Ant-Man Fact — November 6, 2026

Today's Fact

He had already been four different heroes. The fifth identity was not ambition, reinvention or breakdown. It was a name he was keeping warm for somebody else.

HANK PYM BECAME THE WASP — TO CARRY JANET'S NAME AFTER THE SKRULLS KILLED HER!

The Featured Fact

The Hank Pym who fought through most of Secret Invasion (2008) was not Hank Pym. A Skrull named Criti Noll had worn his face for years, and the real Pym spent the invasion as a prisoner aboard a Skrull vessel — freed only in its final battle, in time to learn what the impostor’s war had cost. Janet van Dyne was dead: a tainted growth formula the fake Pym had given her turned the Wasp into a living bomb, and Thor had been forced to disperse her to save New York.

His answer came in Secret Invasion: Requiem #1 (2009). Rather than return as Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath or Yellowjacket, Pym built himself a fifth identity out of hers: he took the codename the Wasp outright, in open tribute, and engineered the kit to match — bio-synthetic wings that grew from his back when he shrank and bio-electric wasp stings drawn from his own body’s energy. His introduction to his new team was a formal one: Doctor Henry Pym, the Wasp, at your service.

He then led the Mighty Avengers under Janet’s name through 2009 and 2010, carrying her colours into rooms she would never enter again — until the slow work of grief let him set the tribute down and return to Giant-Man, and the Wasp name eventually passed to Janet’s stepdaughter Nadia. The postscript he could not have known in Requiem: Janet had never died at all, only been lost, microscopic and alive, in the Microverse — recovered by the Avengers in 2012, to find her ex-husband had spent two years wearing her name like a flag at half-mast.

Why It's Obscure

Four codenames chart a career. The fifth charts a funeral he refused to let finish.

2008

The stolen years — Secret Invasion exposes Criti Noll’s long impersonation of Pym; the real Hank returns from Skrull captivity to a world where Janet is already gone.

Requiem, 2009

The tribute — In Secret Invasion: Requiem #1, Pym takes the Wasp name itself — not a variant, not a homage costume, her actual codename.

The kit

Wings of his own — His Wasp suit grows bio-synthetic wings at small size and fires bio-electric stings, rebuilding Janet’s powers from his own biology.

2012

The name comes home — Janet is found alive in the Microverse; the memorial identity Pym carried for two years turns out to have been guarding a living woman’s name.

Gallery

The tribute costume in flight — wings grown, stings ready — and the woman whose name it carries.

Hank Pym as the Wasp, winged and saluting among wasps, comic panel — **The fifth identity**Pym in his Wasp colours, bio-synthetic wings spread wide and a swarm in attendance — his own caption in the panel reads: Doctor Henry Pym, a.k.a. the Wasp, at your service.

Hank Pym as the Wasp before a giant image of Janet van Dyne, comic art — **In her name**Pym winged and stinging before Janet’s monumental face: the Mighty Avengers era opens with the tribute stated outright — in Janet’s name, in her honour.

Janet van Dyne as the Wasp, wings spread and stings firing, comic art — **The original**Janet van Dyne, the first Wasp — founder Avenger, fashion designer of her own legend, and the standard her ex-husband spent two years trying to live up to.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Every Costumed Identity Used By Hank Pym, Ranked — CBR Confirms Pym returned from Skrull captivity after Janet’s Secret Invasion death and honoured her by taking on the Wasp name and forming his Mighty Avengers.
Hank Pym — Wikipedia Biography: following Janet van Dyne’s apparent death, a grieving Pym took the Wasp identity in tribute in Secret Invasion: Requiem (Jan. 2009), with bio-synthetic wings and wasp stings.
Ant-Man: Hank Pym's Superhero Identities in the Comics, Explained — GameRant Summarises how Pym took up the Wasp mantle after Secret Invasion, believing Janet killed, and served as the new Wasp in her honour.