of the Wasp in comics anyway (and trust me, it makes its way somehow in the movie which opens July 4, 2018). Also SPOILERS ahead in case you haven’t read any of these books.

OK, so in Secret Invasion # 7 when the surviving heroes and villains finally join forces to fight back against the Skrull invasion in NYC, we had this moment between former husband and wife, Hank Pym aka Yellowjacket and Wasp.

This turns physical between them…

Cassie Lang aka Peanut from the MCU aka Stature of the Young Avengers manages to reach fake Pym before he can do any damage. This thread doesn’t get featured further until the end of this issue with the “defeat” of Queen Veranke who was masquerading all this time as Spider-Woman.

Skrull Pym activates something and Janet’s body immediately reacts to it.

Janet involuntarily grows and emits a specific energy that harms the heroes and villains gathered to fight the invasion. Also, subplot about Skrull Jarvis gets revealed.

And that’s how Secret Invasion # 7 ends. Next issue, Secret Invasion # 8, we find out what exactly the heroes did to stop Janet from becoming a bomb and still defeat the remaining Skrull army.

Left with no other option together with a ton of hurt coming their way, Thor makes a sad decision…

Thor summons a tornado to suck out Wasp from the area, she was at this point becoming a being of pure energy.

In Avengers # 32, we find out that there’s a specific ping in an old Avengers card that tracks back to Janet although nobody can confirm it except for Iron Man and Giant Man / Hank Pym.

Later the Avengers gather in Central Park, which was also the site of the battle between the Avengers, the Mighty Avengers, Thunderbolts and Nick Fury’s Secret Warriors against the Skrull invaders.

Somewhere else, we find out that Janet is alive.

And she’s also creating all sorts of chaos for the people she’s interacting with. And she’s also not a fan of the local warlord who ruled where she is.

And where is Janet Van Dyne during her “death”? Apparently, she went into the microverse and stayed there for sometime until she managed to activate her Avengers membership card.

So there you go, the death and return of the Wasp.

Go pick up the various Avengers books to find out the whole story. But pretty much after their adventures in the microverse together with Hank Pym, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. This was also Bendis’ final run in the Avengers books before he went over to the X-Men books where he pretty much screwed the status quo.