Washington (that’s the state people) has produced a lot in its history from music like Jimi Hendrix and Alice in Chains to infamous killers like The Green River Killer.  In the near future, Washington main give birth to a new super hero (or possibly super villian), Waspman. 

Waspman, aka Joe Average,  was once your average nuclear waste disposal worker at the Hanford Site, the decommissioned nuclear production complex in Washington.  Once the origin of the plutonium used for the Manhattan Project, Hanford has since been shut down and hard working folk like Joe Average were brought in to properly remove any contamination.  Unknown to all, the local mud wasps had made their nests on site, using radioactive mud to make their homes.  It was one of those wasps, contaminated with cesium and cobalt, that stung Joe.  It was with that sting that Waspman was born into the world to defend it from evil. 

Unfortunately, the high dose of radiation caused severe radiation poisoning.  Waspman’s hair fell out and he was made forever sterile.

Or not.

The radioactive wasp nests are real though.  Workers doing further cleanup around the Hanford Site’s H-Reactor are removing mud wasp nests contaminated with cesium and cobalt because the insects used mud from the site.  Only the nests are radioactive (which shoots down my idea of trying to get stung to get super powers) and the nests are abandoned because the wasps do not reuse the nests.  Not only are there no radioactive wasps, but mud wasps aren’t very aggressive to begin with. 

So no giant wasps or unexplained disappearances or even any new super heroes.