Merge:Black Cat

The Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) is a Marvel Comics anti-hero, a one-time friend, foe and love interest of Spider-Man. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Keith Pollard, she first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #194 (July 1979).

The Black Cat is a skilled cat burglar who, despite her mental instability and love of high-stake robberies, is also an occasional crime fighter. She shares a dangerous attraction to Spider-Man and was one of his only costumed love interests.

Character biography
The Black Cat is a costumed cat burglar and occasional crimefighter once romantically involved with Spider-Man. The character has been the star of two miniseries and appears as a supporting character in various Spider-Man titles. The character is often mistaken to be a homage or knock off of DC's Catwoman. However Marv Wolfman orginally created the character to be a female villian for the Spider-Woman series and based the character on a 1949 Tex Avery cartoon called "Bad Luck Blackie" in which a bull dog is hampered by a black cat's bad luck. When Wolfman was taken off the failing Spider-woman series, he brought the Black Cat with him to The Amazing Spider-man.



The Black Cat's father was a world renown cat burglar who, before his arrest, encouraged her to never settle for second best. If she loved basketball, she should work to become a basketball player and not just a cheerleader. During her freshman year in college, Felicia was date raped by her boyfriend Ryan. Hating the idea of being a victim, she decided that despite the consequences she would murder her rapist. She put aside her studies and began training in various fighting styles and acrobatics. Finally after months of preparing, she set out for revenge. But before she could find him, Ryan was killed in a drunk driving accident. Furious that she was denied the chance to steal the life of the man who had stolen hers, and feeling reckless, Hardy decided to utilize her new skills to follow in the footsteps of her father. After amassing a fortune in stolen items, Felicia chose to adopt a costume identity. She first donned the Black Cat costume in order to break her father out of prison. On the same night, she met Spider-Man. Despite her antipathy towards men, Felicia felt a kindship with this lone hero. Spider-Man was the first man she felt she could trust and she grew to love him. Felicia looked for a way to earn his trust and continued with the Black Cat persona as a misguided attempt to attract his affection. Seeing the good in Felicia, Spider-Man made every attempt to have her criminal record expunged.

The Black Cat finally found the opportunity to prove herself after learning the Kingpin controlled an incredilby powerful detonator. The Owl planned to use the weapon to hold New York City hostage. Doctor Octopus, however, planned to use the weapon to destroy the city altogether. But the Black Cat was able to use her abilites to steal the item first and protect it from all parties. She gave the detonator to Spider-man and became the target of Doc Ock's revenge. Although Spider-Man was able to tear off his mechanical appendages, Octopus was still able to mentally control them and hold the Black Cat still while his men opened fire. Spider-Man barely got her to the hostpital in time and as they operated on the dozens of bullet and knife wounds, Peter realized just how much he cared for Felicia. After she recovered they began a relationship and soon Peter revealed his identity to her. But Felicia had great difficulty accepting the fact that Peter was just a man beneath the mask and couldn't understand his need for a civilian life. Peter was hurt, but continued the relationship since it was the first time he didn't need to hide his life as Spider-Man.

Initially, the "accidents" which seemed to befall those who crossed the Black Cat's path were merely well-planned stunts and traps. After her near-death experience in Spectacular Spider-Man #72, Felicia feared her lack of superpowers made her a liability for Spider-Man. She was terrified that his overwhelming need to protect her would eventually kill him. So when Spider-Man disappeared during the "Secret Wars", Felicia sought out a way to make herself Spider-man's equal. After being rejected by the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, Felicia was offered an opportunity to undergo a process similar to that used to create the Scorpion and the Fly. Unfortunatly, after going through a long and painful process that would release dormant powers, Felicia learned her new abilities were owed to the Kingpin. After learning this machine only had enough power to alter one more human, the Kingpin chose to use it on the thief who had stolen from him. Scared and ashamed, she kept her new abilites secret from Peter. Her newly-gained 'bad luck' power was infectious and began to permanently jinx Spider-Man.

Feeling a wall of secrets growing between them, Spider-Man broke up with Felicia. He soon realized something was amiss with his own luck and enlisted the aid of Doctor Strange to remove the "hex" on him. But doing so altered the hex's source and changed the Black Cat's powers in the process. She soon found a heightened strength, agility, balance, vision, and retractable claws.

