Ask The Tropers

At the very least, if they're deleting stuff from a YMMV page without reasons that warrants a YMMV notifier.

Perhaps it can help if we start an article about the story arc that caused all this, so we can put all the details of the story and go in detail to the related trivia and audience reactions, without repeating it all at each entry about it.

The MCU does not adapt anything from it at all, so I guess that it may be confusing for non-comic book fans when they hear about this storyline, as it departs so much from the tone of the film and the character definitions they had seen in it.

But does this story arc have a name? Has it ever been collected in a TPB or similar?

Not to my knowledge no. It was a Story Arc from Avengers #211-230, and it's a strong serialized story. In-between the Avengers fight other bad guys but a panel or two would focus on Hank Pym in a downward spiral and so on. It was more a series of subplots that ultimately had a good pay-off than anything.

Not being an avid comic-reader, I can't speak to the textual accuracy of any of the various versions of the entries.

However, as an avid reader of the wiki, I do feel the need to point out that the Domestic Abuse entry on the Ant-Man page is an absolute mess of natter, bad Example Indentation, and Thread Mode.

If I'm reading the situation right, there are actually three potential examples of Domestic Abuse at play here:

• 616-Hank is abusive toward 616-Janet
• 616-Janet is abusive toward 616-Hank
• Ultimate Hank is abusive toward Ultimate Janet.

The third example is the only one that everyone seems to agree on; however, since ComicBook.Ant Man AFAIK refers only to the main 616 continuity, that entry should properly go under the page for the Ultimate universe, and indeed, I find that it is present on Characters.The Ultimates. So that one can be safely cut.

That leaves us with two potential examples, which means that there should be two, and only two, second-level bullet points under Domestic Abuse.

It might help clarify things to do a fresh writeup of those entries, in which the Hank Pym entry focuses only on the abusive actions Hank Pym takes, and the Janet entry focuses only on the abusive actions Janet takes, and the two entries refer to each other as little as possible.

Calling Janet's actions abusive is iffy. Since that's YMMV and not something many agree on. The marriage did start out in unhealthy circumstances but Janet wasn't some bad person. I read the original comic.

The entry describes her marrying a man who was not of sound mind to consent.

As an actual comic reader and fan, it was mainly just a result of bad writing. It's not YMMV over the actual content of the story, that's for sure. Everyone mostly agrees that Hank was in the wrong for his actions (as actually written, though perhaps not as intended) and Janet for hers, pre-retcon.

I will try to explain the storylines involved here.

• First, the case of Jan towards Hank (first in chronological order). Henry Pym and the Wasp, created in the 1960s, was one of those cases of a superhero with a "perpetual girlfriend". Then, a story introduces a new superhero, yellowjacket, who claims to have killed Henry Pym. He kidnaps Jan, and she surprisingly announces that she will freely get married with him. In the next issue it was revealed that yellowjacket was actually Henry Pym, who was having a mental crisis. Jan had realized it, and took the chance to get married with him, as the regular Pym was too shy to propose marriage to her. As written at the time, it was a "They Do" story with a surprise twist; and it was treated as a happy marriage immediately after. The issue that Jan manipuled a man who was not in his sane mind was a Fridge Horror thing, and later writers would eventually acknowledge it.
• The one of Hank towards Jan, on the other hand, was written as a domestic abuse from the let go (even if as a lighter and softer domestic abuse, fitting the still campy tone of the superhero genre at the time). After some build-up that specified that their marriage was not doing well, Pym slapped Jan during a discussion. She shows up at the Avengers mansion with a bruised face, Pym leaves the team in disgrace (both because of this and because of other things going on). The relation is broken, Jan divorces him, and starts working as a standalone character, instead of always being in a "ant-man & the wasp" duo. She is also appointed leader of the Avengers, to put her even more in the spotlight. This storyline would be a divisive one for both future writers and fans later on. A number of fans do not like that Pym was written under such a bad light, and try to provide justifications for it ("it was only once", "it was an accident", "Pym was out of his mind", "others did things so much worse and are easily forgiven", etc). Other fans think instead that domestic abuse is a moral event horizon, and not something that a character should come back from. And writers are in a come-and-go circle: one writer tries to rescue him from the scrappy heap, the next one treats him as dirt for being a domestic abuser, the following one tries to rescue him again, etc. etc.

What Grigor II said. Hank Pym was also written very early on as very insecure about Janet, and having feelings of guilt and self-loathing as the creator of Ultron, having "lame powers" and generally having constant identity changes and personality crises. And the end of the story has Henry Pym taking responsibility for his actions. Janet van Dyne was his Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest, Hank liked her because she resembled his first wife who was The Lost Lenore to him, so it always started from a bad place.

But in any case, the troper in question is more or less acting in bad faith and troping to minimize, excuse, and whitewash stuff. You can add in stuff about Janet but you shouldn't delete and whitewash Hank I think.

How would you write up a Domestic Abuse entry about Hank in a single bullet point?

• Hank, who developed the persona Yellowjacket during a mental breakdown, marries Janet but their initially-happy marriage quickly deteriorates and culminates in Hank slapping Janet hard enough to bruise her face. For this, he is booted off of The Avengers, he and Janet are divorced, and their superhero partnership is broken. Though the argument was not present in the original stories, later ones have also argued that Janet's rush to marry Hank while he was not in sound mental health was also abusive, or at the least manipulative.

^ That is way more concise and readable than anything we have now. I like it.

^^ 👍

Okay. But I feel that we need to add that Hank saw Janet as his Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest and the age difference between them. That part needs to be there.

—- Hank, who developed the persona Yellowjacket during a mental breakdown, marries Janet but their initially-happy marriage quickly deteriorates over time, and culminates in Hank slapping Janet hard enough to bruise her face after she tried to stop him from perpetuating a fraud against his fellow Avengers. For this, and for the exposure of the fraud, he is booted off of The Avengers, following which he and Janet divorce, and their superhero partnership is broken. It must be noted that the marriage always had a rocky foundation. Hank saw Janet as his Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest for his first wife, there was a considerable age difference between them, and Janet likewise consented to marry Hank during his Yellowjacket personality crisis, deepening an already toxic relationship.

—-

That I think is accurate, fair, and avoid victim blaming, and the vague reference to "argument not there in the original stories" and YMMV stuff is done away with.

^ Disagree. "It must be noted" is Word Cruft, and the extra details that follow it don't strengthen the case for the Domestic Abuse trope, they just add more words to read.

Hank and Janet had a bad relationship, Hank hit Janet, their marriage ended. Those are the things that matter for establishing the trope. Everything else is extraneous detail that should be covered as briefly and cleanly as possible, if at all.

I prefer Nubian Satyress version, which is cleaner.

If anything, the last sentence ("Though the argument was not present in the original stories, later ones have also argued that Janet's rush to marry Hank while he was not in sound mental health was also abusive, or at the least manipulative.") could be dropped and made into its own entry about stories in which Janet is portrayed as having been abusive toward Hank.

The fact is Janet's actions don't universally, i.e. as per general consensus, qualify as "abusive" and certainly should not be made equivalent to Hank's actions. In the context of the paragraph it was put there to minimize Hank's actions. I can add that stuff however to The Masochism Tango in terms of Hank and Janet's relationship.

I agree with removing the "Though the argument..." section and keeping the entry as is.

There is no need to compare their actions at all, whether to deem them "equivalent" or judge one as better or worse than the other.

The question is, "does knowingly marrying a person who is not of sound mind to consent qualify as abuse?"

I would submit that it does.

I disagree, abuse is a vicious and malignant act. Her marrying an unstable man smacks of short sightness but not abuse. Also its bordering a little too much like victim blaming as if her actions lead to his

"The fact is Janet's actions don't universally, i.e. as per general consensus, qualify as "abusive" and certainly should not be made equivalent to Hank's actions."

