‘The Avengers’ Originally Included The Wasp Over Black Widow

It may be hard to believe, but The Avengers is about to hit a big birthday. It has nearly been 6 years since the film dropped, and in that time, a huge handful of films have gone life. Most recently, the third Avengers flick went live, but fans are still going back to the first blockbuster. Now, audiences have learned some new tidbits about the Joss Whedon film from the man himself, and it seems the guy was much more attached to the Wasp than fans thought.

Recently, Whedon sat down with Thrillist to talk about his Marvel tenure, and it was there he opened up about how the Wasp originally factored into The Avengers. The director said he opted for the tiny heroine to be in the crossover feature at first as it looked like Scarlet Johansson wasn’t going to be available for filming.

“I wrote a huge bunch of pages starring The Wasp. That was not useful. I also worried that one British character actor was not enough to take on Earth’s mightiest heroes, and that we’d feel like we were rooting for the overdog,” the director explained.

Of course, fans know Whedon was ultimately able to go with Black Widow over the Wasp for The Avengers. The heroine’s appearance was streamlined thanks to her debut in Iron Man 2. The Wasp would have needed a full-on introduction in The Avengers, a choice which would have taken up a lot of real estate in an already crowded movie. So, Black Widow was picked over the Wasp, and Janet van Dyne was left to make a brief appearance in Ant-Man when the solo film dropped in 2015.

The Wasp might have gotten overlooked for The Avengers, but Janet will creep into the franchise soon enough. This year, Ant-Man and the Wasp is slated to pull the heroine in the MCU as Michelle Pfeiffer has been cast as the heroine. It is expected that the star will bring the original Wasp into play during Avengers 4 alongside her daughter Hope van Dyne who inherited the alias as of late. So, it looks like Whedon’s vision for the Wasp is finally coming around… even if it is a few years too late.

Do you think it was smart of the MCU to hold off on the Wasp and give Black Widow an extended spotlight? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!