Patsy Walker, Hellcat WTF!?

What do the bright twinkie on the left and the dark lady of the night on the right have in common? Everything! They are the exact same person, Patsy Walker!* Yes, when Marvel ended its Patsy series, rather than just letting her fade away, they made her into Hellcat (presumably “Heckcat” until the Comics Code was eviscerated). No doubt to retain some of Patsy’s old fans, a la Guy Gardner Warrior, only this made less sense. This even made less sense than rebooting Little Orphan Annie into Lady Death, at least Annie had the right eyes and a dog (I made that last bit up…I think.).

Imagine the surprise of Patsy’s readers. They’re expecting another round of light comedy, romance and paper dolls, and they get a superhero comic and not one with cute Superteen adventures (Fur flies when Patsy and Catwoman go to the Superhero dance wearing the same outfit.), but one with some pretty grim stuff. For instance, things didn’t work out between Patsy and Buzz, so SHE MARRIED THE SON OF SATAN, talk about your in-laws from hell! Also, she got killed and spent time in hell with Mephisto, who is different from Satan. She came back though, but lots of other contorted adventures awaited and nor doubt still await our little twinkie. Watch out Betty Boop, they might reboot (or reboop) you too!.

Notes: I photoshopped in the credit in the first panel of Hellcat. In a recent mini series, "Patsy Walker, Hellca", Marvel embraced the two sides of Patsy's personality.

*Actually, the story is that Patsy’s mother did comics about her real-life adventures. So, since she is both a real person in the context of comics and a comic character in the same context, is what Marvel published and what real-real-life people read supposed to be Patsy’s comic real-life adventures or the comic-within-a-comic recounting those adventures? My head hurts.