The Mighty Avengers #20

It's difficult to get too incensed about the death of a comic book character, because it just takes the stroke of a pen to reverse that death. (See: Bucky, Marvel Girl, Superman and a few dozen others.)

Even so, I have to admit that the death of The Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) at the end of the Secret Invasion mini-series bothered me.

Part of the reason it bothers me is because (like so many female comic book characters in recent years) she's been written as a completely different character from the one I grew up reading.

One of the first issues I read of Tales to Astonish, which featured the adventures of Ant-Man / Giant-Man and the Wasp, told the story of how Hank Pym became Giant-Man (a natural extension of his powers as Ant-Man).

Even though they weren't married, Hank and Jan were one of the only real couples in comics at the time. Jan was fun, light-hearted, but with a taste for adventure, and always tough and resourceful in a fight. She was also beautiful and something of a flirt, although you knew she only had eyes for Hank.

I followed their adventures through "Astonish," until they were dropped in favor of the Sub-Mariner. They reappeared later in The Avengers, and that comic became their home (with a few exceptions) up until the present.

Of course, over the years, both Hank and Jan went through some changes. Jan became a fashion designer, then a more serious hero. She married Hank, and she even became the leader of The Avengers.

But writers decided to split the two up, so they gave Hank a mental breakdown, during which he actually struck Jan. That one bit of bad melodrama became an albatross around the character's neck. Most of that was cleared up during Kurt Busiek's excellent run on The Avengers, and Hank and Jan were lovebirds again.

Under Brian Bendis' writing, that all changed. Jan became a shrew, a drunk who thoughtlessly said mean things to the Scarlet Witch and contributed to her breakdown. She treated Hank badly, apparently cheated on him, and finally left him. When Tony Stark formed The Mighty Avengers, she joined the group and contributed to their defeat of Ultron - but her role in Secret Invasion was almost non-existent, until the end of issue #7.

Which brings us to this issue of The Mighty Avengers, which focuses on the funeral for Jan, and Hank's attempts to understand what happened while he was a captive of the Skrulls. It's heartfelt, it has a (mostly) sweet series of flashbacks, and it only briefly captures why Jan was such a delightful character, a rare bright spirit amoung a deadly serious group of heroes.

It's not a bad comic - it includes some excellent art by several artists, including Lee Weeks, Jim Cheung and Carlo Pagulayan, and some nice moments.

But there's a reason why characters like the Wasp, Spider-Man and Hawkeye are needed in groups like this. The provide light moments and positive characters for the reader to enjoy, and they balance out the serious work of the heroes.

Today, Marvel's Universe is a little darker, and it's not a better place for it.

Will Jan return? I certainly hope so. And when she does, I hope it's the real Wasp, and not this crude imitation we've been saddled with of late.

Grade: C