History ComicBook / UnstoppableWasp

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nadia_pym.jpg]]

''The Unstoppable Wasp'' is a 2017 comic book published by Creator/MarvelComics, written by [[Comicbook/{{Princeless}} Jeremy Whitley]] with art by Elsa Charretier and Creator/{{Gurihiru}}. It stars Nadia Pym, later Van Dyne, as the all-new [[ComicBook/TheWasp Wasp]], who first appeared in ''Free Comic Book Day 2016: ComicBook/{{Avengers}}'', created by Creator/MarkWaid and Alan Davis (dated May 2016) with a costume designed by Alex Ross.

The daughter of the legendary scientist (and founding Avenger) [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] and his late wife Maria, Nadia never actually knew either of her parents. She was raised as an orphan in the Red Room, which famously produced -- among many others -- Natasha Romanoff, the ComicBook/BlackWidow. When it became apparent that she inherited her father's knack for inventing, Nadia was placed in the Red Room's science division, where she reverse-engineered his famous [[AppliedPhlebotinum Pym Particles]].

Upon escaping from the Red Room, she turned up at Pym's door in the hopes of a father-daughter reunion but was disheartened to learn he'd very recently sacrificed his life to stop ComicBook/{{Ultron}}. Deciding to assume her father's legacy, Nadia then created her own Wasp suit and sought out the Avengers, hoping to earn their approval.

After a brief misunderstanding with a mind-controlled [[ComicBook/TheVision Vision]], their long-serving butler Jarvis introduced Nadia to her step-mother Janet Van Dyne --the original Wasp herself-- with whom she quickly bonded with, readily endorsing her identity as the new Wasp.

Shortly after introducing herself to the superhero community, Nadia joined the new Avengers roster as a full member and, with the advice of fellow crimefighting scientist [[ComicBook/{{Mockingbird}} Bobbi Morse]], decided to become a champion for the smartest (and oft-ignored female) minds of the MarvelUniverse -- making her the ''Unstoppable'' Wasp.

The series was cancelled after eight issues, due to poor serial sales, but strong trade paperback sales led to it being relaunched the following year. The second series ran for ten issues, then was followed by a prose novel by Sam Maggs featuring all the G.I.R.L. characters in 2020.
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[[AC:Notable Comics]]
* ''ComicBook/AllNewAllDifferentAvengers'' (2016)
* ''ComicBook/{{Avengers|2016}}'' vol. 7 (2016 -- 2017)
* ''The Unstoppable Wasp'' (various runs):
** vol. 1 (2017)
** vol. 2 (2018 -- 2019)
* ''ComicBook/AvengersNoSurrender'' (2018)
* ''ComicBook/{{Champions|2016}}'' (various runs):
** vol. 2 (2017 -- 2018)
** vol. 3 (2019 -- ongoing)
* ''Ant-Man & The Wasp'' vol. 2 (2018)

[[AC:Prose Books]]
* ''The Unstoppable Wasp - Built on Hope'' (2020)

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!! These comics provide examples of the following tropes:
* AccidentalMisnaming: Nadia continually either misremembers or mispronounces Matt Murdock's surname as [[ComicBook/{{MODOK}} Modok]].
* AdaptationNameChange: Her name is "Nadia", the Russian word for "hope", instead of the English one--though Creator/MarkWaid said this wasn't intentional.
* AdaptationalHeroism: Red Queen, her [[ComicBook/MarvelComics2 MC2]] counterpart, was a villain.
* AdmiringTheAbomination: The fight alongside Ms Marvel and Mockingbird against a HumongousMecha in issue 1 of the 2017 series includes boxes showing "Nadia's neat science facts" praising the way the mech is engineered.
