Joanne Tumolo (Earth-616)

Dr. Tumolo
Name	Joanne Marie Tumolo
Current Alias	Dr. Tumolo
Aliases	Dr. T
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Cat People; Tigra
Relatives	Ancestors: Tigra (Original) (ancestor)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Eyes	Irises: Blue
Hair	Grey
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Cat People
Living Status	Deceased
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Death	New Orleans
Personal Information
Identity	Secret
Citizenship	Cat People
Occupation	Scientist
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Linda Fite, Marie Severin
First	The Cat #1 (August, 1972)
First	The Cat #1 (August, 1972)
Death	Marvel Premiere #42 (March, 1978)
Death	Marvel Premiere #42 (March, 1978)

History

Joanne Marie Tumolo was a member of the hybrid Cat People, a race of humanoid cats. While all of her race had once been able to switch between their natural forms and their assumed human forms at will, Doctor Tumolo was one of many who had adapted to their human forms so well that they could no longer assume their race's natural feline form.

While in college, Joanne Tumolo was friends with a human named Jules Bannon. During that time, Bannon learned about Tumolo and the Cat People but kept their secret.

At one point, Dr. Tumolo taught physics at the University of Chicago. One of the students in her class was Greer Grant, who Dr. Tumolo thought was an excellent student. Dr. Tumolo also did some work on the human nervous system and motor responses.

Sometime later, Dr. Tumolo ran into Greer who had recently been widowed and was looking for a job. Upon hearing of her situation, Dr. Tumolo offered Greer a job as her lab assistant. Greer accepted her offer and also went back to school.

While working on private experiment that could allow any woman to totally fulfill her physical and mental potential, Dr. Tumolo met Malcolm "Mal" Donalbain, a man who hoped that she might be able to help him overcome his intense phobia about being touched. Although Dr. Tumolo was unable to help him, Donalbain learned of her personal experiment and became fascinated by it, enough to be willing to subsidize her work. Months after Greer began working for her, "Dr. T" showed her the experimental equipment that had been built with the intention of suggesting her as the first test subject, but Donalbain, upon learning that the project was ready, introduced Tumolo to his choice as the first test subject, Shirlee Bryant. Since this violated the terms of their agreement, Tumolo considered giving up her work, but Greer convinced her to continue by secretly using Greer as a second test subject.

At some point during the experiment, Dr. Tumolo learned that the subversive organization HYDRA had discovered that she was one of the Cat People and suspected that they might try to use her to obtain a deadly bacteriological weapon that the Cat People had created centuries earlier but had sworn to never use again, a weapon they called "the final secret."

Meanwhile, after several weeks of conditioning, Greer's abilities had been greatly enhanced but Shirlee's progress was inhibited by her lack of dedication, so Dr. Tumolo decided to end the project. While visiting Donalbain's penthouse to inform him of her decision, Tumolo covertly observed as Donalbain ordered Shirlee to demonstrate her skills while dressed in a peculiar cat costume, but Shirlee's irregular training had left her lacking in the skills needed to complete the task and she died in a fall. Deciding to report what she had seen to the police, Tumolo took one of dozens of the cat costumes that she had found with her as evidence, and went to the laboratory where she told Greer all that she had seen. Greer briefly left to pack a bag so that she could stay with Tumolo, but in her absence three thugs sent by Donalbain to shut the doctor up attacked her to interrupt her phone call to the police, then blew up the laboratory to make her death seem like an accident. Greer returned and dug Dr. Tumolo out of the rubble but, when the doctor died seconds after warning Greer that Donalbain would know about her from the notes that his men had stolen, Greer retrieved the cat costume from the safe and went into action as the Cat to stop Donalbain's plans and avenge the deaths of Shirlee and Dr. Tumolo.

Soon after dealing with Donalbain, Greer learned that Dr. Tumolo hadn't actually died and had been taken to a local hospital. However, the following day, the doctor was kidnapped from the hospital by men working for the Owl (Leland Owlsley) who was planning to use a device to drain the wisdom from the memory cells of Tumolo's brain and record it on tape so that he could use it for his own benefit. As the Cat, Greer found Tumolo and thwarted the Owl's plan, but not before the doctor was seemingly left in a mindless state by the device.

