Characters / Hellcat

aka: Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat

Patsy Walker

Hellcat

Patsy Walker is a Marvel Comics character created by Otto Binder and Ruth Atkinson, first appearing in Miss America Magazine #2 (dated November 1944), later reimagined as Hellcat by Steve Englehart and George Pérez in The Avengers #144 (dated February 1976).

Initially introduced as the protagonist of romance comics in The '40s, Patsy Walker was integrated into the Marvel Universe decades later during the The '70s, serving as the lab assistant of Dr. Hank McCoy. (Patsy's eventual inability to stick to one career eventually becomes a running gag.) Discovering Hank was secretly the X-Man known as Beast, she held a simple ultimatum over his head: Make her a superhero, or she'd out him. Reluctantly, Hank agreed. The two wound up in a case involving Roxxon, and their misuse of the sinister Serpent Crown, not to mention Patsy's ex-husband Buzz. During all this Patsy came into the possession of a superpowered suit formerly owned by Greer Grant (better known Tigra), and she officially adopted the persona of Hellcat.

In the following years, she became a stalwart member of both The Avengers as well as The Defenders, becomes close friends with She-Hulk, and even marries Daimon Hellstrom — the Son Of Satan himself. (Yes, really.)

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• The Adjectival Superhero: The Happy-Go-Lucky Hellcat.
• Action Girl: What she has become as Hellcat.
• Amicable Exes: Averted with her first (and ex-)husband, Buzz, who started off abusive, then tries to murder Patsy when she becomes Hellcat, then becomes the supervillain Mad Dog. Then again, it's less than likely for a cat and a dog to be amicable in the first place. Also, Daimon, who clearly isn't over her even if she doesn't want the guy who drove her to suicide back.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: Mostly animal alias variety, as her superpowers are "only" Psychic Powers and thus have nothing to do with a cat. Her claws are derived from her costume.
• Ascended Fangirl: She has long idolized the superheroes of Marvel Universe.
• Badass Abnormal: Along with peak athletic capabilities, Patsy has minor Psychic Powers and Instant Costume Change.
• Blackmail: Patsy did not make the most gracious start at going into superheroics, trying to blackmail Beast into making her a superhero or getting her onto a team.
• Cat Girl: Cat-Eared Headband Costumers variety. Her costume◊ was given by the original The Cat, Greer Grant Nelson, who is now known as Tigra, an actual catgirl.
• Deadpan Snarker: While she remains quite idealistic, everything Patsy's been through helps her react this way to her surroundings.
  I know what you're thinking. Oh, this is disgusting. Never never never go swimming with possessed and possibly mythical creatures... by yourself... in Alaska.
• Driven to Suicide: During The Dark Age of Comic Books, Daimon had a hard time controlling his demonic side, which led to Patsy taking her own life. Fortunately, after righting himself, Daimon was able to have her brought Back from the Dead.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Her superpowers are her psychic powers. Aside from wearing a costume with claws and grappling-hook, her fighting abilities are natural.
• Evil Counterpart: Her first ex-husband, Mad Dog
• The Fashionista: She might have retired from being a model, but clothes still tickle her fancy.◊
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: Animal Theme Naming variant. She is a cat-themed superheroine and Buzz is a dog-themed supervillain.
• Femme Fatalons: Her costume has retractable casehardened, steel alloy claws on both the gloves and boots, enabling her to rend brick or stone. She later replaced them with conventional gloves and boots.
• Fiery Redhead: Just like the fictionalized Patsy, this real Patsy is a redhead and fiery.
• First Day from Hell: Within a few hours of becoming Hellcat, Patsy gets zapped to an alternate world, has to fight a thinly-veiled bunch of Justice League knock-offs with no prior experience at superheroing, and is very nearly killed by her ex-husband.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Just look at her costume in the picture, which is given by Tigra.
• Fun Personified: Ever since her post-death retool. With rare exceptions when her life is really down, she's always giddy, seeking fun things to do, and firing quips about her surroundings. To the point that Gambit is afraid when he sees the girl he's been set up on a date is Patsy...◊
