Audiences were thrilled to see Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lily) take on the identity of the Wasp in MCU’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. Hope added some much-needed female representation to the MCU’s cast of superheroes, and by Hope’s next appearance in Avengers: Endgame, she got to appear in a famous “all superhero women” scene that showed how much the MCU had expanded in terms of female heroes.
Ironically, however, in the comics Hope Van Dyne isn’t a hero at all. Although she has yet to make an appearance in the mainstream Marvel Universe, in the alternate future presented in Marvel’s MC2 line of comics, Hope followed a much darker path.
The MC2 Universe showcases a future where most Marvel superheroes were allowed to age in semi-real time, causing Spider-Man to retire following a career-ending injury and the original Avengers to disband. Fortunately, there were plenty of new heroes to pick up the slack – like Spidey’s daughter May “Mayday” Parker (aka Spider-Girl), and an entirely new lineup of Avengers, consisting of Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie (aka Stinger), Captain America successor American Dream, son of the Juggernaut J2, Tony Stark-created android Mainframe, and Thunderstrike, the son of Thor’s deceased ally Eric Masterson.
For the most part, the MC2 revealed a future where things had actually turned out pretty well. Mutant acceptance was on the rise, heroes were admired, and even the children of villains like Juggernaut were choosing to become superheroes. Unfortunately, the reverse was also true – as the Avengers found out when they returned from a mission, only to be captured by “The Revengers,” a villainous team led by the children of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne.
In this timeline, Hank and Janet had twin children – Hope and Henry. Unfortunately, Hank was killed on a mission with the Avengers, and Janet died soon after (allegedly of a “broken heart”). Furious, Hope used her father’s Pym Particles and technology to give herself powers, turning herself into the “Red Queen,” a flying ant-themed villain. Meanwhile, Henry went the other direction by transforming into “Big Man,” a 12-foot tall bad guy with super strength.
Hope and Hank recruited several of the new Avengers’ villains and used their parents’ old codes to sneak into Avengers mansion. As luck would have it, the Avengers were just returning from a mission in an alternate dimension and were caught completely off guard, allowing Hope’s team to capture them. Although Henry thought they were just going to rough up the Avengers and prove they weren’t worthy of the name, Hope revealed she had more murderous intentions when she tried to slash American Dream to death.
Fortunately, Avengers’ member Mainframe managed to call in some superpowered allies who smashed into the mansion and began taking on the villains. Hope ended up battling Stinger – and where the Hope of the MCU became something of a cool aunt to Cassie Lang, her Red Queen counterpart wanted to murder Stinger as she felt Cassie had stolen Hope’s rightful place on the Avengers. Cassie proved more adept at shrinking than Hope, however, and clobbered the Red Queen.
Completely insane at this point, Hope decided to blow up the mansion, but Henry – realizing that his sister was now too far gone – knocked her unconscious. In the aftermath, Henry surrendered himself to the authorities and later found himself working for the law in a prison release program. Hope, sadly, never reformed and was likely sent to prison or committed to an insane asylum.
As disturbing as this version of Hope was, when it came time to bring Hank Pym’s daughter to the MCU in Ant-Man, the filmmakers decided to reimagine Hope Van Dyne as a more sympathetic character. Introduced as Hank’s adult daughter, Hope grew up without her mother after Janet was lost in the Quantum Realm, something that eventually led to her estrangement from her father. Nevertheless, Hope didn’t give in to her hate the same way her comic book counterpart did and even began aiding her father once she found out that a new villain was going to abuse his technology. Hope and Hank would experience a further reconciliation in the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, which saw Hope not only become the heroic Wasp (and not the Red Queen), but also help her father build a device to rescue her mother from the Quantum Realm. It’s a far more hopeful depiction of Hope – and one that could have happened in the comics had Hank and Janet been in her life.
While Hope Van Dyne never appeared in the mainstream Marvel Universe, Hank Pym does have another daughter – Nadia – who he fathered with his first wife, Maria. Possessing a genius-level intellect of her own, Nadia was recruited into the Red Room (the same organization that trained Black Widow). Although she was trained in martial arts and espionage, when her captors/masters learned about her brilliance, they had her work on her father’s work, even giving her some Pym Particles.
Nadia ended up using the Pym Particles to become a new version of the Wasp and escape. Making her way to the United States, she discovered her father was dead (although he would come back). Nadia did befriend Janet Van Dyne, however, and wound up taking her last name as her own. She later started a think tank for girl geniuses, encouraging women to engage in the sciences like her.
Notably, while she was trained to be a cold-hearted assassin and had her childhood basically stolen from her, Nadia never shows any bitterness toward her past, choosing to focus instead on building a brighter future for herself and others. It’s a surprising departure from how Hank’s other daughter was portrayed, but one that shows characters don’t have to be defined by the tragedies of their pasts. As Wasp a.k.a. Hope Van Dyne was also granted a redemption of sorts in the MCU, it’s gratifying to see Marvel showing it chooses to focus on the heroic potential of their characters, as well as their capacities for evil.