* AgeLift: Nadia is younger than either Red Queen, her [[ComicBook/MarvelComics2 MC2]] counterpart, or Hope van Dyne, her [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] counterpart. Then again, [=MC2=] is set in an alternate future, while MCU!Hope undergoes AgeLift (older than her [=MC2=] counterpart) since her father in MCU is also older than his Earth-616 counterpart.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Nadia's father is well-remembered for the catastrophe of creating {{ComicBook/Ultron}}, and when Nadia's personal assistant V.E.R.A. in ''Built on Hope'' starts to sound suspicious, her friends have concerns that a similar situation may be developing. [[spoiler:Ultimately it turns out V.E.R.A. is not going rogue. It's behaving exactly as it was programmed to... but some of its programming was funded by the villainous A.I.M.]]
* AmbiguousDisorder: Issue #4 of the 2018 relaunch has Janet worry that Nadia might have an undiagnosed case of bipolar disorder as she recognizes the signs of a manic episode similar to what Hank went through. Nadia goes from full blown Mania to a [[spoiler: suicidal]] depressive episode between Issues 4 and 5. Unlike Hank, she chooses to seek help.
* AngerBornOfWorry: In issue #7 of the 2017 series Nadia ends up so distraught over Ying having to be taken to hospital following the events of the previous issue that she first reacts to Janet grabbing her (which Janet admits in narration was a bad move when dealing with a highly emotional and highly trained assassin) by punching Janet in the face hard enough to break her nose. Then when Janet arrives at the hospital she finds Nadia threatening to break a doctor's arm because they won't allow her to accompany Ying into surgery. In the same issue it's shown that trying to hurt Nadia when Ying is around is also a bad idea when she jumps Whirlwind and [[IllKillYou declares her intent]] to stab him to death for it.
* BaitAndSwitchLesbians: Zig-zagged; Nadia has no male love interest, expresses disgust when Jarvis recommends “kissing boys”, and spends her first volume only ever thinking about Ying, who she shares a deep, long-standing friendship with. There is a ''lot'' of subtext between her and Ying, but ultimately the two don't get together... because Ying instead gets together with Shay - another girl in Nadia's GIRL project - who happens to be a butch lesbian.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Zig-zagged in issue #7 of the 2017 series. Janet gets her nose broken and shows a small trickle of blood, but looks completely fine immediately afterward. Later, she has some bruising on her face after a fight in which she gets hit in the head with a chair, but her face is again unmarked in the last panel of the issue, which takes place the same night.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Issue #7 has Nadia meet a hefty gathering of her family, including her great-nephew Vision, great-nieces Viv Vision and Jocasta and her adopted mother's boyfriend Tony Stark. And then there's Speed and Wiccan, who literally causes Viv to hit a LogicBomb because of their convoluted lineage. Viv also tells Nadia that Hercules’ lineage is even more complicated than theirs.
* BilingualBonus: "Nadia" is the Russian form of "Hope," which is the name of her counterparts in both the [[ComicBook/MarvelComics2 MC2]] and Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse continuities.
* BrokenPedestal: Nadia finally finds out about Hank Pym's infamous OnceDoneNeverForgotten moment, becoming quite upset over it, and is confused over how Janet could forgive him for it. Janet tells her she never really did, she just moved on. At the end of the second volume, she learns about Ultron-Pym, showing her events from ''ComicBook/UncannyAvengers'' and ''ComicBook/InfinityCountdown''. Janet explains that that isn't Hank, but Ultron wearing Hank's face and she didn't tell her about this because she refused to let Ultron take her.
* CanonImmigrant: Nadia is basically the 616-version of [[ComicBook/MarvelComics2 the Red Queen]] and [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse Hope van Dyne]].
* CerebusRetcon: The second volume reveals that Nadia has inherited her father's bipolar disorder, making it seem as if some of her comic oddness and unquenchable optimism in the first volume was undiagnosed hypomania.
* CloudCuckooLander: Nadia can often seem off in her own world at times. Justified by being a FishOutOfWater.
* ContinuitySnarl: Issue #7 of the 2018 relaunch doesn't gel incredibly well with the events of ''ComicBook/{{Champions 2016}}'' as, by the start of that title's ''ComicBook/WarOfTheRealms'' tie-in, [[spoiler:Miles Morales had quit the team and Sam Alexander had went off-world to reclaim his powers though both are at Nadia's birthday party as if nothing wrong happened.]] Nadia is even out of action in ''Champions'' because of her earlier breakdown.
