The cover, a John Buscema piece, is pretty cool. You got Janet bound by a giant snake, the Circus of Crime's Ringmaster and Princess Python commanding it, and Yellowjacket trying to save her with dramatic posing. The floating heads are rather amusing. I think that was a popular cover motif for the Avengers at the time. It does make Vision look like he's glaring at the cake for being ruined.
"...Till Death Do Us Part!"
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciler: John Buscema
Inker: Mike Esposcito (credited as "Mickey Demeo")
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colorist: Unknown
Editor: Stan Lee
Editor-in-Chief: Stan Lee
The story beings with Captain America holding an invitation.
Cap is shocked by this. Wasp is going to marry this man she just met, and knows nothing about. She doesn't even know who he is under the mask. Even worse, Yellowjacket claimed that he killed Hank Pym, who was Avenging as Goliath at the time. Yellowjacket also says he attends to join the Avengers. Yeah, because killing one of the founders will really endear you to them, buddy. Well, it's more complicated than that. You'll see.
Yellowjacket and Wasp arrive at the mansion, and the mysterious man gets into a verbal scrap with Hawkeye. Wasp breaks it up, and explains why she's marrying YJ: She loved Hank Pym, but her money and his research always got in the way. She finally has a chance to be happy, and she's not going to let it slip away.
Jarvis, the Avengers' loyal butler, welcomes the preacher doing the service. He then goes to greet the caterers. But they're not the caterers.
Say hello to the Circus of Crime, a group of circus performers/criminals: The Human Cannonball (Jack Pulver), the Italian acrobatic sensations known as the Great Gambonnos (Ernesto and Luigi Gambonno), the original Clown (Eliot "Crafty" Franklin), snake tamer Princess Python (Zelda DuBois), and it's leader: The Ringmaster (Maynard Tiboldt)!
Why are they here? Well, they're here for a simple reason: Revenge. Back in Thor #147 (December 1967), Thor foiled one of their schemes. Problem is, the Thunder God is not in attendance at the moment. He's engaged in a bit of a donnybrook with the Sentinel of the Spaceways, the Silver Surfer, in Silver Surfer #4 (February 1969). Yeah. Whoops. Despite that, they're going to blow up the Mansion. Elsewhere in the mansion, the guests are arriving. Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four and her friend, the Inhuman princess Crystal are helping Jan with her wedding dress.
Gotta admit, Jan looks good in that wedding dress. Crystal wonders why Jan is marrying this man she just met and barely knows. Jan's reason? She loves him. Yeah...
Anyway, the gang's all here for the big event!
The Fantastic Four, the original X-Men, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, even Nick Fury's come out of the Helicarrier to enjoy the fesitivities. And also the open bar. It's definitely the open bar. Jan walks down the aisle, and YJ kisses his new bride.
You and me both, Hawkeye. He storms off, and figures he might as well go see what's taking the caterers so long with the cake. He's a hungry archer! He wants some cake, dagnabit! The master marksman discovers the Circus of Crime. The Human Cannonball and the Gambonno Brothers are able to knock the archer out. You'd think with all the other superheroes in attendance, they'd pick up that something was going down. Maybe Jean would pick up Clint's thoughts, somebody would hear him, Spider-Man's Spider-Sense may be going off...just, something.
The Circus (presumably in disguise, of course) bring out the cake. Wasp uses the Black Knight's Ebony Blade to cut it. Fun fact, this Black Knight was Dane Whitman. He would be an Avenger himself in the future, where he'd have a bit of a crush on Wasp. The millionaire cuts into the cake...and gets a nasty surprise.
ANACONDA! SOMEBODY CALL ICE CUBE! The giant snake coils itself around Janet Van Dyne, but Black Panther comes to the rescue. He gets the snake off and the Vision blasts it with his eye beams. The Circus of Crime bursts into the room. You'd think they would notice all the superheroes in the room, and just surrender peacefully. Well, they would...if they were smart. But they're dumb. Very dumb.
Despite the fact that the wedding is attended by practically every major active superhero Marvel had at the time, the Avengers are the ones who engage in combat with the Circus. Ringmaster and Princess Python hold the Wasp hostage, demanding the Avengers surrender. Yellowjacket is trembling in rage and fear...and he undergoes another transformation.
Yellowjacket is Hank Pym! "But wait!", you may ask yourself. "Didn't he say he killed Hank Pym?" I did say that it was more complicated than that. You'll see. The giant Avenger is easily able to free Janet from the python, and uses it to tie up the Ringmaster. The Black Panther is able to dismiss the Great Gambonnos, and the Vision dispatches the Clown. But wait, where's Hawkeye?
There he is! The Avenging Archer is able to free himself from his predicament thanks to some acid arrows. He hears the din of battle has ended, and goes to find out what's going on. The battle has ended thanks to the Wasp laying out Princess Python with a Mighty Punch. Hawkeye is disappointed that he missed the brawl, he's also confused as to where Goliath came from.
Wasp explains it because somehow she knows how it went down: Turns out Hank had a little accident in his lab with some gases that messed up his mind a bit.
Considering that future stories [particularly Avengers A.I. #5 (October 2013)] will reveal that Hank suffers from bipolar disorder (His daughter Nadia would suffer from it herself), I can imagine this did not help things. Wasp states that Hank had developed a case of "schizophrenia" from the accident which created the Yellowjacket persona...but I don't think that's how it works. But then again, it is 1969, and it's likely Roy Thomas did no research on it.
Janet claims that she noticed the clues that tipped her off, but this makes no sense. Yellowjacket first appeared in the issue before this one. There wasn't a lot of time to hint that YJ was Pym. What clues did Wasp see? Either way, it turns out that the marriage is legal. Wasp looked it up. Yeah, because that is marriage law works, today AND in the 1960s.
I get that this era was an iconic one for the Avengers, and had effects on the team that still have impact today. It introduced the Vision, the first clash with the Squadron Sinister/Supreme, and went more cosmic thanks to the Kree-Skrull War. But I will be honest. This really isn't a great comic.
The big fight scene makes no sense. You had all these superheroes at the wedding, but they didn't help fight the Circus of Crime?! What were they doing, all hanging out at the bar?! They were all passed out drunk or something?! The whole story comes off like a first draft, a quickly-slapped together thing that should be edited further. At the very least, Yellowjacket should have stuck around longer and dropped more hints that he was Pym. And that whole thing with Wasp agreeing to marry Pym despite his clearly being not in the right mind? Yeah, that was awkward.
Fun fact, it would be during the events of this comic that Yellowjacket would be one of the Avengers recruited to stop Immortus and the Time-Keepers in Avengers Forever #1 (December 1998). Hank Pym would continue to use the Yellowjacket identity until Avengers #93 (November 1971), when he reassumed the Ant-Man identity. He would go back to the Yellowjacket name when Scott Lang took up the Ant-Man mantle, Pym's second tenure as Yellowjacket was longer, but much rougher, with him suffering a mental breakdown (which led to a notorious moment in his life), being imprisoned on false charges of treason, and Janet divorcing him. More recently, he ended up merged with Ultron and his soul was devoured by a monster living inside the Soul Gem (One of the six Infinity Gems).
Buscema's art is really nice, so that's something in the comic's favor, but Roy Thomas has written better. If you really want to read this story for yourself, I recommend tracking down the 2015 trade paperback Avengers Epic Collection Vol. 4: Behold...the Vision. Thanks for reading this blog entry! Next time, in honor of Pride Month, let's take a look at an early appearance of Marvel's first major LGBT character...
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