Greer arranged to take care of Tumolo during her recovery and even hired a private nurse. Unknown to Greer, Tumolo was only pretending to be mindless in order to throw off HYDRA and the nurse, who was secretly a HYDRA agent, soon detected the deception and summoned two HYDRA agents to take Tumolo to their headquarters. However, Greer, who had arrived home unobserved and seen the HYDRA agents with Tumolo, changed into her Cat costume and thwarted the kidnapping by knocking out the two male HYDRA agents, only for the phony nurse to shoot her in the back with a blast from an alpha radiation pistol. As the nurse fled, Dr. Tumolo realized that Greer was doomed to die a lingering, painful death and that the only way she could be saved was if she were turned into one of the Cat People. After contacting the other Cat People, Tumolo accompanied Greer as she was flown to a hidden lair of the Cat People in Mexico where, once Greer regained consciousness, Tumolo explained her condition and how they hoped to save her life. After Greer had given her consent, Tumolo and at least eleven other Cat People joined forces to transform Greer into one of them. As the now-healthy Greer arose as a cat-woman, Tumolo spoke of how, in the dim past, a human woman had become one of them, a great warrior named Tigra, and Greer decided to take that name for herself. When HYDRA forces invaded the lair, Dr. Tumolo was ultimately forced to use "the final secret" against them, causing all of the HYDRA agents to die in seconds from the Black Plague.

Later, when Tigra was unhappy about her inability to change back to her human form, Dr. Tumolo chose to accompany her to Kepkeville in southern California to see Professor Leon who had developed a treatment that would allow her to assume human form at will. While there, Tumolo was reunited with Jules Bannon.

Only months later, Doctor Tumolo was in New Orleans waiting to receive a ray-device that Dr. Leon had created to turn Tigra back into human form. However, after arrangements had been made for Richard Dannemiller to deliver the device to her in a secret Cat People tunnel under the city, Tumolo learned that Tabur, an artificially-created cat-person who the Cat People had taken in as one of their own, knew about the ray-device and had his own plans for it, but Tabur secretly captured her before she could warn anyone. Later, after Tabur had killed Dannemiller and stolen the device, Dr. Tumolo sacrificed herself by using her ability to project a living image of herself to a loved one so that she could warn Tigra to tell the others that Tabur had the ray. Then, after saying goodbye, Tumolo's image vanished as her body died, the inevitable result of using that ability. The Cat People later found her body in one of the secret tunnels leading to New Orleans and initially believed that she had died of natural causes until Tigra arrived and told them of having seen Tumolo's ghostly image.

Attributes

Powers

• Originally, Joanne Tumolo, like all of the hybrid Cat People, had learned how to assume human form. However, like many of her race, she had adapted so well that she could no longer assume her race's natural form.
• Like all Cat People, Dr. Tumolo had the ability, when a danger to the whole group was imminent, to project a living image to a loved one, with death being the result of using that ability.

Notes

• Dr. Tumolo's surname was revealed in The Cat #1 and her first name was revealed in The Cat #2. She was given the middle name of "Marie" in the entry for Tigra in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #13 as a way to explain away the fact that Tigra had referred to her by that name (instead of Joanne) several times in West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #6.
• Several stories and Official Handbook entries claim that Dr. Tumolo created the Cat Suit that Greer wore as the Cat and that was later worn by Patsy Walker as the Hellcat. However, aside from the fact that the Cat costume worn by Patsy Walker was not the same one worn by Greer Grant, the story in The Cat #1 clearly established that Dr. Tumolo had nothing to do with the Cat Suit and was completely surprised when she first saw Shirlee Bryant wearing the "peculiar costume."
• Although Linda Fite and Marie Severin created the character of Dr. Joanne Tumolo, it was writer Tony Isabella who retconned her into being a member of the Cat People.

See Also

• 9 appearance(s) of Joanne Tumolo (Earth-616)
• 5 minor appearance(s) of Joanne Tumolo (Earth-616)
• 1 mention(s) of Joanne Tumolo (Earth-616)
• 1 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Joanne Tumolo (Earth-616)
• 3 image(s) of Joanne Tumolo (Earth-616)
• 1 quotation(s) by or about Joanne Tumolo (Earth-616)