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Monday, October 20, 2008

The Cat Came Back

Before Patsy Walker ever took to fighting crime, Greer Nelson wore the original yellow-and-blue Cat costume. But after four issues of her own series, and a guest spot in Marvel Team-Up #8 (1972), the Cat seemed to disappear.

When Spider-Man first spotted Hellcat in Defenders #61 (1978), the astute arachnid knew there was something different about the woman in the Cat suit. Hellcat (Patsy Walker) acknowledged that she wasn't the first person to try on the uniform.

Interestingly, though, when the wall-crawler first encountered the transformed Tigra in Marvel Team-Up #67 (also 1978), his spider-memory didn't recall how had met this woman before she had stripes. Thought balloons privately divulged that Spider-Man recognized Tigra only from news photos in The Daily Bugle.

Although Tigra (Greer Nelson) spoke to "Spidey" in a familiar tone, he must have thought she was just being friendly. She didn't reveal how Cat People had turned her into a virtual tiger-woman back in Giant-Size Creatures #1 (1974). Tigra, incidently, never became a Defender.


Before
After

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember that Defenders story. That was during the time when Patsy had the Shadowcloak and was supposed to be able to draw out any weapon she needed. I think they were doing it to try and "power up" her character a little, but I don't think it suited her. She was always more of an obvious Catwoman ripoff than some mystic fighter.

Darci said...

One distinction between the Cat uniforms and the Hellcat costume was the originals had a black "cat's paw" emblem on the chest. The Hellcat costume did not.
See Avengers #144 (Feb 1976) for how Patsy obtained the Hellcat costume.