Real Name-- Janet Van Dyne

Class-- altered human

Occupation-- adventurer , fashion designer , dilettante

Affiliations-- ex-wife to Hank Pym , founding member of Avengers

Scale of Operations-- nationwide , New York

Powers-- Janet Van Dyne is able to shrink down to insect-size, due to her exposure to Pym particles. Originally, she used pills or gas canisters to control her size-alteration, but now she is able to control it at will. She is also able to grow wings on her back as she shrinks, enabling her to fly, and is able to grow antennae from her forehead, enabling her to communicate with and control insects. By harnessing her bio-electric energy, she can also produce energy blasts from her hands. (Previously, she wore identical weapons on either wrist called her "wasp stings." The stings were originally needle guns and were later modified to let her project bio-electricity.) Janet's strength now increases to near-superhuman levels as she shrinks.

History-- Janet van Dyne is the daughter of world-renowned scientist Vernon van Dyne. Accompanied by Janet, Vernon van Dyne visited the celebrated biochemist Dr. Henry Pym to ask if Pym would collaborate on van Dyne's pet project, the use of a gamma radiation-based beam to detect signals of intelligent life from other planets. Pym declined since the nature of van Dyne's project lay too far outside his won field of expertise. Janet van Dyne found herself attracted to Pym, while Pym was deeply struck by Janet's remarkable resemblance to his late wife Maria.

Van Dyne went ahead with his project, and several days later succeeded in projected the beam through hyperspace to a distant planet. (It has since been revealed that van Dyne actually contacted a planet in another dimension.) This planet was inhabited by the Kosmosians, a sentient non-humanoid race. Piliai, a criminal from that world, utilized van Dyne's beam to teleport himself through hyperspace to Earth to escape prosecution on his home world. Arriving on Earth in van Dyne's laboratory, the extraterrestrial murdered van Dyne, not wanting a witness alive who had the means to contact the authorities on his home planet. After killing van dyne, Pilai escaped to menace the rest of the city. Janet van Dyne heard the noise of the brief scuffle from an adjoining room. She discovered her father's body, and, uncertain of how to handle the situation, called Pym. Although Pym at first dismissed Janet's call as a cruel prank, he subsequently discovered that her story was true.

In his secret costumed identity as the original Ant-Man, Pym went to investigate the scene of Vernon van dyne's death. Janet van Dyne demonstrated moral strength during the crisis that Pym had been unaware she possessed, and which reminded him again of Maria, and Janet expressed her determination to avenger her father's death. Pym, who had longed for a crime-fighting partner and confidante, revealed his secret identity to her and asked if shoe would undergo conversion into a superhuman powerful being in order to become his partner. Janet readily accepted, and Pym implanted cells beneath Janet van Dyne's skin at her should blades and temples corresponding to those cells found in wasp wings and antennae, respectively. He instructed her on the use of the gasses containing the sub-atomic "Pym particles" he had discovered, which enabled him to reduce himself to insect size. Janet took the name of the Wasp and quickly learned how to fly. She then aided the Ant-Man in tracking down and vanquishing the murderous Kosmosian. Just before this confrontation with the alien, Janet told Pym that she was falling in love with him.

Van Dyne and Pym became crime-fighting partners, fighting a wide variety of costumed villains and monsters. Although Pym was far more emotionally inhibited and reserved than Janet, he was failing in love with her as well.

The pair joined the original Iron Man and Thor in hunting down the Hulk, who had been made an unwitting pawn in one of the schemes of Thor's enemies, Loki. After Loki had been captures and his role in the scheme exposed, Ant-Man proposed that the heroes remain as a regular team of adventurers. The others adopted this suggestion, and it was the Wasp who suggested the new team's name, the Avengers. After a series of adventures, however, Pym's size-changing imposed great strains on his body that he believed could be fatal. He also decided that his and van Dyne's careers were proving to be too great a danger for her. Therefore, Pym decided to retire as a costumed crime-fighter, and acceding to his wishes, van Dyne retired as well.

