Name: Janet van Dyne
Appearance:
Alias: The Wasp
Hero, Walking-the-line, or Villain: Hero
Age: 23
Appearance: Janet naturally stands at 5'4" with blue eyes and shoulder length auburn hair which frames a pretty face which sports a contagious smile, dimples and all. She has a slender, athletic build with flaring hips and feminine curves.
Background and Hero/Villain Origins: Daughter of world renowned and wealthy scientist Vernon van Dyne. Janet was a flighty, self-centered dilettante living luxuriously on her father's fortune. Then, while visiting her father at his laboratory, Janet was caught in an explosion caused by a radical environmental group. The explosion killed her father and left Jan concussed after being exposed to a biochemical cloud. While unconscious, Janet's body underwent subtle changes until, after a week her body began to shrink and formed wasp-like wings. Jan quickly came to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention and they quietly removed her from the hospital for observation.
Jan woke shortly after and was asked by S.H.I.E.L.D. to be an agent. Her first instinct was to blow off the highly structured, militaristic-like organization. She believed S.H.I.E.L.D. to have too many rules, procedures, and too much secrecy. They allowed Jan to leave, but kept tabs on her. Not much time passed before Janet began fighting crime with a carefree and, some would say, almost reckless attitude. It was after months of using her abilities on a regular basis that Jan began experiencing debilitating nausea, headaches, blurred vision, disorientation, and vertigo whenever she shrank. S.H.I.E.L.D. offered the services of their scientists and doctors, and Jan grudgingly accepted.
Since then, Janet has allocated funds to study her father's experiments in an attempt to replicate the biochemical cloud which caused her mutation. With S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help, Janet has been able to keep the debilitating symptoms at bay, though it's unknown how long the treatment will continue to work.
Powers/Abilities:
Size Reduction: Janet can reduce herself in size, down to the dimensions of the insect from which she takes her name, roughly 1/2 inch in height. She usually chooses not to retain her standard density while at this reduced mass, but can choose to do so at will. Additionally, her strength is boosted while she is at reduced size, to the extent that she can bend a one-inch diameter steel bar almost double.
Flight: Due to her insect wings, Janet can fly at incredibly fast speeds (~60 m.p.h.). Her wings are functional when she reduces herself in height (shorter than 4').
Wasp's Sting: The Wasp can generate powerful bio-electric blasts from her hands that have been shown to be capable of blasting through high-density structures and is able to cause extreme pain to superhumanly strong and highly durable beings.
Size Addition: In addition to being able to shrink, Wasp can grow significantly in size as well. The growth process requires the rapid acquisition of bodily mass. This extra mass fortifies all of her cellular tissues, including her bones and muscles, enabling her to support her increased weight, and giving her superhuman strength. Due to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s prediction that Jan will experience unrecoverable bodily strains as a side-effect of such powers, Janet uses this power only in emergencies, preferring to shrink to her wasp-sized form.
Multilingual: Janet is fluent in Spanish and English.
Weaknesses/Tragic Flaw:
Size Reduction: While her strength is boosted her durability is not, meaning that anything that would harm a normal human being will also harm Jan. Further, being ½ an inch tall brings with it a number of dangers that do not exist to beings of an average size. Further, normal clothing does not shrink with her.
Flight: Only usable when she reduces her height to at least 4', she is unable of carrying anyone while flying.
Wasp Sting: (could use help)
Size Addition: Excessive use will cause unrecoverable bodily strain upon Jan resulting in pain and possible paralysis or the inability to further alter her size and mass. Normal clothing does not increase in size with her body.
Hero/Villain Relationships: Nothing currently. (Would like to work with Magneto and Cap's players since both characters are with S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Occupation: Fashion designer, heiress, and adventurer.
Other:
Sample Post:
The sun shone high in the sky, its pinnacle nearly reached, and the heat of the day was quickly climbing. It was going to be a god-awful day, with sweltering temperatures hot enough to melt plastic, the stench of garbage and eight million people living too close to one another was going to become overly ripe on the street level, and the heat, trapped between the tall thirty-story buildings, would keep the emergency services active all day.
High above the streets of the city, temperatures were bearable upon the rooftop of Janet's penthouse. The heiress to the van Dyne fortune was lounging poolside, conferencing with her seamstress on her tablet, and paying attention to the radio scanner which was squawking upon the marble table a few feet away.
Despite talking business, Jan wasn't dressed in business attire. Her hair was still damp from her most recent dip, her Gucci sunglasses shaded her eyes, and her two-piece displayed her bountiful bronzing skin.
"No, you're not listening. I said cerulean, not teal, raise the hem two inches, and decrease the width of the straps by an eighth. Taper the bodice and lighten the print. It's that simple," Jan said with a smile despite the level of command in her tone.
She listened to her seamstress as the woman began to argue once more, though, a report on the police scanner stole her attention. "Trust me on this. I'll call you back. Make the alterations," the designer said before abruptly ending the call.
She sat her tablet upon the outdoor lounge chair as she stood and changed into a specially made suit, which she had stylized herself. She could already hear the police sirens drawing closer and a thrilled grin slowly spread upon her lips. A moment later, she was running, her body shrinking with but a thought, gossamer wings appearing from her back. Another moment and Janet van Dyne, heiress and fashion designer, was diving off the side of her building, her wasp-like wings carrying her toward the telltale sounds of a crime-in-progress.
