The Stoppable Wasp

Here we go again, then. I was catching up on the last couple of issues from Wednesday's haul and for to The Unstoppable Wasp #8. It was a lovely end to (I thought) the first arc: it tied together Nadia's twin legacies as Hank Pym's daughter and newest incarnation of the Wasp; it concluded a fantastic character study for Janet; and, to top it all off, it contained perhaps the most nuanced treatment of the break-up of Hank and Janet's relationship ever written and believe me there'll be a whole post on that one some time next week.

Then I got to the end and there it was: Jeremy Whitley writing the traditional and all-too-common goodbye letter with a faint touch of the Dear John to it. He even points out that the cancellation has nothing to do with the dedication of the fans (“it's not you” and so on...).

Hyperbolic as it seems I genuinely think that Nadia was the best new character Marvel has come up with since Kamala Khan. Her optimism and passion for science was a fantastic angle, never more so than when she absolutely fangirls out at Mockingbird not because she's a superhero but because she's a famous chemist.

The concept of a lab full of eccentric young female scientists had real legs even before you get into the diverse and interesting personalities that populated G.I.R.L.

But, no. The insular, risk averse industry once again discovered that it cannot afford to innovate and after a mere eight issues this promising, wonderfully written, beautifully drawn series comes to an end. Its just grand irony that this issue dropped the very same week as the first issue of Generations, the grand nostalgia project meant to appease the vocal fanboy contingent by bringing back all the white male heroes.

So this one goes on the list alongside Black Panther & The Crew as premature casualties of this industry that can somehow spawn the most popular movies on the planet and somehow not make any money off the source material because advertising is for sissies.