Sometime later, Pym an van Dyne learned that the Sub-Mariner was headed for New York City. Fearing trouble, they decided to alert the Avenges. But soon van Dyne, as the Wasp, was captured first by the undersea barbarian leader, Attuma, and then by the alien Collector. Pym helped the Avengers rescued van Dyne, and the couple rejoined the Avengers on a regular basis. Van Dyne was instrumental in helping hold Avengers together when she, Pym and Hawkeye were the only active members.

Months later, van Dyne turned twenty three years old, and, according to her fahter's will, came into possession of her full inheritance, making her independently wealthy.

For several years, Pym ad been in love with Janet van Dyne, but because of his repressed personality, had resisted marrying her. One day while working in his laboratory, Pym accidentally dropped and smashed some vials containing various unknown gasses, causing a radical personality change in Pym. He took on a new identity of Yellowjacket, claming that he had murdered Pym, and kidnapped van Dyne, proposing marriage to her as Pym had long wanted to do. Realizing that Yellowjacket was really Pym, van Dyne decided to play along, fearing that she would worsen his psychological condition if she did otherwise. Pym, as Yellowjacket, and van Dyne were married at the Avengers Mansion, but immediately afterwards the Avengers were attacked by the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime. The sight of van Dyne in danger of death shocked Pym back to his normal personality. Despite the fact that Pym was married under an assumed name, the marriage between Pym and van Dyne was still legal, and Pym and van Dyne agreed to let it stand, briefly embarking on a honeymoon.

Van Dyne left active Avengers roster to join Pym on an Alaskan research expedition, although she continued to assist Avengers on occasion, usually alongside Pym. However, after aiding the Avengers against the alien Kree, she agreed to join a discouraged Pym in retiring from crime-fighting and resigned from the Avengers. Eventually, she convinced Pym to allow them to rejoin. She was forced off duty after suffering near-fatal injuries at the hands of the Toad, but after recovering, she rejoined the active Avengers roster despite Pym's misgivings, who reluctantly to committed to serve as an Avengers reserve member. Later, Pym modified Janet's superhuman abilities so that her strength would increase as she became smaller, and so that she could use her heightened body energy to power her "sting" weapons.

Janet van Dyne had since launched a successful career as a fashion designer while continuing to act as a costumed adventurer. (By this time it was public knowledge that Janet van Dyne was the Wasp.) She had belatedly appreciated the precarious state of Pym's mental health and began consulting a psychiatrist regarding Pym's condition, since she could not convince Pym himself to seek mental help. She was forced to subdue Pym when he suffered a breakdown and attacked Avengers on behalf of Ultron, and later, she was abducted by Ultron and insane Pym, who together created Jocasta, a robot whose artificial consciousness was based on the van Dyne's mind. When Ultron was ultimately defeated by the Avengers, van Dyne left active duty to help Pym recover from his breakdown, although she soon rejoined the Avengers, once again without Pym.

Pym had never remained completely healthy, mentally, and would often lash out at Janet verbally and experience periods of tension and depression. This sense of failure was exasperated when he saw Janet's success as a designer and realized that she was the principal source of money in their marriage. Pym was charged by the Avengers' leader, Captain America, with acting recklessly during the Avengers' encounter with the Elfqueen. An Avengers court martial meeting was set to examine the charges, but Pym, now undergoing a mental breakdown, built a robot to attack the Avengers during the meeting. Pym design the robot to have a secret weak point which he would use to defeat it in hopes that this would allow him to be a hero in the Avengers' eyes and lead to the dismissal of the charges. Van Dyne discovered and protested the plan, and Pym brutally struck her. Pym's plan went awry, and it was Janet who ended up defeating the robot. Pym was expelled from the Avengers and van Dyne brought divorce proceeding against him. When the divorce became final, Janet dropped the last name of Pym.