The Black Cat updated her look and her attitude and rekindled her relationship with Spider-man. She made peace with his need for a normal life as Peter Parker and stood by him while he was being accused of murder as Spider-man. Together they tracked down the source of the elaborate scheme to frame him and fought the mercenary known as the Foreigner. Eventually, just as his life seemed to be falling apart, Spider-man came home to discover Black Cat discussing her plans to ruin his life. He followed her to find she had never forgiven him for breaking up with her and in revenge became the Foreigner's lover. Yet during her ruse and despite her anger, Felecia began to fall back in love with Peter. In the end, the Black Cat double crossed the Foreigner and left for Europe to find a new life. Which unexpectantly pushed Peter to find support and a new realtionship with Mary Jane Watson. The two married soon after.

Years later, the Black Cat returned to America to seek out Peter Parker and was furious to find he had married Mary Jane Watson. Angry and jealous, Felicia began harassing the couple, physically threatening Mary Jane and taunting Peter as she dated his friend Flash Thompson. She began to sincerely care for Thompson but he eventually broke up with her when he found out her secret. The Black Cat eventually moved past her feelings of anger and jealousy, and became friends with both Spider-Man and Mary Jane. After Spider-Man used a device to remove his superhuman abilities, the Black Cat aided him in finding the device again in order to restore them. But in the process, the Black Cat's cat-like abilities were completely erased. She subsequently purchased equipment from the Tinkerer to incorporate into her costume in order to compensate for her lost abilities, and occasionally teams up with Spider-Man.

More recently Marvel has announced that the Black Cat will be a member of the new Heroes For Hire.

Personality
Originally portrayed as an unstable obsessive, Felicia Hardy evolved into a strong-willed and clever foil to Spider-Man. While pursuing a life of crime, she very occasionally threw caution to the winds when her greed got the better of her. She could be similarly reckless when it came to her relationships. (When pursuing Spider-Man's affections, she once set him up so that he would be caught with her in the commission of a crime -- hoping he'd then be forced to turn outlaw and they could then be together.) She could also be quite superficial (when Peter Parker revealed his identity to Felicia, she begged him to put his mask back on -- she couldn't deal with the thought of Spider-Man as an average guy) and, appropriately enough, catty. Again, she has grown considerably since then.

Felicia is a fun-loving, vivacious, thrill seeker who enjoys being the Black Cat for the adventure it provides. She is quite sensual, a bit of a flirt, and enjoys companionship. She is also a loyal friend.

Associates and antagonists
Virtually all of Felicia Hardy's enemies and acquaintances are also those of Spider-Man.
 * Peter Parker/Spider-Man - Originally antagonists, Peter and Felicia fell into an intense (and primarily physical) romance when she reformed. However, since her attraction was more towards Spider-Man than Peter Parker, their relationship was doomed to failure.  They are currently good friends and gladly help each other out of tight spots.  Felicia realizes now that breaking up with Peter was a mistake -- she is still "crushing" on Spider-Man and Peter Parker.  She is also the only person in the Marvel Universe who calls Spider-Man by the nickname "Spider" (as opposed to the more common "Spidey").
 * Mary Jane Watson-Parker - Peter's wife and erstwhile rival for his affections. Surprisingly, the two women are quite close and friendly, similar to Veronica Lodge and Betty Cooper in the Archie Comics.
 * Flash Thompson - Friend of the Parkers, Felicia began a relationship with him in order to dump him in order to get back at Peter for marrying someone else. Ironically, she actually came to love Flash and was dumped by him instead.  (See also MC2 below).
 * Tinkerer-A friend of Felicia's.

Powers and abilities
Initially, the Black Cat had no superhuman abilities. It was later revealed that she had a latent mutant ability to affect probability fields. This ability was activated through artificial means. It entails that under stress she is subconsciously able to cause anyone in her immediate vicinity that she perceives as a threat to be susceptible to freak accidents, like guns jamming and exploding, or tripping on objects, etc. This ability also had the side effect of eventually causing problems for anyone spending long periods of time around her. Doctor Strange eventually tampered with her powers removing that unwanted side-effect. However this magical tampering temporarily endowed her with cat-like abilities, giving her retractable talons in her fingetips, superhuman speed and strength, and infra-red vision. She lost these abilities as the magic faded.