To be fair, it's entirely possible the reason people don't take this as seriously is because of that whole Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male thing. People are less likely to see things women do to men as abusive. Not saying anyone in this thread is doing this, of course, just... this is a general statement about reality and how people view situations.

Tuvok brings up a better point, that abuse is, if not always intentional, always directly hurtful and damaging to the victim. However, I would say this is abuse since it's taking advantage of someone who can't properly consent based on their mental state, which can certainly be very damaging to the person "consenting". Maybe it's not as abusive as Hank getting physical, but abuse is still abuse, and both are guilty.

I'd say lock both Ant-Man pages for now because of all this.

Like to point out that Nightwing aka Dick Grayson was raped by Tarantula when he wasn't in the right mind.

What happened to Nightwing is irrelevant to this discussion. But again as we see Janet's actions don't have consensus here, whereas Hank's actions do. So I think Janet's actions can go on the YMMV pages for people to make their case for or against her. ON the main page it doesn't need to be mentioned.

I can list that in The Masochism Tango which deals with the middle-area of bad relationships that have abusive patterns and so on but fall short of it. That can cover stuff like that.

For now, the Domestic Abuse shortened entry without the final paragraph is acceptable and a go.

I also submit that if the entry is to be locked, then the present entries made by Fast As Can Be, be removed entirely on both main and YMMV pages.

I agree

I agree as well.

I go ahead and make the changes as per consensus then?

We have consensus on the Hank Domestic Abuse example, so I move that you go ahead and remove the mess that's there now and replace it with the Hank one.

I disagree that "Janet's actions can go on the YMMV pages for people to make their case for or against her." YMMV pages are not places to go to reach consensus on objective tropes. We do that through discussion, like we're doing here now.

If there's no consensus about objective tropes, then subjective ones have to go on YMMV, no?

Can I add it under The Masochism Tango though?

What, specifically, are you proposing be added to the YMMV page? The Masochism Tango is also an objective trope, and belongs on the main page (if it applies at all).

Just keep evaluation of Janet's actions off the main page. Calling them "abusive" is dubious at best and wrong at worst and Examples Are Not Arguable.

Janet's actions should be described in an Ascended Fridge Horror entry. As I explained, when the story was first written, it was just a "They Do" story with a surprise twist, and the implications were a Fridge Horror. But that was when it was first written, back in the 1960s. Many writers worked with the characters since then and revisited those events, and the implications of Jan "abusing" of Hank by getting married with him when he was out of his mind were explicit in-story. It was usually as a "My God, What Have I Done?" realization by Janet.

It was Kurt Busiek who did that, and he specifically did that to reconstruct and "redeem" Hank, and the way to do that was to make Janet's actions equivalent to Hank's. But writers after him decided that no it wasn't remotely comparable and the same. So Depending on the Writer is also at play.

Have other writers built on Busiek's take on the relationship?

Of course it wasn't the same. If what I'm reading on this thread is accurate, Hank physically struck Janet. Janet took emotional and financial advantage of Hank's inability to consent. Two very different forms of abuse.

I think this dicussion is just going in circles :)

Could we look at several options (i.e. keeping the discussion of Janet's actions off the main page, adding the "line X" to trope A, adding the "line Y" to trope B) and just vote, or something?

