Wrathful Wasps

Spears? Drills?! Fire magic?! As if wasps weren't scary enough... (art by flame-shadow on Tumblr)

It's hard to think of bugs that are more hated than wasps. While angry swarms of bees can inspire fear, they are generally beloved for having a more apparent positive effect on the environment as well as having calmer temperaments. Spiders are also notoriously scary, but there are just as many people who love them for keeping bug populations under control as there are those who loathe them. And even scorpions have a Creepy Awesome appeal going for them. But on a surface level, wasps are essentially nastier bees without any of their good traits: they're far easier to piss off, they can and will sting multiple times once angered, and in the cases of certain wasps, paralyze their prey with agonizing venom so they can lay eggs on them and have their young slowly devour the host bug after hatching.

And as one would expect, media portrayals of wasps tend to reflect on how your average Joe views them: wrathful, spiteful, petty little monsters that will sting people for no reason while sentient ones are savages fueled by bloodlust at worst and total jerks at best. And while there is some level of Truth In Television regarding their aggression, it's also a huge oversimplification. Social wasps won't just sting people for no reason, but they are territorial and will defend their nests from any potential threats... and a lot of the time, a "threat" just happens to be some poor schmuck who doesn't realize that they're dangerously close to a wasp nest until it's too late. Solitary wasps such as cicada killer wasps or infamously, the tarantula hawk are also a lot more docile than their social cousins and won't sting unless you really go out of your way to piss them off.

Compare to Bee Afraid, which is more of a bee-focused version of this trope.

Examples of Wrathful Wasps include:

Anime and Manga

As befitting of a manga that revolves around insect-based fighting techniques, Arachnid has Hornet, an assassin codenamed after the terrifying Asian Giant Hornet. And much like the bug that inspired his name, his fighting style revolves around using analyptic shock-inducing stings to kill his targets.
Soifon/Sui-Feng from Bleach is the Second Squad captain of Soul Society's Thirteen Court Guard Squads, and incorporates a lot of hornet motifs in her personality and fighting style... specifically, the infamously lethal Japanese Giant Hornet. Fittingly, she's a nasty and unpleasant little woman who bullies her subordinates, takes sadistic joy out of mercilessly crushing her opponents, and is capable of killing people in two hits with her Zanpakuto, which turns into a rocket launcher in its Bankai form. She does have a kinder side to her, but it's usually saved exclusively for Yoruichi, her former mentor who she may or may not have a crush on.
Mushizo from Ninja Scroll is not only horribly ugly, but has a hornet's nest built into his back. He can use his hornets as living weapons against his enemies, as well as scouts to gather information with.
Despite what the name would tell you, the Junji Ito story Beehive revolves around hornet-themed horror. It revolves around a strange boy with a weirdly intimate bond with dangerous Japanese hornets that become unusually docile around him and will let him pick up their nests and move them around. They're also very protective of him, and attack the protagonist when he tries to swipe a nest he's grabbed. He's also condemned to a horrifying fate of being paralyzed and having his flesh slowly stripped from his body by the hornets as they use it as building material for a nest built around the boy's severed head.
The Pokémon anime has swarms of angry wasp-like Beedrills as a recurring menace.
General Wasperus from the Spider-Man J manga is just one of the many bug-themed bad guys Spidey fights among Lord Beastius' henchmen, and he's a surprisingly dark villain despite the manga's lighthearted, silly tone. While most villains are comedic nuisances, he's a cold-blooded sadist who goes out of his way to try to hurt Spider-Man on an emotional level, and his endgame is to enslave all of Tokyo with his "Stealth Bee" creations.

Comic Books

Ethan van Sciver's Cyberfrog has the Vyspyzz, a race of aliens that look like huge wasps that serve as a major villainous faction.
Yellowjacket is the superhero identity Hank Pym assumed during the mental breakdown that led to his brief outing as a supervillain: after being court-martialed for excessive force, Hank would create a robot that would endanger the Avengers while he would stop it and make himself look like a hero in an insane, desperate bid to avoid punishment. However, this stunt is greatly overshadowed by him striking his wife in a fit of mania, and despite writer Jim Shooter intending it to be the result of wild, careless gesturing, the artist decided to frame it as him intentionally, viciously slapping her to the ground which has saddled him with the reputation of being an unstable wife-beater that he's never been able to entirely shake.