** Considering that Nadia is still not back in Champions as that book wrapped up War of the Realms tie-in and started an arc about [[spoiler: Sam reclaiming his helmet]] it is likely Nadia's Birthday just happens after these stories.
* CoversAlwaysLie: Both the cover and the solicitations from issue #7 seems to suggest that Nadia and the Winter Soldier was going to fight on her birthday. Winter Soldier shows up and there's a birthday party, but it's ''Ying'' and Bucky who fights and it's a shortlived one.
* DarkIsNotEvil: While Nadia's Wasp suit carries a black and dark red palette, she's easily one of the cheeriest characters in the Marvel Universe yet.
* DeathByOriginStory: Her poor Hungarian mother's abduction and murder by the Russians was used to kickstart both her and her father's superhero career.
* DeclarationOfProtection: Within minutes of meeting William Grant Nelson who is sort of her half brother through Tigra and the Skrull that impersonated Hank Pym she states she’d be willing to die for him.
* DitzyGenius: Nadia might be a genius like her father, but she can be a little air-headed at times.
* DontMakeMeDestroyYou: In issue #4 of the 2017 series, Nadia makes multiple attempts to peacefully resolve a hostage situation involving wrestling supervillains Poundcakes and Letha, finally changing into her Wasp costume as her final warning. After Poundcakes refuses by punching Nadia, Nadia proceeds to beat the everloving crap out of both villains. See OOCIsSeriousBusiness, below.
** Revisited in Issues 4 and 5 of Volume 2. This time, Nadia warns her friends not to interfere when she's spiraling into mania in response to an attack by AIM. They don't listen and try to help her get a grip. Nadia then beats the tar out of her best friends.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Nadia tries to jump from her shrunken lab's roof after her mania shifts to depression in Issue 5. Priya follows her inside and intervenes just in time, having seen something similar happen to her brother and [[MyGreatestFailure failing to act]].]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Volume 2 ends with Nadia in a much better place, getting treatment for her bipolar disorder and realizing she doesn't need to fix the entire world on her own.
* EasilyForgiven: Taina in issue 6 of the 2018 series. She's downright furious when she spots a note on Nadia's blackboard suggesting fixing her cerebral palsy, not realizing the severity of her manic episode. Once she understands, she cools off considerably and accepts Nadia's apology.
* [[invoked]]FakeBrit: In issue 8 of the 2018 series it’s noted that Jarvis [[IAmVeryBritish acts like he’s British]] but he’s not. (This is actually a {{Retcon}} - when originally introduced Jarvis was indeed British, and canonically flew for the RAF in World War Two. Of course, what with the Sliding Timeline, he might by now be a Vietnam veteran...)
* FeministFantasy: In the first issue of the 2017 series, the only named males to appear are Hank Pym in a flashback when Nadia is talking about her past, and Naveen, the guy working in the bakery, along with name dropping Bruce Banner and Clint Burton; every other major character is a woman, the immigration officer working her case is a woman, and Nadia teams up with Ms Marvel and Mockingbird to take on a HumongousMecha stolen by a female MadScientist (who better to stop her than a happy scientist); and after talking to Bobbi Morse about the fact people forget she's not just an ActionGirl that hits things with sticks but closer to a GeniusBruiser specialising in biology and a bona fide adventurer who went to the Savage Lands, along with the fact that until they discovered Moon Girl was the smartest person on the planet, the first woman on S.H.I.E.L.D's list of geniuses was only number 27, Nadia decides to look for more women whose talents are going unrecognized by setting up [[FunWithAcronyms Genius In action Research Labs]].
* FishOutOfWater: In a similar way to [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]] and [[ComicBook/{{Silk}} Cindy Moon]], having lived her life in the Red Room, she's terribly out of date with her pop culture - she surprises Kamala Khan when she doesn't react to references to [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers the Megazord]], Franchise/HarryPotter and ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. To be fair nobody's tried communist-era Russian / East-European pop culture yet so we don't know if the Red Room has a rule against fun in general or only parts they oppose ideologically.
* FiveTokenBand: G.I.R.L. fits this to a T. Not only are they all girls, each of them have their own strange quirks and are of different races.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Nadia goes berserk after Ying collapses, Janet muses internally that she reminds her of Henry Pym in similarly unstable moods, forshadowing volume two's revelation that Nadia has full-blown bipolar disorder, inherited from her father.
* FullyClothedNudity: At the beginning of one issue, Jarvis is shocked when Nadia opens the door to him dressed only in an oversized Pym Labs T-shirt, even though it hangs down well below her hips to minidress length and shows nothing.
* GenerationXerox: According to Mockingbird, Nadia and Janet despite not being related by blood. Nadia forgets to put on pants in the morning but ''does'' remember to grab her phone, and stores it in her bra since she doesn't have pockets. Going by Mockingbird's reaction, this is something Janet does too.
** The same issue presents this with Ying and Bobbi herself, again despite being unrelated. Both are scientists who happen to also be deadly fighters, who can spar while also discussing potential treatments for brain tumours. As a result, by the time of the second volume, Bobbi has taken Ying under her wing and the younger girl explicitly says she would be happy if Bobbi was her mother.
* GenkiGirl: Nadia is full of enthusiasm.
* GreaterScopeVillain: ComicBook/{{Ultron}} or rather Ultron-Pym, to be more specific. He never makes an appearance but towards the end of volume one Janet admits in her internal monologue she is keeping his existence secret from Nadia. This comes to light in volume two, after the reveal [[spoiler: the threat of his return is what motivated Seeker, Finesse and Brilliance to work for A.I.M. and steal advanced technology in preparation for it]].
* HappilyAdopted: At the end of Unstoppable Wasp's first volume, Nadia asks Janet if she can use the Van Dyne surname, and also moves in with her. By the time Mark Waid's Ant-Man and the Wasp miniseries starts, she's referred to as "Janet's adopted step".
* {{Hologram}}: Nadia's recruitment presentation to G.I.R.L. comes in hologram form.
-->'''Nadia:''' Science fact: Holograms are awesome!
* InTheBlood: Nadia's knack for science runs in her family (both her father and maternal grandfather were scientists), despite her never meeting any of her relatives. She also inherited Hank's bipolar disorder, which is first triggered by the stress of A.I.M. attacking her friends.
* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler: After Nadia beats up Ying, throws Shay against the wall, kicks Alexis in the face, and insists that Miranda is "broken" while in the midst of her first manic phase, she retreats into her miniature lab (where seconds pass like hours) while the rest of them give up on her in disgust. Priya is the only person who doesn't feel right leaving her, steals Janet van Dyne's oldest Wasp suit, and shrinks her way into the lab - literally as Nadia is about to jump off the roof. [[NightmareFuel If Priya had waited literally one more second,]] Nadia would be dead.]]
* IrrationalHatred: Nadia is unfailingly polite and kind to everyone, even villains she's currently fighting, except for Peter Parker in his Spider-Man identity; having no problems with Miles. She gets over it before ''ComicBook/AvengersNoSurrender'', though she swaps it out for not liking Peter Parker due to the fact that his decision to destroy Parker Industries got the Avengers kicked out of their base. This is parodied in issue #7 when Taina meets Miles and is confused as to why she hates Spider-Man before Nadia lets her know it's the ''other'' one she hates.
* KidHero: Lampshaded. Upon getting help from Wasp and Ms. Marvel while fighting a giant robot, Mockingbird snarks how new superheroes keep getting younger every year, and soon they'll have babies fighting ComicBook/{{Thanos}}.
* KnightOfCerebus: [[spoiler:Ying, Nadia's friend from the Red Room. With her all of their black-ops backstory comes back haunting with vengeance.]]