• Genre Refugee: Patsy first started out as the heroine of a girl comedy series from the 1950s and 1960s, before eventually becoming the superheroine Hellcat.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Hellcat occasionally employed her cable-claw, which straps to her wrist and uses a compressed-gas firing mechanism to propel a four clawed grappling hook connected to a 30-foot length of steel-niobium alloy memory-cable (that coils itself back into its spool upon rewinding), which she used for swinging or tightrope walking.
• To Hell and Back: She died at least twice, once when an evil Asgardian tried to take over Valhalla with a Cavalry of the Dead, and after Daimon fell into The Dark Side, leading Patsy to insanity and seeking relief through suicide.
• High-School Sweethearts: She initially only had eyes for Buzz Baxter, and they married. Unfortunately, Buzz was traumatized by his time overseas, and the marriage turned sour, and then abusive.
• Instant Costume Change: Ever since Patsy returned from Hell, she can summon the Hellcat costume at will.◊
• Jumped at the Call: More than anything, Patsy wanted to be a superhero. So when Captain America and Iron Man found a discarded Cat costume in a Roxxon site, they offered her the outfit (if only because she was a civilian and it almost certainly offerred more protection against Roxxon's goons than her sweater). Patsy was only too eager to say yes, even when Steve suddenly had second thoughts.
• Legacy Character: To the original Cat (Tigra).
• Male Gaze / Does This Remind You of Anything?: Was this actually necessary?◊
• Outdated Name: Patricia "Patsy" Walker still has the nickname even if it fell out of vogue as a reductive for Patricia. The Netflix show Jessica Jones (2015) has her preferring to be called by the more contemporary "Trish", while "Patsy" was the name of her character in a show.
• Overly Long Name: When Hellcat was sent to Alaska, the ancient crones from the place gave her the spiritual name "Double Clawed Cat Full of Red Hell Fire With Her Head Against the Wind and Comes Not Quietly From the Great Sea Road". Her comment on it was "Like I'm going to remember that."
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Patsy was resurrected in a storyline that ran across the 2000 annuals for Thunderbolts and The Avengers, before receiving a Spin-Off Hellcat limited series. The mini-series was even advertised at the end of the Avengers annual.
• Psychic Powers: She once possessed enhanced psionic abilities, due to the mental stimulation of Moondragon's Titanian technology. She could move small objects telekinetically, resist mental control, and on one occasion was able to generate a psychokinetic force-blast. Moondragon has since used her own advanced psionic powers to undo the effects of her psychic augmenter. Since then, Walker’s psychic abilities have returned but to a far lesser degree than at their peak - then Moondragon gave them a jumpstart in Iron Man 2020.
• Psycho Ex-Husband: Two of them, Mad-Dog and Son of Satan. The latter in particular is a literal ex from Hell who frequently wants Patsy back. He's the nicer one.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: The miniseries Patsy Walker: Hellcat had Patsy's assignment in the Avengers 50 State Initiative be part of the Avengers team in Alaska - well, a team of one, given there was a shortage of personnel... at first, she feels as if it was a punishment like most cases of the trope, but ends up having much fun in The Last Frontier.
• Rescued from the Underworld: Patsy had this happen to her twice, giving extra meaning to her superhero name Hellcat. And both stays in hell caused by her ex-husband Daimon "Son of Satan" Hellstrom: first, following her death, by accident (The Avengers unknowingly rescued her soul from Hell thinking she was the recently deceased Mockingbird) ), and then in Marvel Divas, after a Deal with the Devil where she agreed spent time with Daimon to cure the cancer of her friend Firestar, only for Firestar and two others to go rescue Patsy.
• Retool: She went from being a mostly comedic character, to the superheroine Hellcat, to Happily Married with Daimon Hellstrom - until he went evil, drove her mad, and made her kill herself. She came Back from the Dead, and has been a mostly lighthearted heroine ever since.
  • The contrast between the teen humor book and the suicidal superheroine was lampshaded with the title of her in-universe autobiography: Gidget Goes to Hell.
• Self-Deprecation: She's not actually comfortable about her mother’s fictionalized exploitation of her, and was relieved when the In-Universe series ceased publication.