Van Dyne remained with the Avengers, almost immediately nominating herself for Avengers chairmanship and was elected chair, quickly maturing into a surprisingly effective leader. She served a lengthy term as the Avengers leader, displaying a flair for media relations and successfully guiding the Avengers through many of their most tumultuous moments such as restructuring resources after losing their federal government privileges. During this time, she also made peace with Pym, accepting the fact that they were two good people who happened to be bad for each other. The couple parted sadly but amicably, and Pym temporarily retired from Avengers and crime-fighting. Van Dyne only stepped down once as chairwoman, taking a brief vacation after the trauma of the a battle involving the alien Beyonder and an assortment of Earht's heroes and villains. Here, she began dating the dashing mercenary adventurer Paladin. She resumed the Avengers chairmanship in time to lead them through one of their worst crises, a takeover of their mansion headquarters by the Masters of Evil. Van Dyne left the Avengers once more to recover from the Masters attack, although she would occasionally return to adventure alongside the Avengers as needed.

When the Avengers' West Coast member Iron Man left the team, van Dyne agreed to join their roster hoping to help lift the team's spirits. There, she became reacquainted with Pym, himself a western Avengers member, forming an affectionate friendship with him. She and Pym briefly left the team to help the woman they believed to be Pym's first wife, Maria, but they returned when she was revealed to be an imposter. Soon, she and Pym began to repair some semblance of a romantic relationship, although Pym divided his time between the Avengers' East and West Coast branches. Van Dyne even accepted a temporary co-chairmanship with him. However, she eventually stepped down to a reserve status in order to travel more extensively.

Van Dyne returned to the Avengers after she and other size-changing heroes and villains were caught up in an invasion attempt from the natives of the dimension Kosmos, the place where Pym particles stem from. She then discovered that much of her personal fortune had been stolen by Iron Man's secret identity, Tony Stark, who was secretly under the mental influence of the villain Immortus at the time. In a confrontation between Iron Man and the Avengers, van Dyne was mortally wounded. Pym performed radical life-saving experiments which saved her life but at the same time transformed her into a bug/woman hybrid. Although van Dyne remained oddly upbeat about her life despite her strange condition, she later bitterly denounced Pym and estranged from him after discovering he had planted a tracer on her that allowed him to monitor her in secret.

Van Dyne was on hand with the other Avengers who seemingly sacrificed their lives to absorb the energies of the being known as Onslaught. In reality, she was shunted to another dimension. When she and the other heroes were restored to Earth, van Dyne found that she had returned to her normal appearance and powers. She and Pym also returned to their previous romantic relationship.

Van Dyne helped reorganize the Avengers with Pym and their teammates, stopping the menace of the sorceress Morgan Le Fey. She then agreed to stay on as a reserve member, although she and Pym would join with the Avengers on an as-needed basis, such as helping them thwart the villainous Grim Reaper.

The robot Ultron later kidnapped Pym, van Dyne, and others of its so-called "family." Ultron revealed that Pym had used his own brain patterns as a template for Ultron's intelligence, and Ultron intended to do the same with all members of its "family" when building a new robot army with Pym's latest research. Van Dyne had also revealed that she now largely blamed herself for Pym's past mental and emotional problems because of the bizarre circumstances of their marriage and the way she treated him early in their relationship, pushing him to be what she wanted. Ultron was confronted by the Avengers, who freed Pym and allowed him to deliver the blow that defeated Ultron. Soon after, van Dyne and Pym rejoined the Avengers full-time, and van Dyne soon accepted leadership once more.

After a series of adventures, van Dyne recruited Captain America to serve as her co-chair, and together they reorganized the Avengers into a more proactive, forward-thinking, multi-pronged operation, establishing detached service operations outside the active roster. About the same time, the time-travelling Kang attempted to conquer Earth, and van Dyne helped lead the Avengers in their global conflict. She also helped Pym restore himself from a period of debilitating physical and mental condition with the help of the Triune Understanding. Even though van Dyne and the Avengers helped rescue the president from the forces of Kang, they failed to prevent the slaughter of the population of Washington, DC by Kang. Van Dyne, as leader of the Avengers, was forced to formally surrender to Kang on behalf of the Avengers and Earth. Ultimately, however, van Dyne was rescued by the Avengers who were not captured by Kang's forces, and she helped lead the team in Kang's eventual defeat.