Avengers #59: Review

Oct 1968

Roy Thomas, John Buscema

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Story Name:

The name is ... Yellowjacket

Review & Comments

Rating:

Avengers #59 Review by Rob Johnson (June 24, 2022)

Next issue of course we'll discover that Yellowjacket is a split personality of Henry Pym.

We saw Hank Pym's suburban house (with its science lab) wrecked by Dragon Man in #42, and after that we saw he'd moved to a lab in Avengers Mansion. But last issue we learned that he rebuilt it and invented Ultron-1 there. However the robot rebelled against its creator and hypnotised him into abandoning the place and moving to the Mansion, and forgetting all about Ultron. The building got damaged again then, so Pym must have repaired it again and moved back in. But it seems to have a for sale notice now.

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes II mini-series expands on this issue and next.

EMH2#1-4 actually take place between last issue and this 1:-
These issues have a background plot involving AIM stealing the Super-Adaptoid and using it to create an army of Adaptoids. The Government don't trust the Vision and get SHIELD to take him into custody and check he's not the missing Super-Adaptoid
The Government create an American civilian id for T'Challa as Luke Charles, a teacher of world history who becomes worried about a student who is bullied. (In the main series we don't meet Luke Charles until #77.) Meanwhile an uhappy Wakandan faction hires Death Tiger to kill T'Challa.
Goliath takes on the pressure of being Chairman of the Avengers.
Hawkeye and Black Widow split up over her working for SHIELD.
The Avengers have an angry (especially Hawkeye) meeting with Nick Fury. SHIELD hires the Avengers to deal with AIM's army of Super-Adaptoids, but they only agree if Vision is released to rejoin them.
The Avengers (mainly Goliath) destroy the Adaptoids but the original Super-Adaptoid escapes. Hank Pym is disturbed by the all the androids he had to kill. His anger and frustration cause the chemical accident which turn him into Yellowjacket.

EMH2#5 and the 1st half of #6 cover this issue:-
The Avengers all actually recognise that YJ is Henry Pym but play along with him because he's obviously mentally ill. In YJ's lair Janet Van Dyne tries to get through to Hank but fails.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers #59 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

There's a new hero in town called Yellowjacket and he foils the night-time robbery of a furriers. His hands emit bio-energy blasts he calls stingers, and he has shoulder-projections which vibrate and enable him to fly (apparently even at human size). He won't cooperate with the police but the Daily Bugle still likes him even though he has an insect-id like Spider-Man (possibly because J Jonah Jameson was part owner of the furrier).

The next day the Avengers except Goliath gather for a regular meeting. Wasp is worried because Henry Pym was spending more and more time in his science lab. Black Panther wonders whether he should be an Avenger or return to rule Wakanda. Vision has begun to experience humanity's hatred for the different. Hawkeye's worried about Black Widow and we see her testing a nerve gas for Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan of SHIELD. Edwin Jarvis is back butlering (after the beating he took in #55) but he's interrupted when Yellowjacket ties him up (as Hawkeye did in #16 when *he* wanted to join the team). YJ then introduces himself to the Avengers and asks to join. As a recommendation(?!) he claims to have killed Goliath. He tells them how, and we see it all as a flashback.

Last night he sneaked into Pym's suburban house and knocked the scientist out by dropping a ceiling grating on him. He was carrying him away when Hank woke up and grew giant-size. A stinger in the eyes made Goliath stumble about blinded until he crashed out of the side of the house, wrecking it. Then YJ fired a gas gun which caused Pym to shrink to ant-size and get menaced by a spider which wouldn't obey his mental commands.

The Avengers attack and Yellowjacket fights back, including summoning a horde of yellowjacket wasps. He ends the battle by taking Wasp hostage and KOing her with a nerve pinch. Then he flies off with her ...

... to his high-tech hideout (nestled in a tree) he calls the Hornet's Nest. He's removed her wrist-stings and Avengers communicator. She still doesn't want believe Hank's dead because YJ wouldn't have confessed it to the Avengers. But the guy says they'll never find the body so he can't be prosecuted. She tries to slap his face but he grabs her and kisses her. He then apologises but she finds she liked it.

Later the Avengers detect her communicator back on and fly to the site in a small city at City Hall. They see Wasp and YJ leaving and they attack him again. But Janet Van Dyne calls them off saying she's going to marry him.

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