In “When We First Met”, we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore. Today, we look at when Wasp first started changing her costumes on a regular basis.
Something that stands out in the early days of the Marvel Universe, and heck, the early days of ANY comic book universe, is how NOT precious everyone was with, well, ANYthing. Superman’s costume, for instance, was drawn differently constantly, and once Joe Shuster started having ghost artists draw the strip, all consistency went WAY out of the window, and in fact, most of what we think of today as the “prototypical” Superman costume (like the size of the S, the style of the cape, etc.) were developed piecemeal by Shuster’s ghosts, with each of them essentially just drawing their take on the costume, and eventually someone at DC (or perhaps the other artists themselves) were, like, “Yes, yes, this is the one. Everyone else, draw this one.”
That is why it is so tricky when longtime reader David B. asked me to identify when the Wasp changing costumes regularly first became a “thing.” It obviously DID become a thing, eventually, and it has since become one of the neatest little character bits about her, and was even represented in this brilliant Russell Dauterman variant cover that I used as the feature image for this piece…
However, pinpointing when it truly became a “thing” is a lot trickier, because a lot of it depends on what we think Jack Kirby and Don Heck were doing with her costume in her early days.
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How was Wasp’s costume handled in the early days of her comic book career?
The Wasp debuted in Tales to Astonish #44 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, H.E. Huntley and Don Heck), and notably, her costume was designed by Hank Pym, not Janet Van Dyne herself…
That’s the costume that she would wear in Avengers #1 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Dick Ayers)…
However, two issues later (by Kirby, Lee and Paul Reinman), her cap is now just two antennae..
Is that a new costume? I don’t think so, as it is just a variation of her original costume, but she did these variations repeatedly for the next few issues. The question, though, is are they actual variations, or are they just, like, an inker changing things as he tries to cut down on the time needed for the issue to finished? Is it an intentional design choice, or just trying to save time?
In Avengers #9, Don Heck becomes basically the regular artist on the Avengers, and working with Dick Ayers on #9-10 and Chic Stone on #11, he draws the Wasp’s costume differently in each of the three issues. They’re all distinctive from her regular costume, but otherwise, it’s just the regular costume.
The Avengers #9 costume came out around the same time that DIck Ayers drew in Tales to Astonish #59-60 (and Steve Ditko drew in #61), so perhaps HE believed it to be a new costume…
So if you want to say that that these costumes are the answer, as they’re all distinctive, and they follow in three separate issues, I guess that could be the answer. Tales to Astonish #59-63, and Avengers #9-11.
However, if you think Wasp’s lack of acknowledging these are actually new costumes means something, which I tend to believe, then the answer is probably a bit later.
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When did Wasp make getting a new costume a “thing.”
Wasp and Giant-Man leave the Avengers in Avengers #16, but return when Wasp needs help in Avengers #26 (by Don Heck, Stan Lee, and Frank Giacoia), she just wears a bathing suit…
When she returns to the team as a full-time member in Avengers #31 (by Heck, Lee and Giocoia), it sure looks like she is intended to be depicted in her earlier costume, right? It’s slightly different, but I think that’s more a lack of reference than anything…
This costume, too, would be drawn slightly different in most issues for the next year or so of the series.
Finally, in Avengers #45 (by Roy Thomas, Don Heck and Vince Colletta), the Wasp pointedly introduced a NEW costume for Avengers Day (New York City’s citizens are in-between turning on its heroes for no real reason, so they decided to give the Avengers a holiday)…
She’s back to her previous costume in the next issue (by Thomas, John Buscema and Vince Colletta)…
But when George Tuska filled in on Avengers #48, she got a TOTALLY new costume…
I think the answer, then, is when Buscema returns to the book in Avengers #49, and Wasp gets another new costume…
From this point forward, Buscema will regularly give her a new look every few issues, and I think the acknowledgment of her new costume (to go along with the fact that she inherited a bunch of money at that same time) is a sign that that is now officially Wasp’s “thing,” that she has enough money that she can keep designing (or have designed for her) new costumes for her to wear, like a fashion-forward woman in the 1960s typically WOULD do, so I think it works quite well. Buscema probably got a kick out of it, as well, as whatever it takes to keep yourself entertained, ya know?
Thanks for the question, David! If anyone else has a suggestion for a future When We First Met, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! If you e-mail me the suggestion, it has the extra bonus of being searchable later, so I can properly credit you if I take a while before I write about it!