'WandaVision' and 'Ant-Man's Jimmy Woo Is A Badass In The Comics

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, F.B.I. Agent James E. Woo is a sort of dorky comic relief character played by Randall Park. His most badass feats in Ant-Man and the Wasp are managing to get past a little girl (eventually) and mastering a card trick (off-camera).

On the other hand, the comic book version of the same character has been kicking ass for almost 70 years. Jimmy Woo actually predates most of the Marvel Universe, having debuted in a 1956 Atlas Comics series called Yellow Claw, which ... was pretty racist. Like, "mystical Chinese martial artist in a toga and a Fu Manchu mustache trying to take over the world because he hates freedom" racist. But, amid the horribleness, the comic was also notable for introducing Jimmy, who is Chinese-American, as one of the first non-stereotyped Asian heroes in comics -- in a rarity for the times, they allowed Jimmy to pronounce the letter "r" and only occasionally colored his skin yellow.

One of Jimmy's earliest adventures, in 1957, was about him volunteering to get shrunk down and single-handedly taking down a small (pun intended) army of toy-sized soldiers, meaning that he was fighting evil on a subatomic level half a decade before Ant-Man was even created.

Yellow Claw only lasted four issues, but Jimmy was brought back the following decade for the controversial Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. series. Eventually, Jimmy ends up joining S.H.I.E.L.D., probably because his F.B.I. job didn't offer him as many opportunities to do bonkers stuff like fighting aliens, facing off against Hitler's new clone body, or shattering living skeletons with his fists.

During that series, we also find out that Jimmy is 1) a Burt Lancaster fan and 2) remarkably flexible.

Through his S.H.I.E.L.D. gig, Jimmy was selected to be part of the agency's "Godzilla Squad" (while Marvel had the rights to publish Godzilla comics), meaning that "keeping track of giant radioactive reptiles" became part of his official job description. Jimmy was even picked to pilot a giant Godzilla-killing mecha called Red Ronin, but unfortunately, he didn't get to do it because a kid's mind was imprinted into the robot.  

More recently, it was retroactively established that Jimmy had founded the very first Avengers team in the 1950s (when you've met clone Hitler and Godzilla, it's natural for stuff like that to slip your mind). This team, which was vastly superior to the best-known Avengers simply by virtue of having a talking gorilla, reunited in the 2000s as the Agents of Atlas and had a bunch of crazy adventures that would take us ten more articles to sum up. More recently, the Agents of Atlas name was revived for a team made out of Marvel heroes of Asian ascent – with Jimmy deservedly at the head.

So the next time you see a random supporting cast member acting like a dweeb in the MCU, keep in mind they can probably kick your ass in another reality. In conclusion: give us a Gorilla-Man movie ASAP, Marvel.

Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment on every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com. 

Top image: Marvel Comics