I’ll admit, when I read “Hope van
Dyne” on the list of characters for Ant-Man
I thought she was one of those made for the movie characters. Someone to
fill the role of Jan aka Wasp, rather than just using the original. For
reasons. Imagine my surprise when I started looking up characters for this
theme week, and saw that there was indeed a daughter of Hank and Jan running
around. At least in an alternate timeline. Hm… better start there.
 |
| Yep, that's a supervillain costume. Henry Jr. must not be too bright to believe the "we're not the bad guys" story his sister fed him. |
Marvel’s main universe is…er was
numbered 616. Not sure if the number has any hidden significance, it’s just the
one that they go with. Anyway, 616 is where all the Marvel stuff I talk about
in these blog posts took place. It started with the Fantastic Four back in the
sixties, and continued on until this summer, when the main Marvel Universe and
the Ultimate Universe (1610) fused together. Why is this important? Because,
obviously, 616 and 1610 aren’t the only universes. There are hundreds of
universes, and more importantly, many “possible” futures. There’ve been a few
different possible futures, Age of Apocalypse (where the super mutant rules the
world), Marvel Zombies (where most of your favorite heroes have become fleshing
ghouls), and Earth 928 (a possible future set about 100 years in Marvel’s main
universe). Hope and several other characters inhabit Earth 982. It is a
possible future set thirty something years after the current universe’s events.
It’s hard to tell exactly, what with the whole floating timeline thing Marvel’s
got going on. That’s enough set up, I think, let’s get talking about Hope.
At this point in this universe’s
history a few heroes from “today” are still active, some have retired, and a
few heroes and villains have paired off and made some new folks. For example,
Peter Parker and MJ have a spider-powered daughter named May, she also goes by
Spider-Girl. Another example is Hope, and her twin brother, Henry Pym, Jr. In
this future, their father, Hank Pym, was killed in the line of duty as an
Avenger, and their mother, Jan, followed soon after. Hope and Henry were very
well off, super genius Dad and heiress Mom tend to leave large inheritances,
but were far from happy. Hope was furious, in fact. Why? Because she felt that
the latest recruits for the Avengers weren’t up to snuff, and their mere presence
on the team was an affront to her parent’s legacy. She decided to show the world
how wrong these new heroes were for the legendary team, and to do so, well,
became a supervillain. I think Hope may have inherited some of her dad’s mental
instability, just saying. Her first evil plan was to kill Cassie Lang. Again,
why? Because in this universe Cassie is now a respected scientist and has
continued on with the “Ant-Man” legacy by becoming the size changing Stinger.
Basically she’s the new generations Wasp. Hope felt that Cassie was unfit to
carry the Ant-Man (or is it the Wasp?) Mantel, which she felt was her birthright.
She created a super-assassin made of ion’s known as Ion Man, and sent him in to
take care of the problem. Why she didn’t just go out in her own Wasp costume
and do heroic things to show she was the better Wasp 2, I’ll never know. Unfortunately
for Hope, she underestimated Cassie, and the Avengers, so her Ion Man was
defeated.
 |
| Hope's team get's points for scary. Not shown, Magneta |
Her next big scheme was to form her
own super-being team, called the Reverngers. How original. Let’s do a quick
rollcall. Red Queen: Hope herself, has the implanted wings and bio-energy
stingers of her mother but can’t change her size. Big Man: Henry Pym, Jr. he’s
basically Giant-Man 2.0, so he's really big and really tough. Also, he and the X-Men’s Strong-Guy should get
together and brainstorm better codenames. Ion Man, Hope’s energy-based super
assassin. Killerwatt (groan), the latest version of Electro, so think lightning
powers. Sabreclaw, possibly Wolverine’s son, so Mutant with healing factor and
beast-like qualities. And Magneta, a woman with Magnetic powers, but she has no real
connection to her name sake, Magneto, though. She and Henry use their parent’s
old security codes (shouldn’t those have been wiped when they died?) and break
into the Avengers Mansion. Once inside they are able to subdue and capture Tony
Stark (Iron Man), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Scott Lang (Ant-Man), and Edwin Jarvis (the
human butler that inspired Tony’s virtual Jarvis). I want to point out that it
seems pretty silly that their goal was to humiliate and defeat the new
Avengers, and their first targets are all old school Avengers. They then also Ambush
and capture the newies.
Hope releases several years’ worth
of pent up aggression on Cassie, and reveals to her team that planned to kill
the Avengers to prove the Revengers were a better team. This didn’t sit well
with Henry, because he’d only agreed to help to show the new Avengers they weren’t
up to snuff. To quote a movie cliché “I didn’t sign up for this!” Henry stopped
the self-destruct protocol Hope had initiated and helped the Avengers stop the
Revengers. Hope was arrested, and that’s all she wrote. Literally, I can’t find
anything more about her.
Hope Pym uses implanted wings
modeled after a bee’s to fly. She has bio-energy blasting gloves which serve as
her version of her mother’s stingers. She also has sharp claws at the end of
her gloves. Unlike her brother, Henry Jr., she didn’t seem to inherit the Pym
ability to grown and shrink via Pym Particles.
Like with Cross/Yellowjacket
yesterday, this is going to be Hope’s first foray outside of the comics. Also
like Yellowjacket, put the info I just gave you at the back of your mind as I
continue talking.
 |
| Still unsure if she's a bad guy..er bad girl...er bad woman. |
We’ll be seeing Hope (this time van
Dyne) in Ant-Man, portrayed by Evangeline
Lilly. This version is the estranged daughter of Hank Pym, who most likely took
her mother's name after she became a legal adult. She is the business partner of Darren Cross and helped Cross take over her father's company. This allowed Cross access to the Ant-Man tech. Upon realizing that Cross intends to mass produce a series of shrinking battlesuits he dubs the Yellowjackets. She returns to her father and the two work out a plan to stop Cross. She's initially very cold to Hank, due in no small part to the mysterious death of her mother, and ever worse to Scott, whom she feels isn't worthy of her Dad's tech. She warms up to Scott, too, partially thanks to him spelling out to her that the real reason Hank chose Scott over her is because Hank could handle Scott getting killed, but couldn't handle something happening to Hope. After that, and heck, even before that, she fills the usual role of the antagonistic love interest. They’re being about as subtle with the Love Interest aspect as a hammer. One o the post credit scenes of this film reveals that Hank has been working on a Wasp suit, which he is going to finish with Hope's help for her. She'll be the movie Universe's modern Wasp in the sequels.Not sure how I feel about that, but it's better than say, using Jan van Dyne and setting her up with Scott instead of Hank. That'd be just too weird for me.
I don’t know enough about Hope to
judge how I like the character. Her comic storyline does sound interesting, she’s
the legacy character that let said legacy drive her insane. That being said,
that storyline has been done before, and it must not have wowed too many folks
upon its release, since I hadn’t heard of her until recently. Her role in the
movie seems pretty straight forward, love interest who then can become a new
Wasp to go along with Scott Lang’s New Ant-Man. It’s a pretty serious change
from her comic book incarnation, but one that I can live with. It’ll be interesting
to see if this time around she’s able to live up to her parent’s legacy. She’s
the drastically redesigned Red Queen, or Wasp, Hope Pym. Er, van Dyne. Next
time, a character that hasn’t been adapted to the point where she’s almost
unrecognizable, Cassie Lang aka Stature.
http://marvel.wikia.com/File:Hope_Pym_%28Earth-982%29_0001.jpg
http://marvel.wikia.com/File:A-Next_Vol_1_12.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Pym#/media/File:Evangeline_Lilly_as_Hope_Van_Dyne_in_Ant-Man.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment