Patsy WalkerHellcat

As the rare Super Hero whose pre-costumed identity is as famous, or even more famous, than her crime-fighter persona, Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat grew up idolizing the heroic super powered vigilantes she’d eventually join. A child raised in the spotlight—from fashion model to “starring” as the lead character in a fictionalized comic book based on her life—Walker would eventually find secondary fame as the costumed Hellcat and inadvertent notoriety as a champion for Hell itself.

A Star is Torn

Growing up in the sleepy berg of “Centerville,” Patsy would spend her teenage time with Robert “Buzz” Baxter and frenemy Hedy Wolfe, who would sometimes become jealous due to her own crush on Buzz. During her formative years, Patsy’s fame-obsessed mother, Dorothy, never stopped looking to her daughter as a way to make a buck. Often living vicariously through Patsy, and constantly disapproving of her “tomboy” nature, Dorothy would pressure her daughter into modeling. When that didn’t work out, due to Patsy’s own lack of interest and commitment, Dorothy started a comic book containing fictionalized romantic adventures of her daughter as a teenager.

The comic series skyrocketed, turning Patsy, as well as Buzz and Hedy, into household names. The comic lasted for years, locking Patsy in an “America’s Sweetheart” fame bubble that she was relieved to leave once the series ended. Her constant exposure to comic books, however, left Patsy in awe of not only comic book heroes but the Super Heroes that existed in her own world—Reed Richards standing out as someone she developed an early crush on.

Over time, Patsy grew to resent her mother’s manipulative ways and hunger for fame and a rift grew between them. By this time, Patsy, being well out of her teenage years, was able to distance herself from Dorothy and marry Buzz, who’d joined the Air Force and served on tours overseas. For the next several years, Patsy would live on a number of Air Force bases, her marriage slowly souring as Buzz became more angry and irritable with each successive mission.

After Buzz was assigned to a security post at the heavily government-subsidized Brand Corporation in New Jersey, Patsy met the Beast and discovered that he was also newly-hired genetics researcher Hank McCoy. Using manipulation tactics instilled in her by her mother, Patsy blackmailed Beast, telling him she’d keep his secret if he helped transform her into a Super Hero herself. After divorcing Buzz, Patsy tracked down Beast, while he was an Avenger, and forced him to allow her to accompany them on missions.

During this Avengers “ride-along,” which involved investigating the Brand Corporation-owned building Buzz previously worked at, Patsy found an old costume that once belonged to Greer Nelson (better known as Tigra) during her early days as The Cat. Patsy took the gear for herself and assumed the identity Hellcat.

The It Factor

Hellcat, initially, had only her natural athletic abilities and gymnastics acumen to help her battle evil-doers. With a suit that augments its owner’s natural physical skill, one could say Hellcat had a leg up on average foes. But, when it came to enemies of a tougher stature, she would rely on her built-in claws and grappler cables. Eventually, with further combat training by the Avengers and Moondragon, Hellcat would become even more of a threat.

As time went on, Hellcat developed and collected other abilities, continuing to grow into her Super Hero role. She comes into possession of a magic cloak that opens dimensional portals, develops a “demon sight” perception that allows her to sense mystical energy, dons a magic field that can deflect mystical attacks, and becomes technologically stimulated into having enhanced psionic abilities.

When she is a paranormal investigator/adventurer, along with her then-husband Damion Hellstrom, Patsy also becomes an expert on all things supernatural, including how to identify and battle specific types of demons—leaning into the “Hell” part of her Super Hero name. Pasty, because of her famous upbringing, also is an accomplished gymnast, horseback rider, dancer, surfer, skier, and pilot.

Rivals and Haters

Hellcat has never been without foes, in a certain regard, considering her famous childhood. Even before her comic series launched her into stardom, best friend Hedy would sometimes transform into a heated rival over the affections of “Buzz.”

As the years go by, Hellcat unintentionally makes enemies with both of her ex-husbands; the first of whom becomes the costumed Mad Dog, and the second who is unable to resist his true demonic nature, driving Patsy mad and into a near-vegetative state in the process.

Hellcat also has battled foes like the Grim Reaper, Dormammu, Yandroth the Magician, Nerkkod, and evil warlock Nicholas Scratch.

Co-Stars

Though Hellcat idolizes heroes (to the point of once traveling to New York when she was young to attend the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm), and initially tries to join the Avengers, it is the Defenders who would take her in and hone her skills. Due to the strained relationship with her mother, and then later her failed marriage with Buzz, Hellcat has always yearned for close familiar connections, but the turmoil she endured as a teenager and young woman continues to affect most of her relationships in negative ways.

After meeting, and falling in love with, Damion Hellstrom (AKA Son of Satan) Patsy would drop her Hellcat act and marry him after the demonic aspects of his identity were cured. Retiring from the Super Hero life because she finds the marriage she had always idealistically dreamed of, Patsy loses contact with many of her Defenders teammates. When Damion’s “dark soul” returns, and Patsy learns that Son of a Satan is a very literal moniker, she struggles to keep her sanity as, even without her mother around, Patsy feels the pressure to have a “perfect” life.

Hellcat, through her exploits, is never without friends, dating back to her Centerville life with Buzz and Hedy. Titan priestess Moondragon takes Hellcat to Titan to undergo a period of training, artificially enhancing her minor psionic potential with various electronic organic devices and teaching her extensively in the ways of martial arts.

Beyond her affiliation with the Defenders and the Avengers (including their West Coast branch), Patsy’s close friends in the super-business include Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Black Cat, Firestar, Doctor Strange, Beast, and Jennifer Walters (AKA She-Hulk), for whom she has also worked for as a private detective.