Evangeline Lilly is Sleek and Fierce in Wasp Costume
by EG
At the end of Ant-Man, we got a tease of Evangeline Lilly's alter-ego, Wasp, but not until now have we seen what she'll look like in costume. Frankly, we think she looks pretty great.
Evangeline Lilly on Monday suited up to celebrate late comic book artist Jack Kirby's 100th birthday.
Lilly shared the first photo of herself wearing her Wasp costume for 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp, in which she stars opposite Paul Rudd, who plays Ant-Man.
Kirby co-created Janet van Dyne (the original Wasp) along with Stan Lee back in 1963. Lilly plays Hope, the daughter of Janet van Dyne and Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man), and though her character was actually created by writer Tom DeFalco and artist Ron Frenz in 1999, like most things in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she traces her origins back to Kirby.
"I am honoured to be on set today playing #TheWasp on what would be Jack Kirby's 100th birthday," tweeted Lilly, along with a photo of herself in the suit.
It isn't hyperbole to claim that it's impossible to imagine what the world of popular culture would look like today had Jack Kirby not lived.
The so-called "King of Comics" — a title he was too humble to claim for himself, but was gifted by the alliteration-loving Stan Lee (Jack "King" Kirby, get it?) — was born 100 years ago Monday, and it was less than two decades before he was working as a professional cartoonist under a variety of pseudonyms. ("Jack Kirby" was itself a fake name; he was born Jacob Kurtzberg, and Kirby was just one of many names he used professionally, alongside Jack Curtiss, Ted Grey and Fred Sande.) In a career that lasted almost 60 years, he didn't just revolutionize comics — more than once — he also came up with the building blocks of contemporary pop culture as it exists today.
That Marvel Studios wouldn't exist without Kirby is, of course, obvious. It's easier to name the Marvel Studios movies that aren't based on characters he co-created (for the record, those would be Guardians of the Galaxy, although Kirby was responsible for Groot, and Doctor Strange and Spider-Man: Homecoming, both of which had Steve Ditko as the guiding light instead of Kirby), and even those movies contain concepts that Kirby was responsible for or build on Kirby's ideas. His influence extends further, though: Fox's Fantastic Four and X-Men? Kirby drew the first issues and co-created both franchises alongside Stan Lee. The villains of the upcoming Justice League (as teased in last year's Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice) are also, it turns out, Kirby's creations.
You can see Kirby's fingerprints outside of superhero movies as well. Although never officially acknowledged by George Lucas, it's long been speculated that Kirby's 1970s Fourth World Saga was a huge influence on Star Wars, whether it's the name of the cosmic force behind all things (Kirby's "The Source" versus Lucas' "The Force") or the father-son relationship between the villain and hero (Kirby's Darkseid and Orion, Lucas' Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker); even Lucas' use of the "Dark Side of the Force" is a homophone for Kirby's Fourth World villain Darkseid. (Less importantly but more directly, the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie is a Fourth World movie in all but name, but it would be difficult to argue that it was a culturally important movie — sorry, He-Man fans.)
Check out the whole story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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