Avengers Classic #6: Review

Nov 2007

Macon Blair, Mike Oeming

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Story Name:

Stings

Review & Comments

Rating:

Avengers Classic #6 Review by Rob Johnson (September 2, 2023)

The Marvel Chronology Project by default places this new story immediately after Avengers #6 itself.

Wasp and Giant-Man have many other apps before Av#7 (as do the other Avengers), beginning with another retro-implant Thor: Godstorm #1 and Thor's own tale in Journey Into Mystery #101 (starting a 2-parter vs Zarrko the Tomorrow Man). Along the way they have their own stories in Tales To Astonish #57-58 (vs Egg-Head/Spider-Man and a giant alien Colossus). Wasp does have her own backup tales in those 2 issues (vs a jewel thief and the duo's earlier foe the Magician).

From Our Blog:

Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers Classic #6 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

The 1st story reprints Avengers #6 which introduced Baron Zemo and his Masters Of Evil.

Story 2:- Stings

Janet Van Dyne drives her sports car out into the country to vent her frustration at being patronised by male Avengers. It's even undermining her own self-confidence. When she gets out to let out a primal scream she hears a speeding car swerving to avoid hers and crashing.

She rushes back to the scene and sees that the vehicle is riddled with bullet holes with a bleeding semi-conscious young man inside with bags of money (conveniently labelled with big dollar signs). A teen girl with a gun catches Jan by surprise and forces her to help move the man into her own car and drive them away.

Jan gets the girl to tell her her name, Lorna, and tries to persuade her to let her take the youth to hospital. She can tell that he's bleeding into his lungs and will die of it. Lorna just tells her to drive faster as they hear cop cars behind them. She relates her sob story about growing up poor in a trailer and how she won't let her boyfriend Chris go back to jail. She's desperate enough to kill Jan and drive the car herself.

Meanwhile Jan has managed to get out a handy shrinking capsule which she swallows and turns Wasp. Lorna now *has* to take over the steering and winds up driving the car off the road again and to a halt. Wasp KO's her with a sting blast to the ear as the cop cars approach, Then she desperately flies down Chris' throat and uses another blast to cauterise the bleeding bullet hole. As she flies out again she sees Lorna awake and holding off the armed cops with her gun. Of course she winds up dead.

Little Jan sneaked into the trunk of her car and enlarged, pretending to have been held hostage in there. The cops took her (false) statement and an ambulance took Chris away. Later she found boyfriend/partner Henry Pym at his science work and he comforted her.

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