Wasp Fact — November 1, 2026

Today's Fact

Checked against independent sources — the issues are cited below.

IRON MAN BLASTED THE WASP — AND SHE HATCHED FROM A COCOON AS A GIANT INSECT-WOMAN WITH CLAWS AND VEINED WINGS!

The Featured Fact

In Avengers #393 (1995), deep inside the storyline called The Crossing, a mind-controlled Tony Stark turned on his own team. A repulsor blast he aimed at Hercules struck Janet van Dyne instead, and the Wasp fell as if dead in front of the Avengers she had so often led. Hank Pym's desperate cure would change her more than the injury had.

Hank treated Janet by exposing her to the same biochemical process that had first given her the Wasp's powers. She vanished into a cocoon — and in Avengers #394 (1996) she burst out of it reborn as something barely human: a towering insectoid woman with huge veined wings sprouting from her back, long antenna-like hair, clawed fingers and a segmented, wasp-patterned body. Her sting blasts came back stronger than before, and Hank's tests said she was healthier than she had ever been; she simply was no longer completely human.

Janet fought on as an Avenger in that form for roughly ten months of publication, personality intact inside a body her teammates had to learn to recognise. The form ended with the Onslaught crisis: she was among the heroes who hurled themselves into Onslaught and seemed to die, and when Franklin Richards restored the fallen in the Heroes Reborn world of Avengers Vol. 2 #1 (1996), Janet came back fully human — the insect-woman quietly left behind.

Why It's Obscure

A founding Avenger spent the better part of a year as the thing her codename only used to describe.

#393

The blast — In Avengers #393 (1995), the Kang-controlled Iron Man fires at Hercules and hits the Wasp, leaving her apparently dead.

The cocoon

Hank's gamble — Pym re-exposes Janet to the original process behind her powers, and her body answers by sealing itself inside a cocoon.

#394

The hatching — Avengers #394 (January 1996) introduces the new Wasp mid-battle: wings, claws and an almost alien silhouette, saving her teammates with a stronger sting.

10 months

Gone by Onslaught — The mutated form lasted from 1995 into 1996, ending when Janet fell against Onslaught and Franklin Richards returned her in human shape.

Gallery

Comic art of Wasp and the figures named in today's fact.

Avengers 394 cover mutated insect Wasp with large veined wings claws antennae — **The mutation, on the cover**Avengers #394 (1996) shows the transformed Janet in full: enormous veined wings, clawed hands, antenna-like hair and a segmented insect body — exactly the form she wore for the rest of The Crossing.

Wasp Janet van Dyne flying with wings firing sting comic art — **The Wasp as she was**Janet in her familiar winged form, sting charged — the silhouette the cocoon would exaggerate into something far stranger.

Janet van Dyne Wasp portrait with wings comic art — **Janet, restored**Janet van Dyne back in human form after Heroes Reborn, wings and all — the woman who emerged from both a cocoon and a pocket universe.

Sources

Every claim above checks out against at least two of these independent sources.

Bullpen Bulletins

Avengers: How Marvel's Most INFAMOUS Epic Transformed the Wasp — CBRCBR's account of The Crossing details Avengers #393, the repulsor blast that felled Janet, the cocoon, her emergence with wings and an almost alien appearance, and the form's end in Onslaught and Heroes Reborn.
Wasp I (Janet Van Dyne | Earth-616) — Comic Book RealmComic Book Realm's character history records that after Janet's severe injuries during The Crossing, Pym's repeat of the original process temporarily mutated her into an almost completely wasp-like form until Franklin Richards returned her to normal.