She was there before the F4. Or was she? You see during the time that Timely was publish other genre following the collapse of their Superhero universe during the 40’s, they would publish other genres, including romance and teen comics. One of the stars of these was Patsy Walker, first appearing in Miss America Magazine #2 (1944). However, these stories were later retconned to be set in a fictional comic written by her mother. In reality, as a model, her first appearance in the universe was in Millie the Model Comics #103 (1961) and would later appear at the Richards wedding in Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965). It wasn’t until her transformation in Hellcat, in Avengers #144 (1975) that all of this was brought up. Thus, her creators are credited as Otto Binder, Stuart Little, Ruth Atkinson, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

That confusing real-life story aside, Patsy grew up as a child model, forced into this role by her mother. Her mother would use this to create comics based on her daughter’s life. Despite not feeling alright with her mother using her for this, Patsy grew up admiring Superheroes, and developed a crush on Reed Richard. During a modeling role, she met and befriended Millie Collins. She would later marry Robert Baxter and would move with him as he was assigned to the Air Force. When he was assigned to a security role at Brand Corporations, she met Beast, who at the time had to wear a mask to hide his transformation into his furry form. She would blackmail Beast into helping her become a superhero and after her divorce, she approached Beast, now an Avengers, to keep this promise. While the Avengers investigated Brand Corp., she tagged along but the team was captured by the Corporation and her Ex. She escaped and discovered the old suit that Greer Nelson/Tigra wore as the Cat. She donned this suit and took the name Hellcat, aiding the Avengers.

After receiving training, she would accept an offer to join the Defenders, becoming one of its core members. She would befriend Valkyrie, Nighthawk and She-Hulk and would meet and married Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan. After Daimon’s demon soul was removed from him, Patsy worked to save him, summoning his father to help. However, he made her remove the protective charm on Daimon, which drove her mad and she killed herself. Her soul would find itself in Mephisto ream where it would do battle with Mockingbird. After a brief resurrection by Grim Reaper, the Thunderbolts would rescue her. Though she was depressed after her time in hell, she would use the experience to write an autobiography. After an encounter with Nicholas Scratch, Patsy returned to heroics.

She would return to the Defenders when they were cursed to be summoned when there is treat only, they could handle. She would register for the SHA and was assigned to Alaska and would later be assigned to Camp Hammond. She would later help the New Avengers, in rescuing Luke Cage from Norman Osborn. In an effort to save Firestar from cancer, she agreed with her ex Hellstrom to spend the night with her. However, this was a trick by Hellstrom who brought her to hell, where a night could last forever. She was rescued by the Divas. When She-Hulk opened her own law firm, she hired Hellcat as her private investigator. Iron Man later recruited her to help him in prevent Korvac in becoming a god. They would become close and romantically involved, eventually leading to Iron Man proposing to her.

As one of the core members of the Defenders, Hellcat has been requested by fans for a while. She would eventually receive a figure as part of the Avengers: Age of Ultron Thanos wave.