Friends and Allies

Tom "Tubs" Hale

• Adaptational Sexuality: He turns gay in this series. Lampshaded in issue #7 where Tom notes that in the comics he's a straight minor character.
• Big Beautiful Man: One who also likes other beautiful men. And is attacked by Black Cat because she wants a man of his stature.
• Gay Best Friend: While he was more this in the original comics, where he was straight, still fits.

Ian Soo/Telekinian

• All Gays Love Theater: Ian quotes Wicked in his introduction, has Legally Blonde: The Musical as his ringtone, and asks Tom for Hamilton tickets. He's later Drowning His Sorrows by listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, with even the landlord recognizing where the depressing parts are.
• Atrocious Alias: Chooses the name "Telekinian" as his alias by just merging the word Telekinesis with his name ala "Telekin-Ian".
• Gay Best Friend: Well, bisexual, but still fits.
• Mind over Matter: His powers, which leads him to attempt the codename "Telekinian".

Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk

See She-Hulk

Enemies

The Girl with the Bag of Infinite Capacity (Bailey)

• Bag of Holding: Her item and defining characteristic. Given it's her only power, she struggles to get a fitting superhero name, eventually settling on "Attaché".

Federigo Ravina

• Pest Controller: He can psychically command and manipulate insects, using his ability to infest his father's tenants' homes with bedbugs.

Casiolena

• Badass Decay: The two times she faced the Defenders have her with mystical powers which seemingly make her the equal of Doctor Strange and the Enchantress. Here she is nowhere as powerful.
• Berserk Button: Casiolena loathes being compared to the Enchantress, and her last freak out got her banned from Asgard.
• The Bus Came Back: Her last appearance was in 1979. Squirrel Girl's confusion over who she is is just lampshading how long she's been gone.
• Evil Counterpart: Patsy wants to help superpowered people by giving them jobs. Casiolena just wants to recruit them for her evil army.
• Retcon: Her Wild Hair went from fully blonde to skunk stripe.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Her similarities to Enchantress are lampshaded to hell and back in issue 4.

Hedy Wolfe

• Adaptational Villainy: Hedy, while she and Patsy had a somewhat friendly rivalry in the old comics akin to Betty and Veronica from Archie. In Patsy's new series, they seem to hold nothing but hate for one another, with Patsy even saying they were never that close and Hedy only had a role in the comics because of her close relationship with Patsy's mom. Comments from Tom imply Hedy and Patsy truly were more similar back when they were teenagers, and by the end of the series Hedy has gotten over some of her nastier traits thanks to her relationship with Belial and makes amends for her animosity with Patsy.
• Friendly Rivalry: While sometimes it gets nasty enough for Friendly Enemy, she and Patsy mostly hold their grudges back.

Buzz Baxter/Mad Dog

• Awful Wedded Life: Undiagnosed and untreated PTSD does that. Buzz became emotionally abusive towards Patsy before they divorced.
• Comic-Book Time: Originally, Buzz's service was in Vietnam, which left him incredibly damaged.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Joined the Brand Corporation, which was soon after bought up by Roxxon. Patsy's hopes that the increase in financial security would fix their martial woes proved wrong. Buzz only got worse. His superiors at least had the excuse of being completely controlled by an evil artifact, whereas Buzz? All him.
• Evil Counterpart: To Patsy, becoming a dog-themed supervillain while she became a cat-themed superhero.
• Face–Heel Turn: He used to be an U.S. Air Force colonel. Then he got involved with shady parties, first the Brand Corporation, then its owner Roxxon, who mutated Buzz into Mad-Dog.
• Killed Off for Real: Was one of many a Animal Themed Super Being kidnapped by Kraven the Hunter in Hunted, and the Huntbots killed him with arrows to the chest.
• Never My Fault: Holds it against Patsy for leaving him, even though he was distant and then abusive. And this is after he's tried killing her and is planning on killing her again.
• Psycho Ex-Boyfriend: Even if he has faced other heroes, writers always made sure to bring him back to confront Patsy.

Daimon Hellstrom/Son of Satan

See Son Of Satan

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