Here's how I would add The Masochism Tango (which I can put on both Hank and Janet's pages) and in Masochism Tango's main page as an example there:

• The Masochism Tango: Hank and Janet always did have a very unhealthy relationship long before the infamous "slap incident":
  • On Hank's part, Janet was far younger than him. She was also, from his perspective, a Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest who resembled his first wife, and his healthiest relationship, with scientist Dr. Maria Trovaya who was killed by the Soviets. The age and generation gap created tensions in their relationship, not helped by their different personalities since she was an extroverted socialite with interests in fashion (she designed the outfits and motifs of the Avengers and indeed coined the team name) and far more invested in being a public superhero than Hank, who largely preferred being in the laboratory, and was a major introvert who rarely communicated openly to her during their relationship, which in part led to his breakdown as Yellowjacket, whose bad-boy affectations was an extreme reaction to his insecurity.
  • On Janet's part, she was often flirty, in a playful way, with her fellow male team-mates all done to make Hank jealous (which only heightened his insecurity). She was often insensitive to Hank and moreover she consented to marry Hank while in his Yellowjacket personality being aware that Hank in his normal state was too shy and emotionally crippled to do it despite wanting to, and Janet being ready to marry him regardless. While Janet believed she was helping Hank, she only heightened his emotional problems, and Hank would continue to emotionally backbite and hurt during the rest of their marriage until the incident when he slapped her led her to call it quits.

^ That's sort of a Wall of Text.

I am covering incidents that happen across thirty years of continuity. Describing things from both perspectives and so on. And it's only two paragraphs.

^^^^ "Keeping Janet's actions off the main page" is a non-option. The question isn't "do Janet's actions belong on the main page?" The question is, "what tropes belong on the main page?"

^^^ Besides being a Wall of Text, that's bad Example Indentation. It's only one example of The Masochism Tango, not two. It should have only one bullet point.

I'll try to shorten it.

• The Masochism Tango: Janet was far younger than Hank and was a Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest who resembled his first wife, Dr. Maria Trovaya. Personality wise, Janet was an extroverted socialite interested in fashion and invested in being a public superhero. She was often playful and flirty with her fellow male team-mates and insensitive to Hank. Hank was introverted and insecure, preferred staying in the laboratory and rarely communicated openly to her. This in part led to his breakdown as a "bad-boy" Yellowjacket. Janet consented to marry him in this state knowing that he was normally too shy to do it despite both of them wanting to. While Janet believed she was helping Hank, he would backbite and hurt during their marriage until the incident when he slapped her led her to call it quits.

The Masochism Tango is absolutely a main page objective trope. This is an actual description of the actions, characterizations and was addressed and treated as such within the comics multiple times.

I approve Asherinka's shortening...

Oi, might this be better moved to Wiki Talk? Thread is getting pretty long.

Shortened version of The Masochism Tango looks good to me.

Uh, this may be coming a little late, but shouldn't we be talking about possibly adding Questionable Consent marriage to the main page? I mean, if the genders were reversed everyone would be screaming 'Rape!'

That sounds reasonable to me.

I think you can add Questionable Consent too for the marriage.

I just made The Masochism Tango adjustments and a trope entry for Questionable Consent in the Ant-Man page. Based on what we agreed here. I also added in the shortened paragraph for Domestic Abuse. So I take it that this discussion is tabled.

The Questionable Consent entry can be streamlined a little. I suggest:

• Questionable Consent: Hank Pym married Janet during an emotional breakdown where he claimed the identity of Yellowjacket, a supervillain who claimed to kill "Hank". Janet knew all along that Yellowjacket was Hank, and that Hank in his normal state was too insecure to pop the question, but she married him while he was in this altered state. While Hank was happy to be married to her when he snapped back, later writers, such as Kurt Busiek, have him and Janet discuss how messed up it was for her to marry him in that situation.

I also notice an entry under Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest noting the similarities between Janet and Hank's first wife. However, Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest requires that "the new love interest appear by devices not possible in the world as we know it, such as magic, parallel universes, time travel, or cloning." This would be a more mundane case of Replacement Love Interest, which already has an entry. So I went ahead and deleted the DRLI entry.

This talk is a bit too long. Is there a way to move this to a appropriate forum or discussion?

^^ Cool. Okay, I think we have an agreement.

^ I know this discussion has been long. But there actually has been a consensus near the end.

Locking this.