Now Patsy Walker, she’s got the best story ever.
Patsy’s mom made her daughter’s life into a Gidget-like comic book, the romantic adventures of her daughter. Patsy didn’t have too much interest in this “girl” comic, but enjoyed the super-hero adventures that her mother’s colleagues turned out. Patsy married childhood friend and comic book sweetheart Buzz Baxter. Because of one of Buzz’s security jobs (Buzz is military), Patsy meets the former X-men the Beast and discovers his secret ID.
After her marriage ends, Patsy decides that maybe a super hero can help her get super powers, so she puts pressure on the Beast to help her be a super heroine. During an investigation of Brand Industries, Patsy finds the suit of the former super heroine the Cat, and puts it on, thinking that the suit gives her super ability. It doesn’t. It’s all Patsy, but she finally has the abilities she’s looking for.
Moondragon, on the team at the same time, helps Patsy beef up her martial arts (on Titan!) Patsy kicks around with the Defenders for a bit, and then she meets the love of her life, Damien Hellstrom. Yup, the Son of Satan. The two of them marry and become occult investigators.
And them Damien’s satanic soul manifests and Patsy goes mad and gets killed and gets restored to life, and does some more supernatural stuff and rededicates herself to fighting criminals.
The take home message from Patsy Walker seems to be that when a situation doesn’t turn out as you plan, in the end, you can still have control of your life. Patricia Hellstrom then becomes a real person rather than a damsel in distress. She joins the Black Widow and the Wasp in having arcs of fully actualized personhood.
It’s even weirder when you remember that Patsy Walker actually -was- a teen humor/romance heroine for over twenty years, headlining her own comic for 124 issues and a spinoff lasting 110 issues. She had an eventful history long before they retconned that into being a fiction comic book and brought her into the superhero fold.
I really dislike the period where she went mad and died and came back, because I first ran across her in the Defenders where she was pretty darn awesome. 🙂 I’m glad she got better again. The stuff they’ve done with her gal-paling around with Firestar, Monica Rambeau, and Black Cat was great.
Oooo, I’d love to see your thoughts on Firestar and Monica, as they were both Avengers in good standing who have had long and interesting personal storylines.
Gotta love Patsy. She accomplished what Rick Jones hasn’t in five decades! I wasn’t even aware that she is back from the dead.