Carol Danvers is a Bad Friend to the WASP: Avengers Vol 1 #195– May 1980

Avengers Vol 1 #195: "Assault on a Mind Cage!"

Ms. Marvel can’t even view the WASP as a friend, so she embarrasses herself in an unnecessary speech. I blame it on the writer.

This issue opens a few minutes after the previous issue ends. All of the Avengers have arrived at the Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane to search for the WASP. They also bring an additional member with them, Yellow-Jacket (Hank Pym), the WASP’s husband and he brought his friend and employee with him, Ant-Man (Scott Lang). Yellow-Jacket is confused as Captain America explains to his everything that happened in the previous issue. How a mentally ill man called Seble came to the mansion seeking help, believing he is about to be killed. The Avengers were skeptical, but the WASP believed him. Even after people from the institute came with a court order, the WASP still believed him. So, when she failed to appear at their meeting a few minutes later, they realized she had gone to the institute by herself. A brave woman indeed.

Since the Avengers don’t have a search warrant, they send in Yellow-Jacket who takes Ant-Man with him to search the place and to search for the WASP. What they find isn’t very reassuring. They find a lot of fire power and guards during some intense physical combat training. Not what you would expect to find in a mental institution. In the next room they hear people talk about an order for Dr. Octopus and realize that this entire place is a façade for a training place for evil people’s goons. Bad people do seem like they have an endless supply of idiot with muscles who do whatever they are told without thinking.

One of Ant-Man’s ants finds the WASP. She’s on a table and her head is in a tank filled with what appears to be sleeping gas. Ant-Man sends thousands of ants to attack the people who captured the WASP, who also insult her. They wake-up the WASP who has one serious headache. She tells them that she had to follow Seble. She heard that they were preparing him for an operation and decided to grow to normal size to help him and to get some answers. That was a mistake. She was spotted immediately and blasted with sleeping gas.

Ant-Man realizes that perhaps they too are being watched and he is correct. The head doctor appears, and it also appears that he is Seble, only older. It also appears that the weapons his goons are design specifically to hurt the Avengers, they damage the nervous system.

The Avengers have no idea that their friends are in trouble. They simply pass the time. It also appears that Ms. Marvel is passing the time with Wonder Man.

Ms. Marvel misinterprets Wonder Man’s concern for the WASP as chauvinism and embarrasses herself. In her own run her feminism was shown, not told, now she needs to talk about it. Wonder Man says that he still feels that he and Iron Man should have smashed their way in to rescue the WASP. Ms. Marvel interrupts him and says that it’s not the 60s anymore, and he should stop thinking about men as physically superior, and that women are not damsel in distress, the WASP is a valuable member of the Avengers and just as capable as any other male team member. Wonder Man cuts her off saying that that was not what he was going to say, he just wanted to say that they should have done that because they are her friends. Ms. Marvel’s only response is “oh”. Her opinion of Wonder Man was clearly wrong. She gave him a big speech when he is already there in his mind. Her mind is not. She looks at the WASP as part of the Avengers, but unlike Wonder Man, she doesn’t view her as a friend is trouble. Which we could see in the previous issue where she said some pretty awful things to the WASP and she’s not even sorry for it in this issue. This is just awful, and it totally goes against what Ms. Marvel used to stand for.

Meanwhile the WASP, Yellow-Jacket and Ant-Man find out that Seble is a clone of the Dr. who raised him, so he can harvest his organs for himself. Ant-Man and Yellow-Jacket attack the goons with the help of ants. The Dr. tries to take down the WASP, but come on, she’s a superhero, she takes him out without effort. Then they fight against some more goons and win.

On the outside the Avengers see an aircraft arriving. They don’t know who is in it.

Back inside the house the WASP enters Seble cells and frees him. Then the master of the house walks in, carrying unconscious Ant-Man and Yellow-Jacket. It is the Taskmaster. Whoever this is.

While the WASP shines bright in this issue Ms. Marvel makes a total fool of herself. She gives Wonder Man a very you’re an old-fashioned man and the world has changed, and woman are just as powerful as men speech, when all he wanted was to be a better friend to the WASP. He is worried about her. Ms. Marvel seem to view it as just another mission and she’s not overly worried about the WASP. Not even feeling sorry for all the terrible things she said to the WASP in the previous issue, even when it is now clear that the WASP was correct, and Ms. Marvel was horribly wrong. I just blame it on the writer David Michelinie, who just doesn’t get Ms. Marvel.

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