* TheKnightsWhoSaySquee: Nadia is actually a humongous fan of superheroes, particularly genius heroes. For some reason, though, she ''really'' hates Franchise/SpiderMan. She ends up bringing Mockingbird to tears when she remembers the fact that she's actually a GeniusBruiser.
** Nadia literally says "Squee" later in that issue, when Bobbi tells her she's destined for great things.
** The members of G.I.R.L. are ecstatic meeting the Champions in issue #7 of the 2018 run either due to shared heritage (Priya and Kamala and Taina and Miles) or shared intellect (Shay and Riri)
* LamePunReaction: When removing the bomb from Ying's head Shay makes a joke about 'not losing [her] head'. Everyone present, including Jarvis, boos her. Well, except for Ying herself, who thinks its ActuallyPrettyFunny.
* MadnessMontage: After G.I.R.L. gets their collective butts kicked by their evil counterparts and sent to the hospital in issue 4 of the 2018 series, [[spoiler: Nadia returns to the lab and spirals into a science-centered Manic Phase. Her idea chalkboard tracks her journey deeper and deeper into mania, until she becomes coldly logical from exhaustion and beats the tar out of her friend Ying when she tries to intervene.]]
* {{Malaproper}}: Being a toddler, William Grant Nelson articulates Nadia's relation to him as being "half of my sister."
* MamaBear: Janet Van Dyne evolves into this, having previously been hinted at when Nadia first showed up in Waid's Avengers run. Nadia might not be hers by blood, but by the end of the first series she's all-but adopted the girl, and by that point has protected her from Russian spies, contracted supervillains, deportation, legal trouble, and at the very least ''tries'' to protect her from knowing the truth [[BrokenPedestal about who her father was]].
* MeaningfulName: Nadia means "hope" and she is very much a optimist.
* MeaningfulRename: Even though Nadia is a Pym, since she never knew Hank at all, when she goes to finalize her paperwork, she asks Janet if she could take up her last name, which she happily agrees to.
* MoodSwinger: Nadia is shown to inherit her father Hank's disposition to bipolar disorder in Issues 4 and 5 of the 2018 series. She goes from iron-willed determination to fix the damage caused by the attack, to seeking "cures" for everything wrong with her friends, to retreating to her shrunken lab when her friends try to intervene. [[spoiler: Priya encounters her when she's swung the other way and is attempting suicide.]] Unlike Hank, Nadia acknowledges that it's not something to be ignored or ashamed of and seeks treatment.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler: Nadia very nearly kills herself after her mania swings into depression and she is confronted with the fact that she just beat up all of her best friends when they were only trying to help her.]]
* MythologyGag: Nadia's Wasp suit is obviously inspired by her [[ComicBook/MarvelComics2 MC2]] counterpart [[http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/b/bd/Hope_Pym_(Earth-982)_0001.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121001062719 Red Queen]]. There are also nods towards Janet's classic Wasp costume and the Wasp costume seen in ''Film/AntMan1''.
* NaiveNewcomer: She is just so wide-eyed and innocent and happy about all the heroes and her newly found freedom, home, friends, and family... given how the Marvel Universe works, and more specifically, who Hank Pym is, she is set up for very hard BrokenPedestal situations, the first of which you can find under that trope on this page.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** After multiple attempts to peacefully resolve a hostage situation fail when one of the villains punches Nadia in the face, the tone of the scene noticeably shifts. Nadia's narration boxes lose all their cheeriness and begin clinically describing the brutal effectiveness of Krav Maga, which Nadia learned in the Red Room and which she uses to badly beat up both villains present. Nadia is later pretty disturbed at what she did, since she left both of them with serious injuries.
** Taina is tipped off that something is wrong with Nadia's behavior in ''Built on Hope'', even if Nadia insists she's fine, going to therapy, taking her meds, and feeling happy. Nadia obsessing about completing a dozen projects is normal. What's not normal is Nadia obsessing about one singular project, particularly one that involves [[spoiler:linking all the data of every person who's purchased the new V.E.R.A. personal assistant and thus creating a massive AI network. It's thanks to Nadia's VERA influencing her into directing all her energy into making itself more powerful.]]
