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Why Hank Pym and the Wasp are Avengers

Hank Pym's origins are more shadowed in darkness and sorrow than any other founding Avenger except possibly the Hulk. Still recovering from the death (the murder) of his first wife, Dr Pym has a terrifying and bizarre experience as "the Man in the Ant-Hill" before going on to become the astonishing Ant-Man. One of his first cases brings him into contact with flighty heiress Janet van Dyne, but this case ends in tragedy as her father is slain by the Creature from Kosmos. Hank sees in Jan a resemblance to his dead wife and a kindred spirit in that both are touched by the murder of a loved one. Jan sees in the much older Hank ("nearly twice her age") a strong paternal substitute and allows herself to be guided by him as she once was by her own scientist genius father.

A number of stories investigating Hank Pym's psychology have made the point that it takes a special kind of psyche to be able to function at a fraction of the size of a normal human. Jan once posited that her own normal height of 5'2" prepared her better for the shrinking experience. Anyway, even before Hank found ways of making himself a giant he clearly had feelings of inadequacy. He "rules" ants, calls them his subjects, and spends lots of time explaining to villains how he can defeat them even though he is - in fact because he is - so very small. Later Avengers issues reveal that the reason Hank suggested that the Avengers form a permanent alliance was because he wanted a chance to be part of a more powerful adventuring group.

Jan has also noted Hank's measuring himself against his academic peers, especially Reed Richards. Hank and Reed are rather similar in many ways; both men of science whose scientific expertise combined with an accident of fate to grant them superpowers, both paired with a beautiful and talented superheroine partner, and both with a record of discoveries and achievements which are only peripherally to do with their powers or life as superheroes. Jan suggests that Hank was jealous of Reed. Mr Fantastic had a team of partners. Perhaps Hank seized upon the chance to establish himself in a similar situation.

Jan meanwhile had other motives. Remember that Jan was still very young in Avengers #1. She had her twenty-second birthday in Avengers #43, which in anybody's timeline must have been a good year since the formation of the Avengers and perhaps as much as two years since she first became the Wasp. Jan was excited at the glamour of the team, and perhaps of Thor and Tony Stark with whom she flirts to attract Hank's attention and arouse his jealousy. Her attention span is short, as depicted by Bob Harras' flashback issue #280, in which Jan wanders the mansion bored whilst the men draw up the Avengers' charter. And at times she plays the "dizzy female" for all it's worth, purporting to be worried about her makeup in the middle of combat, for example.

In the first instance Jan appears to have been an Avenger because Hank was.

Things change. Hank's feelings for Jan are brought forcefully to the surface by her critical injury in #13. He suffers an increasing loss of confidence working alongside the more powerful Thor and Iron Man even after he boosts his power as Giant Man. When Thor vanishes on his trial of the gods and Iron Man proposes a break for the team, Jan is quick to grasp some time away from the Avengers. Later commentary suggests that Jan was really concerned to get Hank away from a situation which was preying upon his mental health.

Hank and Jan were the first original Avengers to return to the fold after the days of Cap's cooky quartet. Perhaps Hank was more comfortable being the team's most powerful member (as he was described in those days post #28). Once Cap becomes less active on the team Hank becomes the de facto leader (although the Avengers rotating chair custom was still active back then). This is the nearest Henry Pym ever gets to being Reed Richards.

Power fluctuations and one encephalo-mindwiping from Ultron later, Hank has his second breakdown, reinventing himself as Yellowjacket. His identity is further eroded as Clint Barton becomes the first of a number of heroes and villains to take on variations of Hank's powers and identities (there is no costumed ID that Hank has had that has not been usurped by someone else at some time). By this time Hank and Jan appear to be Avengers almost out of habit, almost because that's what they do. This is perhaps unsurprising given that the pair have so little else in common to bind them together.

It is much later that Janet van Dyne comes into her own as an Avenger. Jan does a lot of growing over the series, and none more so than the time of her final separation from Yellowjacket. Abused, heartbroken, betrayed (not just by Hank, but to some degree by Tony Stark with whom she has a brief fling before learning that he is Iron Man), Jan shows the mettle that only Hank had previously suspected. The Avengers now becomes her coping mechanism, and she makes it work in a way that she could not do with her marriage.

Jan marches in to an Avengers meeting, nominates herself chairwoman, and never looks back.

Nowadays Jan is an Avenger because she knows she's good at it; because she has a massive compassion which manifests in a crusading spirit; because sometimes it's fun and Jan still does things just because they please her; and because she has developed a huge affection and pride for the team she helped to found and named all that time ago. Jan really has caught "the Avengers spirit."

Hank still has some of that too, but sadly he and Jan seem to have reversed positions. He is now an Avenger mostly because Jan is. His other motive appears to be to assuage his massive guilt for past failures by doing as much good as he can now. It's almost as if he feels that by risking his life every moment he can make it up to Jan and be forgiven for Ultron. It remains to be seen how the current storyline will affect that status quo.