10 Greatest Avengers Of All Time

5. Wasp

Wasp Comic
Marvel Comics

Although his first MCU film may have dubbed Captain America 'The First Avenger', that's not entirely accurate - at least when it comes to the comics.

As was previously mentioned, the first Avengers lineup was made up of Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and the Wasp. Captain America wouldn't join until Avengers #4 when he was fished out of the Arctic, and that makes the question of who actually founded the Avengers an interesting one to contemplate.

Technically, there isn't a single 'first' Avenger, but there was only one who came up with the name: Janet van Dyne, aka Wasp. Janet and husband Hank Pym had been fighting crime as a duo for a little while before, and it was her husband who initially proposed that the team-up be made permanent, but it was she he came up with the group's now immortal title.

Of course, Janet's contributions to the Avengers have stemmed far beyond just the team's name. She's been a valuable member in nearly every incarnation, and has had to deal with her fair share of hurt through it all, even divorcing Pym in the eighties. Through it all she's remained one of the team's most iconic and valued members, and one who's clearly destined for greater things in the future.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.