Film

Amityville Dollhouse uses wasps to horrific effect when one burrows into Todd's ear, necessitating its removal in a scene that can only be described as downright nausea-inducing.
Unlike the ants which are anthropomorphic, sentient, and pleasant to look at, the wasps from The Ant Bully are feral, animalistic beasts that are closer in appearance and behavior to real insects. They're one of the main threats faced by the ants, and regularly try to steal the caterpillars they use as livestock.
Corny 1950's horror flick The Wasp Woman has, you guessed it, the titular wasp woman. She was once a normal woman (albeit in charge of a company geared around beauty products), but thanks to taking an experimental treatment augmented with enzymes from wasp queen jelly (which doesn't exist, by the way), she periodically turns into a murderous wasp/human hybrid.
Stung is a B-Movie (no pun intended) where the monsters are parasitic wasps that have been genetically enhanced by a special fertilizer. As a part of their genetic "quirks", they lay their eggs in humans, and the larva grow to ridiculous sizes before ripping their way out of their host and wreaking havoc. Definitely not easy to watch if you've got a fear of wasps, despite the movie's overall comedic tone.

Literature

Since The Hound of the D'Urbervilles focuses on all the ways Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes serve as foils to one another, Moriarty is a waspkeeper while Holmes opts to raise bees instead.
Tracker Jackers from The Hunger Games were genetically enhanced to serve as bioweapons for the capitol, and to say that they succeeded is putting it lightly. These hellish hornets are relentless to the point of chasing prey for over a mile, and their venom is not only agonizing, but can cause its victims to hallucinate. And unfortunately for the teens forced to compete in the Hunger Games, they're just one of the many obstacles they have to face in their desperate bid to be the last man standing.

Video Games

The "bees" from Animal Crossing are actually wasps, and are one of the series' few hazards. While they can't kill the player, disturbing a nest by shaking the wrong tree will result in an entire swarm of angry wasps chasing after the player. They can't be outrun (unless you're very close to a building you can duck inside of) and if you fail to catch them with your bug net, they'll sting you and cause one of your eyes to swell up for a while.
The main villain of Bug Fables is the Wasp King, the merciless tyrant in charge of the Wasp Kingdom and has an entire legion of equally bloodthirsty wasp soldiers at his command (all of which are pictured above). However, this is subverted in two different ways: the soldiers of the Wasp Kingdom military are actually brainwashed into being evil and are otherwise good-natured. And the Wasp King isn't even a wasp, but a wasp-mimic fly!
- As far as individual non-brainwashed examples go, there's Zasp of Team Mothiva. He's more of a Jerk With a Heart of Gold than a true villain, but is a real ass towards Team Snakemouth when he first meets them, and even when he mellows out he's perfectly willing to attack them if it helps boost his partner/crush Mothiva's reputation as the best explorer around.
The zombies of Dead Rising are unique in the sense that their zombification isn't the result of a virus or some kind of dark magic, but parasitic wasps with venom that zombifies people so they can serve as hosts for their young.
Zingers from Donkey Kong Country are something of a mix between wasps and bees, and are a common enemy in the franchise. They're the size of gorillas and can only be killed with barrels thanks to their huge stingers and barbed bodies protecting them from the Kongs' physical attacks.
The Cazadores from Fallout: New Vegas are some of the most infamous enemies in the franchise and are feared by many a series veteran. And they've got good reason to be afraid: these mutant wasps are huge, quick, aggressive, and can kill you very quickly with their deadly venom. Even worse, they're based on a real wasp (Which isn't aggressive, but packing one of the most painful stings known to man).
Hornet Man from Mega Man 9 is a goodhearted beekeeping robot and a friendly creation of Dr. Light's, but goes on a rampage thanks to Dr. Wily manipulating him and his siblings into villainy. And thanks to the bee robots he shoots at the player, he's quite the tough adversary.
- Blast Hornet from Mega Man X3 is in a similar boat: he was once a Maverick Hunter on the side of justice, but exposure to the Maverick Virus turned him evil. Unfortunately, while Hornet Man is rebuilt and turns good again, Blast Hornet gets no such happy ending.
The Pokémon Beedrill may be named after bees, but its appearance and temperament are closer to that of hornets, only three feet tall and with a nasty pair of stingers for hands. They're Bug/Poison types known for their fierce tempers and tendencies to attack in swarms when they're riled up, but fortunately for the player this doesn't really translate into the gameplay where they're rarely seen in the wild, never attack by swarming, and are incredibly weak.
- This is played a lot straighter, however, with Mega Beedrill, Beedrill's Mega Evolution introduced in the Gen 6 games. It's sleeker, meaner looking, has stingers on all its limbs, and is a lightning-quick glass cannon that can punch holes through entire teams thanks to its ridiculous Attack stat.
Vespoids from Monster Hunter are cat-sized wasp-like bugs that love nothing more than flying up to you and stinging you in the middle of a fight. Best case scenario, you take a tiny amount of damage and flinch. Worst case scenario, you're completely paralyzed and left a sitting duck for the angry monster you've been whaling on. Only Bullfangos outdo them in sheer annoyance factor.
While most of Kirby: Triple Deluxe is spent chasing Taranza, the real villain is his mistress, the wasp-like Queen Sectonia. Sociopathic and narcissistic to a horrifying extreme, Sectonia is a ruthless conqueror who seeks to crush Popstar under her thumb and is just as cruel to her minions as she is towards her enemies as Taranza's near death at her hands would show you. The postgame reveals that she wasn't always this bad however, and that Dark Meta Knight's corruptive influence from within the Dimensional Mirror twisted her from a once benevolent and gentle queen into the total maniac she is today.
Hornet from Hollow Knight invokes this with her name, but not with her species. She's a skilled swordswoman who is willing to fight and kill the Knight because she doesn't believe it has the mettle to contain the Radiance's infection, but instead of being a wasp or another stinging insect, she's half "Weaver" (spider) and half Higher Being by way of her father, the Pale King.