The Black Cat has reflexes, agility, and stamina of an Olympic level acrobat. She is physically very strong and athletic and has great physical endurance. She is an excellent street fighter capable of taking on several armed male assailants and incapacitating them without being injured herself.

The Black Cat has also acquired several devices from the Tinkerer that increase her agility and heighten her strength. She wears ear rings that interact with the balance centers of her brain to grant her enhanced agility. She has contact lenses that let her see in various spectrums of light, such as infra-red and ultraviolet. Her costume contains micro-servos that enhances her strength above normal human levels, but apparently not quite to a superhuman degree. The gloves of her costume contain steel micro-filaments, which form retractable claws at the fingertips when she flexes her fingers (triggering a magnetic surge which condenses the filaments into polarized talons) which enable her to tear through most surfaces and easily scale walls. In addition to this the costume is extremely distracting and provocative, making it difficult for a male assailant to concentrate on what he is doing. Using this equipment the Black Cat has been able to successfully best enemies who have superhuman abilities.

The Black Cat has a miniature grappling hook device hidden in the "fur" of each glove, which enables her to swing from buildings in a manner similar to Spider-Man, though not quite as fast.

Publication history
On the letters pag] of her first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #194, it is noted that Marv Wolfman had originally intended her to fight Spider-Woman, but when he changed writing assignments within Marvel Comics to Amazing Spider-Man, he took the character with him. A thumbnail of the intended cover for Spider-Woman #9 (as well as a rejected cover for Amazing Spider-Man #194) decorates the bottom of the letters page.

Writer/director Kevin Smith began writing the Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do miniseries in 2002. After the third issue the series went on a hiatus until 2005, when Smith revealed he had finally finished writing the scripts. . Smith has stated "While I have zero defense for my lateness (particularly when folks like Bendis turn out great stories in multiple books on a monthly basis), I will say this: it's a much better story now that it would've been had I completed it back in '02."

In August 2006, Black Cat will team up with Wolverine in a new series. Jimmy Palmiotti & co-writer Justin Gray, and inker Joe Micheal Lisner will produce the issues. More information can be found at http://www.linsner.com/bb/viewmessage.asp?messageID=35087&forumID=16

Notable stories

 * Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do - a six-part series by Kevin Smith. This series had a famously delayed publication schedule. The first issue was published in 2002 and the last issue was published in January 2006.

Ultimate Marvel
In Ultimate Spider-Man, the Black Cat is Felicia Hardy, a young woman who blames her father's death on Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. Seeking revenge, she stole a priceless tablet that he was going to use on his comatose wife. Kingpin hired the assassin Elektra to retrieve it, and when Black Cat threw it into the harbor Elektra threw one of her sais into the Black Cat's chest, sending the thief over the edge. She was presumed dead, though no body was found.

She later returned during a gang war, stopping Hammerhead from shooting Spider-Man in the right temple. She later expressed interest in working for Hammerhead if it would mean getting rid of the Kingpin, which didn't sit that well with the other heroes.

Later, after the crisis was resolved, she passionately kissed Spider-Man through his mask, her previous interest in him having gotten stronger. She had apparently no idea of the age disparity between her and Peter, and mistakenly assumed, after he left in a rush, that he was a married man. When she managed to unmask him and realized how young he really is, she was slightly revulsed. Though mainly because of the shock and embarrassment of such a discovery she vomited on his uniform.

In this version, the Black Cat actually has short brunette hair, and wears a white-haired wig in her secret identity. As a side note, this wig has proven itself to stick extremely well to Black Cat's scalp. More than once, Elektra yanked on it with force, and it has stayed in place. It is possible that she somehow grew her hair longer and bleached it since her previous appearance, as she does not appear out of costume at any point in this story arc.

MC2
In the alternate future comics known as MC2, Felicia Hardy married Flash Thompson and had two children, Felicity and Gene, before they divorced. In this continuity, she has apparently retired the identity of the Black Cat and runs a private detective agency. She has begun a romantic relationship with a woman she works with, a fact that has produced much tension between herself and her daughter. (There has been no implication that Felicity has a problem with the lesbian aspect, but instead it appears that she blames her mother for the divorce. The exact chronology of these events has not been established.) Felicity temporarily adopted the identity of the new Scarlet Spider.

