It took my housekeeper and surrogate mother, Dolly Donahue, to convince me that I had the courage to find out the truth; to see, once and for all, if the man who walked out on mom and me those years ago... was the devil himself. 
Appearing in "Fathers and Daughters"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Joshua Walker (First full appearance)
- Defenders
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- Dolly Donahue (Mentioned)
- Six-Fingered Hand (Mentioned)
- Dorothy Walker (Mentioned)
- Buzz Baxter (Mentioned)
- Eddie Fielder (First appearance)
- Hyperion (Mark Milton)
- Salvador Dalí (Referenced) (Topical Reference)
- God (Mentioned)
- Mephisto (Appears on screen) (Cameo)
- Thog (Appears on screen) (Cameo)
- Asmodeus (Appears on screen) (Cameo)
- Satannish (Appears on screen) (Cameo)
- Lucifer (Mentioned)
- Satan (Biblical) (Mentioned)
- Moondragon (Heather Douglas) (Mentioned)
- Son of Satan (Daimon Hellstrom) (Mentioned)
- Beatrice Walker (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth-616
- Earth
- United States of America
- Ohio
- Greentown (First appearance)
- Centerville, California (Mentioned)
- Montclair, New Jersey (Mentioned)
- Ohio
- United States of America
- Hell
- Heaven (Mentioned)
- Titan (Mentioned)
- Earth
- Earth-712
Items:
Synopsis for "Fathers and Daughters"
Patsy Walker, the Hellcat, travels to Greentown, Ohio, in search of her father, Josh Walker. She meets an old friend of his named Eddie Felder, who worked with Josh for several years. Felder says that Josh never talked about his past, but he was a good man who just quit his job and left town one day. Felder claims that he hasn’t seen Josh since then. Patsy later runs into a man calling himself Nicholas Eblis, who invites her to stay at a boarding house where he lives.
In an interlude that takes place in a subterranean complex beneath a serene forest, Doctor Strange, the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner are still reacting to the fact that they've been somehow pulled there by their recently-deceased comrade, Nighthawk. For his part, Nighthawk reassures them that he is alive and well and wearing a new costume but then tells them that they have much bigger problems. When he points to a figure lying on a nearby bed, the trio are surprised to see that the person lying on it is someone they all fought long ago, Hyperion.
That night, at the boarding house, Eblis turns out to be Satan in disguise, who tells Patsy that if she is seeking her father, she has found him. Hellcat fights off some demons and confronts Eblis, punching him repeatedly until she finds herself becoming the demonic Hellcat that Satan had previously transformed her into. However, Hellcat fights off her rage and rejects her darker self, proving that she is not Satan’s daughter. Satan explains that he and his other forms of Mephisto, Thog, Asmodeus, and Satannish are all manifestations of the evil that lurks within the hearts of all mankind. Satan also explains that all men have their own “personal devil.” It was this personal devil that Satan transformed Hellcat into, and it was this devil that she overcame today. Satan also tells Hellcat that she has the potential to transcend normal perception and see life as it truly is on every level. Hellcat asks why an entity of evil like Satan would tell her all this, and he responds that he is one with mankind’s collective subconscious—including their good—and that the darkness and the light are intertwined.
Satan then points out that Hellcat’s journey through the darkness has made her a better person. When Patsy asks why Satan singled her out, he reveals that it is because she was essential to his plan to recapture and then liberate his son’s soul—because she was the only one who taught the Son of Satan how to love. On a hunch, Hellcat returns to Felder’s apartment, where she finds him with her father. Removing her mask, Patsy reveals her true identity and reunites with her father. Josh explains that he walked out on Patsy because her mother was too domineering. Without his wife’s money, Josh had little to offer his daughter when he left, but he has since remarried and has a farm along with a new wife and family, whom Patsy looks forward to meeting.
A second interlude takes place on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., where President Kyle Richmond is sitting in the Oval Office having a conversation with the alien known as the Over-Mind.
Notes
- Plot by Gruenwald (uncredited), script by DeMatteis.
- The interlude featuring Nighthawk, Doctor Strange, the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner and Hyperion in a subterranean base actually takes place on Earth-712, as does the one featuring President Kyle Richmond and the Over-Mind in the White House in Washington, D.C. This is a deliberate bit of discontinuity because the city in which the White House on Earth-712 was located had previously been established as being named Capitol City in Avengers #148.