Hellcat

Real name: Patricia (Patsy) Walker
First appearance: officially, it was in Miss America #2, 1944. In the Marvel Universe proper, it was in Fantastic Four Annual #3, 1964. She first donned the Hellcat costume in The Avengers #144, 1976
Base of operations: San Francisco, California
Marital status: divorced
Known Relatives: Joshua Stanley (father, possibly deceased), Dorothy Nancy (mother, deceased), Mickey (brother), Bea (stepmother), Robert “Buzz” Baxter (Mad Dog, ex-husband), Daimon Hellstrom (ex-husband), Marduk Kurios (Satan, former father-in-law), Satana Hellstrom (former sister-in-law), Grandpa Parker (first name unrevealed, deceased); Barry (step or half-brother), Sophia McConnell (aunt), and various other step or half-siblings whose names aren't known.
Team affiliations: Avengers, Defenders, West Coast Avengers

History:
Patricia Walker was the only daughter of Joshua Walker, an aeronautical engineer, and Dorothy Walker, a comic book writer. While she was still a child her mother acted as her agent, helping her at modeling and commercial work. Dorothy Walker's greatest success was the creation of a comic book named after her young daughter, featuring romantic adventures of Patsy and her real-life friends as teenagers. The Patsy Walker comic book was very popular and continued for over a decade, as Patsy grew into and out of her teens. Soon after graduating high school, Patsy married her childhood friend, Robert Baxter (who had appeared in the Patsy Walker comic as her romantic interest). Baxter was in the officers training program of the Air Force, and Walker spent the next several years of her life on numerous Air Force bases.

While her husband was assigned to a security post at the heavily government-subsidized Brand Corporation in New Jersey, Patsy Walker met the Beast and learned his secret identity. Walker had long idolized "super heroes," and she elicited the promise from him that in exchange for keeping his secret, he would help her become a "super heroine." Walker's marriage eventually came to a bitter end, and she sought out the Beast, who was now a member of the Avengers, to remind him of his promise. Tagging along with the Avengers to investigate criminal activities at the Brand Corporation, Walker discovered the hearing and vision-enhancing costume worn by Greer Nelson in her identity as the Cat. (The man who financed the creation of the Cat, Donalbain, was a former employee at Brand. His property, including the prototype Cat-suits, was later confiscated by the Brand Corporation.) Putting the costume on, Walker dubbed herself Hellcat and used her natural athletic abilities to help the Avengers.

Although she hoped to join the Avengers, Hellcat was persuaded by the Titanian priestess Moondragon to accompany her to Titan to undergo a period of training. During her stay on Titan, Hellcat's minor psionic potential was artificially enhanced by various electronic/organic devices and she was given extensive martial arts training. Upon her return to Earth, she met the Defenders and decided to accept their offer of membership rather than the Avengers'.

Hellcat remained a core member of the loosely organized Defenders for several years. Eventually she met Daimon Hellstrom, who in his costumed guise of the Son of Satan, joined the Defenders for a short time, and, after he was cured of his demonic aspect, found that she was in love with him. Renouncing her costumed identity, Patsy Walker decided to marry Hellstrom. The couple was married in Greentown, Ohio, where her father resided. The wedding, attended by several of her Defenders colleagues, was interrupted by her ex-husband "Buzz" Baxter who had assumed the costumed guise of Mad-Dog, and the Mutant Force. The Defenders repulsed the attack and Hellstrom himself subdued Mad-Dog. The Hellstroms then moved to San Francisco where they established themselves as occult investigators. In this capacity, they helped several superheroes in mystical problems, notably the Avengers' West Coast branch. In helping the Avengers, Pasty again donned the Hellcat costume and remained on hand to help them capture the villains Tiger Shark and Whirlwind.

Sometime later, however, Hellstrom's dark soul reasserted itself and Patsy was driven mad at the sight of it. She languished in a near-vegetable state for months afterward until the mercy-killing entity Deathurge sensed her despair and, at her request, freed her spirit from her body, effectively killing herself. She soon after contacted Earth from a spirit plane and announced her intention via radio to return in the near future.

Patsy had ended up in the realm of the demon Mephisto, fighting an eternal battle in the so-called Arena of Tainted Souls, alongside fallen Avenger Mockingbird. Months later, the Avenger villain Grim Reaper resurrected Patsy and Mockingbird, among others, tainting them with his hatred for the Avengers and setting them against the team. With the help of the Scarlet Witch, Patsy and the others reverted to their true personalities and aided the Avengers against the Grim Reaper before returning from whence they came. Before she disappeared, Mockingbird was able to send a warning to her husband Hawkeye about a plan Hellstrom was developing. Hawkeye and his team the Thunderbolts confronted Hellstrom and then used their sorcerous connections to go to Hell in order to restore Mockingbird. They were tricked however, by Hellstrom, and the Thunderbolts rescued Patsy instead, restoring her bodily to Earth.

Pasty remained despondent and depressed due to her perceived failures in life and time spent in Hell. She nevertheless presented a good front, wrote an autobiography and began a book tour. Shortly thereafter, Patsy returned to Centerville to find her high school rival Hedy had joined with the corporation that was built upon the Patsy comics fortune and turned Centerville into a tourist attraction. Patsy discovered the town was also infiltrated with demonic forces, led by the evil warlock Nicholas Scratch. Scratch had allowed a cult called Sons of the Serpents to use the citizenry of Centerville for occult purposes, and alerting the Avengers to the case, Patsy resumed her Hellcat identity, defeating the Serpents alongside the Avengers team.

Patsy was still despondent about life when later Scratch's minions attacked Hellcat. She then uncovered a plot by the extradimensional villain Dormammu to take over the various dimensions of Hell, each led by different demons, among them Mephisto, Hellstrom, and Satannish. Hellcat helped Mephisto thwart Dormammu by uniting the demons along with the death gods Pluto and Hela. She also revealed Hellstrom's father was actually Satannish, a pawn of Dormammu. Ultimately, she escaped back to Earth by proving to Mephisto that he would be better served to have her on Earth. Revitalized by her adventure, Pasty rededicated her life to super heroics as Hellcat.

One day, Patsy's supernaturally-tinged senses brought her to the attention of a homeless man. She tried to recuperate him, and he turned out to be the Defenders' villain Yandroth the Magician, who began systematically attacking Earth by binding the spirit of Mother Earth itself. Patsy escaped and managed to contact the various members of the Defenders to stop him, re-forming the team after a long hiatus. As a result of the battle, several of the Defenders were cursed to continually band together, and Patsy and the remaining Defenders elected to stay together as a team to support them.