Marvel Mangaverse
In this continuity, Black Cat is cybernetically enhanced. She was originally a simple thief who stole a cursed magical amulet for its monetary value, but this act attracted the attention of Matt Murdock, the Devil Hunter, and she was cut in half. The Kingpin of Crime reconstructed her body with cybernetics, including a shut-down mechanism he planned to activate if she failed to serve him. After completing her mission for the Kingpin, he claimed to have permanently deactivated the mechanism, but whether he kept his word or not remains to be seen. She is still Spider-Man's old flame, but in the New Mangaverse storyline (with Spider-Man having chosen Mary Jane Watson over her) she is trying to move on, and is now showing a romantic interest in Wolverine though by the end of the story arc it is clear that she has a hidden agenda.

Spider-Man (1994-1998)
In the 1990s animated television series Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Felicia Hardy and her alter ego, the Black Cat, were depicted as the first potential love interests for both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, respectively, rivaled only by Mary Jane Watson. Felicia was the well bred, well-to-do daughter of business woman Anastasia Hardy, and had only vague memories of her father, a career jewel thief known as the Cat, who had been imprisoned for years because he had memorized the World War II super soldier formula. As her civilian identity, Felicia was a slightly petite (unlike her alter ego) but none the less very attractive blonde with a crisp brogue and a sharp mind. She briefly dated Michael Morbius and later Jason Macendale, who was revealed to be the Hobgoblin, and the revelation left her devastated.

In this version of her character, Felicia was experimented on by the Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) with an upgraded type of the super-soldier project used to create Captain America, gifting her with great physical strength agility and dexterity, and the ability to alter her physical appearance i.e. hair color to white and costume change (thus transforming her into the more recognizable "comic" form.) She has the ability to emit some sort of knockout gas from her wrists and an extendable cable and grappling hooks. She appears to have claws but they may only be part of her costume, allowing her to tear/cut through steel and concrete. She was played by Jennifer Hale.

Video games

 * In the Sony PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo 64 Spider-Man video games, Black Cat usually appears at the first stage giving gaming tips every time the player walked into a question mark. Although not appearing in the subsequent stages, she still takes part in the game backstory. In fact, she helped Spider-Man tell him that Venom had a message, warning him he had his wife, Mary Jane Parker, held hostage.  Spider-Man decided to help Black Cat take down the Rhino first (she mentioned this along with the report of Venom's message).  Unfortunately, the Rhino made a surprising attack on Black Cat, wounding her by making her fly out of the sky and somewhere around in New York.  After Spider-Man defeated the Rhino and the villain was taken into jail, Peter Parker found the Black Cat being taken away to the hospital on a stretcher by two paramedics.  Unbeknownst to Peter, Black Cat was aware that they weren't really paramedics but minions of the main villains of the game (Doc Ock and Carnage).  At the final levels of the game, Spider-Man found the Black Cat incased in some kind of tube that the minions of Ock and Carnage put her in.  Spider-Man not only freed Cat but also stopped a machine that created a large fog across New York.  She escaped while Spider-Man would have to take down Doc Ock and Carnage on his own.  Just when Ock's lair was about to blow up, Spider-Man had Ock with him in their escape and Black Cat arrived in Captain America's hovercar with America himself and a reformed Venom.  Cat was last seen dancing with the Human Torch.


 * The Black Cat also makes an appearance in the Spider-Man 2 video game, based on the 2004 film of the same name, as an unusual seductive ally of the web slinger. This version of the Cat has considerably shorter hair. Several missions involve Spider-Man chasing her, and the two race in one of the last levels, either with Spider-Man wanting to question her about a theft or with her guiding him to a situation, such as a robbery or the current hiding place of the Shocker. In the course of the game, she fights alongside Spider-Man against Shocker and some tank mechs, all the while encouraging him to just forget about his civilian life and have fun as Spider-Man 24/7. In the end, Spider-Man decides that he must be both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, and Black Cat accepts his decision, promising Spidey that they will meet again. Her appearances were based loosely on early drafts of the script for the Spider-Man 2 movie, which originally included Black Cat (she was cut out quickly because there simply wasn't enough time to introduce her character).