Marvel 1976.02 - Avengers #144

Avengers #144

Title: Claws!

Writer: Steve Englehart

Artist: George Perez

Avengers: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Moondragon, Beast, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye

Villain: Squadron Supreme (Hyperion, Golden Archer, Doctor Spectrum, Lady Lark, Whizzer)

Guests: Hellcat, Two-Gun Kid

Flashbacks: Spider-Man, Tigra. Reed Richards, Susan Richards, Ben Grimm

Back in 1873, the battle against Kang is over. The Two-Gun Kid says he wants to return to the present day (1976) with the Avengers. Hawkeye offers to show him around, then says that when he returns to the present he intends to leave the Avengers again. Can't he make his mind up?

In the present day, the Avengers have escaped from Doctor Spectrum's trap. Hugh Jones fires missiles at them, which they manage to deflect. The neighbours see the missiles in the air over Roxxon Oil and call the police.

As they sneak through a storage room the Avengers find the suit that the Cat used to wear. The Cat was Greer Grant, and she had her own series from November 1972 to June 1973. It was part of a failed attempt to make more comics with female characters. By "failed" I mean that the comics didn't sell. The character herself lived on and was featured in Giant-Size Creatures #1. In that comic Greer mutated into a furry cat-like creature, so she gave up wearing her yellow costume and wore a black bikini instead. Nobody knows how the costume was found by Roxxon, it just was.

Captain America asks Patsy Walker to put on the costume and disguise herself as the Cat. That's a strange request, but it triggers a reaction from Patsy. She begins to speak about her past. She used to be a fun-loving young girl. The timeline slips up here, because Patsy Walker first appeared in November 1944 in a comic published by Marvel's previous incarnation, Timely Comics. Let's just suspend disbelief and assume she's still a young woman 30 years later. She was dating Buzz Baxter, but she was fascinated by superheroes and had a crush on Reed Richards.

Buzz went to fight in Vietnam. Patsy waited for him and married him as soon as he returned home, but the war had changed him. He was violent and abusive to Patsy. In Amazing Adventures #15 the Beast sought refuge in her house. She goes into details of a conversation that wasn't mentioned in Amazing Adventures. She attempted to blackmail the Beast. She told him she'd reveal his secret identity if he didn't make her a superhero.

This blackmail didn't work, because a short time later the Beast gave up his secret identity.

Patsy puts on the costume, and she finds that it gives her increased strength and agility. She becomes the Cat, but she goes one step further by calling herself Hellcat. So many strange things are happening in Patsy Walker's life. If it were really so easy to become a superhero, I'd put on the first costume that I found.

The Squadron Supreme arrives to attack the Avengers. This is just as the police arrive to handle the neighbours' complaints, so he presses a button to send both the Squadron Supreme and the Avengers to the Squadron's parallel universe. (Since then it's been numbered Earth-712).