* OrphansOrdeal: Finding a surrogate family was one of Nadia's major motivations in becoming the new Wasp.
* PerkyGoth: Nadia prefers dark clothing and makeup, but her personality doesn't reflect that at all.
* ThePollyanna: How she comes across, in spite of her upbringing.
* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Invoked with her bipolar disorder, which amplifies her ego to make her think she can personally solve every problem in the world. Under the influence of her first major manic episode, she jots down various notes, one of them being an idea to "fix" Taina's cerebral palsy, [[BerserkButton which pisses Taina right off]]. Once Nadia recovers, she immediately goes to apologize to Taina for such an action.
* RelatedInTheAdaptation: Despite being based on the Red Queen from ''ComicBook/MarvelComics2'' and Hope van Dyne from the ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'', Maria Trovaya, Hank's first wife, is her biological mother with Janet as a surrogate one.
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: She fights one in Issue #2 of the 2017 series thanks to an invention she and her old friend made back then that resurfaces.
* ShipTease: Every time ComicBook/AmericaChavez and ComicBook/KateBishop cameo in the comic, it's always around each other, [[https://twitter.com/jrome58/status/1126159988609703937 which according to Whitley is intentional]].[[note]]It may also be a reference to the [[https://twitter.com/jrome58/status/1059905288508239872 the cancelled comic]] Whitley wrote where America and Kate [[RelationshipUpgrade began dating]], which would've been published with ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015''.[[/note]]
* ShoutOut: Shay's dress sense is heavily influenced by pansexual [[{{Afrofuturism}} Afrofuturist]] musician Music/JanelleMonae. Depending on whether Monáe exists in the Marvel universe, this might be an in-canon Shout Out as well, although Shay's mother seems to suggest that she based it off of Music/{{Prince}}. That could be a sign of her homophobia and her dismissiveness towards her daughter.
* SurvivorGuilt: The reason Priya is the only person to follow Nadia into her shrunken lab. It turns out [[spoiler: her brother, a surgeon, was cracking under the pressure of school and went into a similar spiral to Nadia's. She took all his hollow reassurances at face value and only learned how much he was suffering when she found his SuicideNote. As she explains to Nadia while trying to talk her away from killing herself, she lives with the guilt of "What if I'd just tried to reach out to him?" every day.]]
* SweetTooth: The first scene of her solo comic has her in in a bakery looking at pastries with her face touching the glass. She later walks out with a large bag full of sweets, after being given a large discount. Ms Marvel doesn't get a discount [[DudeWheresMyRespect and she saved the shop from aliens once]].
* SwitchingPOV: Issues #7 and #8 of the first series are told from Janet's perspective.
* TalkingDownTheSuicidal: [[spoiler: Most of Nadia's friends give up on her after she beats most of them up in Issue 5. Priya, [[MyGreatestFailure who had seen something like this before in her brother but failed to reach out to him,]] follows Nadia into her miniaturized lab and confronts her as Nadia is about to jump to her death.]]
* UnrelatedInTheAdaptation: Nadia is based on Hope Pym from [[ComicBook/MarvelComics2 MC2]] and the [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]]--though in those, Hope is Janet's biological daughter. Nadia is adopted by Janet, but isn't a blood relative.
* VerySpecialEpisode: Issues #4-5 of the second volume, where Nadia has her first serious manic episode. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped On the other hand]], as the essay at the end of #5 points out, superhero comics have traditionally not been noted for their [[InsaneEqualsViolent accuracy]] or [[{{Idiosyncrazy}} sensitivity]] when depicting mental illness and its [[PsychoPsychologist treatment]].
* WhatTheHellHero: When Nadia Pym appears in ''All New All Different Avengers''' crossover with ''Civil War II'', she watches a news report about the event which causes her to start angrily asking why the hell heroes are fighting each other instead of talking things out.
* WideEyedIdealist: Nadia is perhaps a bit too optimistic for her own good.
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