There are few Avengers who are powerful enough to take down the Hulk solo, but a new hero just made their way onto the list. With his incredible strength, invulnerability and a healing factor that renders him immortal, Hulk is one of the most unbeatable heroes in the Marvel Universe. But when you come at him exactly right, he can still fall.
The Avenging Wasp Just Took Down the Hulk
And He’s Lucky He’s Not Dead
In today’s Battleworld #1 – from Christos Gage, Marcus To, Rachelle Rosenberg and Travis Lanham – founding Avengers hero the Wasp takes down the Hulk. In the comic, the godlike Korvac creates a new planet, ordering various heroes and villains from across the multiverse to battle it out.
Korvac declares his intent to create a new, ‘perfect’ universe, and that whoever survives the experiment will dictate the new shape of reality. With that announcement, the Maestro – Bruce Banner’s Hulk from a post-apocalyptic future – attacks the other heroes.
While most of the cross-multiverse Avengers do battle with Hulk directly, Ant-Man and a new version of Wasp shrink down and infiltrate Hulk’s head. The initial plan is to ‘sting’ his inner ear, but the Avenging Wasp instead heads straight for Hulk’s brain. While the Avenging Wasp intends to kill Hulk with the attack, even a partial lobotomy only knocks him unconscious, but that accomplishment is still one almost no other Avengers can claim.
The Avenging Wasp Is a New Take on Janet Van Dyne
One with a Lethal Attitude to Crime-Fighting
While Janet Van Dyne’s Wasp is a founding member of the Avengers – and even gave them their name – she’s also the most frequently ignored. In Battleworld, Marvel is correcting that with a new take on Janet Van Dyne – one who lost her husband Hank Pym early in her career and became a far more brutal hero as a result.
Part of the appeal of Battleworld is seeing the Avengers encounter familiar-but-different versions of their closest friends and allies – King Thor from the far future where life on Earth has ended, inmate Storm from a future where mutants have been all but wiped out, and a fifteen-year-old Spider-Man who has only been a superhero for literal months. So far, the totally new Avenging Wasp is the most interesting of the bunch – a Janet Van Dyne who became a killer.
Wasp’s Attack Makes Avengers History by Confirming a Twenty-Year-Old Feat
The Avenging Wasp’s attack on Maestro appears to be a tribute to 2002’s The Ultimates, from Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch. In that universe, Wasp likewise knocked out Hulk by shrinking down and stinging his brain. However, that universe was significantly different from Marvel’s mainstream: the Hulk was significantly weaker, and the Wasp’s powers were mutant in nature.
Fans are elated to see that even with a far stronger Hulk (one generally depicted as even more powerful than the modern-day Bruce Banner), the trick still works, confirming that as a last resort, the Wasp is capable of taking down her fellow founding Avenger. However, having revealed her lethal side against the Hulk, can the Avenging Wasp still command the respect of Battleworld‘s Avengers, and what else will she do to make sure she makes it out of Korvac’s experiment alive?
Battleworld #1 is available now from Marvel Comics.