Web Original

Downplayed with the wasp girl in this selection of anthro bug girlfriends: she's a scary-looking Ladette with an aggressive personality to match, but is surprisingly motherly and tender-hearted at her core.
From RWBY there are Lancers: man- and larger-sized wasp Grimm whose stingers are Grappling Guns, and whose house-sized queens can fire large, dartlike projectiles.

Real Life

This trope exists for a reason: as detailed in the description above, wasps have a bad reputation thanks to social species being very easy to provoke. And not only are they territorial to begin with, but swatting or squishing a wasp releases an alarm pheromone that will rally nearby wasps to swarm and attack the offender. But despite frequent claims that they're just a bunch of useless, mean-spirited good-for-nothings, wasps are every bit as important to the environment as bees are: while they don't make honey, some species do pollinate, and thanks to their carnivorous diet they can keep insect populations in check. So feel free to dispose of unwanted wasp nests on your property, but keep in mind that their total extermination would be a very bad thing for the planet at large.
While they're far from the deadliest, yellowjacket wasps are especially aggressive and are one of very few species that are known to sting completely unprovoked. They're common pests that live all over the United States, and are one of the biggest contributors to the image problem that wasps have when compared to other insects.
The bald-faced hornet, a white-colored relative of the yellowjacket is described as being "a black-and-white yellowjacket on meth, crack, and steroids" on TV Tropes' Scary Stinging Swarm article, and not entirely without reason. Not only do they defend their nests with aggression that's ridiculous even by wasp standards, but they tend to go for the face and can spray their painful venom right into your eyes. Yeesh. And yet, there are those who'd prefer to live near them than with yellowjackets since for all their faults, bald-faced hornets have obvious nests that are easy to see and avoid while yellowjackets like to build their nests underground or in hard-to-see nooks and crannies, making the latter a lot easier to piss off than the former.
There is an official index that catalogues the amount of pain caused by insect stings. Dubbed the Schmidt Sting Pain Scale, it measures sting pain on a scale ranging from 0 to 4+, with the former being the least painful and the latter being the most. Only four species reign at the top, and three of them are wasps:
- The Asian giant hornet, better known to screaming headlines across the United States in 2020 as "Murder Hornets". Aggressive, two-inch (5-centimeter) insect predators that are infamous for their brutality against honeybees, a famous video shows that when pitted against honeybees that aren't equipped to deal with them, it can take as little as thirty hornets to massacre a hive filled with tens of thousands of bees. But while they're a bigger threat to bee populations, they still have a sizable human death toll thanks to their aggression and deadly venom, which is not only agonizing, but partially digests flesh which can lead to severe bleeding and kidney failure among other symptoms. In early 2020, Asian hornets had somehow made their way to North America -- and once the media freak-out over them had run its course, apparently disappeared likely thanks to the efforts of determined entomologists working to wipe out their populations so they can't spread across the country, or even worse, the continent.
- The tarantula hawk is another huge wasp (roughly as big as the Asian hornet) that cuts a striking, scary figure with its black coloration and orange wings. However, they're docile nectar eaters and are mainly a threat to tarantulas, which they paralyze with a sting and drag back to their nest so their larvae can feast on the helpless spider. They aren't a threat towards humans, but in the event that you provoke one into stinging? Get ready for five long minutes of agony, as their venom is described as being so painful that there's nothing you can really do but scream until it wears off.
- Polistes carnifex, better known as the "executioner wasp" as popularized by Youtube personality Coyote Peterson. They aren't particularly aggressive as far as wasps go (a rarity for social wasps, at that), but they're particularly feared in South America for the horrific pain their stings cause, which have also been known to cause tissue necrosis (which in layman's terms is essentially flesh rot) around where the sting was inflicted.
Despite looking like a big fuzzy ant, the velvet ant is actually a type of wingless wasp. They're nicknamed "cow killers" thanks to how horribly painful their stings are, and the fact that they're surprisingly sturdy and hard to kill definitely bumps up the creep factor. Fortunately they're very peaceful and gentle creatures, but if you mess with them, you'll find out for yourself how it feels to be on the receiving end of a sting just shy of hitting the 4+ threshold on the Schmidt Sting Pain Scale. Spoiler: it's not fun.