Wasp #2 // Review
Janet Van Dyne just put away one of her oldest foes. Again. He speaks the name of a much bigger threat that she and her colleague Nadia are going to have to begin to investigate in Wasp #2. Writer Al Ewing reaches the halfway point in his four-part series with the aid of artist Kasia Nie and colorist K.J. Díaz. The mystery thriller is well-rendered in script and panel as Ewing and company ratchet up the tension in a series that’s going to feel like it’s over WAY too soon as it reaches its end in a couple of months.
David Cannon calls himself Whirlwind. He’s one of the oldest villains in the Marvel Universe. Made his first appearance all the way back in 1963. Back then, he was calling himself The Human Top, but that was a different life altogether from an altogether different timeline. He may not be as old as all of that, but he HAS got quite a history with Janet Van Dyne. He’s in prison now. He may no longer be a threat, but he’s not exactly a big help either. Even in one of the most secure detention facilities on the planet, he fears for his life. He fears something known only as W.H.I.S.P.E.R.
Ewing has a great deal of backstory to bring across before he can launch everything into full gear for the thriller. Unfortunately, this means that a fair amount of the issue is dialogue-heavy exposition between Janet and Nadia that grinds along as things progress glacially toward action, which should be well and fully ready for the second part of the series when it finally hits early this coming Spring. That being said, the interpersonal drama between Janet and Nadia DOES have a certain appeal that might be served by the long expository incubation period early on in the second issue.
Nie and Díaz have a crisp and dense handle on the more intimate scenes between Janet and Nadia. There’s real stress and fatigue to be read in the freckled face of Nadia as she deals with some of the weightier aspects of the drama. There’s breathtaking nuance in the visual end of the complexity of adoptive mother and daughter heroes. By contrast, the actual action feels a bit stiff as it rolls into place in the second half of the issue.
The horror scene that the issue ends on promises to launch the series in a very intriguing direction. If Ewing is plunging Janet and Nadia into more of a cosmic horror sort of thing, Nie and Díaz’s moody, dramatic art could move into much sharper focus, allowing for the series to end in a much stronger place than where it’s started. For all the awkward, clunky exposition, Ewing IS putting a pair of really interesting characters on the page...and they look suitably heroic thanks to the efforts of Nie and Díaz. All the right elements are there for a good series. They just need to assemble themselves on the page in the second half of the series.
