"'They say that time heals all wounds!'" (Patsy Walker aka The Cat aka Hellcat)

"'They say that time heals all wounds!'" (Patsy Walker aka The Cat aka Hellcat)

"The Cat and the Contrary"

This is a piece about HELLCAT - I promise.  But there are a few things I need to get out of the way before we talk about Patsy Walker.

I should say that I'm sorry about the pun up there in the title.  I would, except that saying that wouldn't be exactly true.  It wouldn't be true at all, actually.

I admit it; I love puns.

I also admit I love tormenting people with terrible, horrible puns - the more strained and painful, the better.  I always have enjoyed doing that, ever since I was a little kid.  

Chalk it up to me being way too contrary for my own good.  And I mean contrary.

When someone would tell me not to push a button, I was the one who HAD to push the button.  When someone tells me to speak quietly, I get loud.

I've always been like this, and that's led to some people misinterpreting me and I think misinterpreting a lot of what it means to be trans, and the day-to-day way trans people have to deal with the world.

But, Dee, you're asking, what about HELLCAT? What about Patsy Walker? 

I'm getting there!

Before we address Ms. Walker, though, I'd like to make another point about what it means to  be contrary in my own life, and specifically how it relates to me becoming who I am today.

Over the course of my life, I've had people suggest to me that anyone who thinks they're a transgirl or transboy as a child is just engaging in some kind of rebellion, trying to go against their "true nature."

It's one of the oldest arguments you'll hear:  "Be a man!" / "Act like a lady!"

I spent an unfortunately-long period of time being educated in a Catholic private school.

It wasn't fun.

I got to listen to why I was a terrible person even before I really understood what was supposedly wrong with me.  I got to experience daily segregation based on gender that was pure mental torture.

I remember all the boys standing on one side of the room and the girls standing on the other.  I remember standing with a bunch of boys and looking across the room trying to suppress tears  - because I knew I should be on the other side of the room with the people with whom I most identifed.

That's a lot more painful than it might seem, especially because I was young enough that those tiny events are huge because you haven't had the broad life experiences to understand what's a big deal and what isn't.

Plus, I SO hated wearing those awful blue corduroy trousers  of the school uniform when I would've so much preferred to to wear the checked skirts and knee socks the girls got to wear.

It was the Blue Birds all over again, only this time it was a daily ordeal.  I had to be reminded every morning that I wasn't seen as I felt I should be seen.  I had to walk in line with the "wrong" gender.  I had to use the "wrong" bathrooms at the school.

Adding to all that, we even had segregated water fountains and the girls' fountain had ice-cold water that tasted wonderful while the boys' fountain featured water that tasted, for lack of a better description in my limited childhood vocabulary, "like brown," as I protested to the teachers - who were, unsurprisingly, unmoved.  They were, after all, nuns.  

And why would I be surprised that Catholic nuns,  like Catholic priests, wouldn't be sympathetic to a plight they consider to be entirely evil?

The Catholic religion has a habit of coming after LGBT people for simply existing.  In fact, Pope Benedict took advantage of his annual Christmas speech in 2012 to make sure to let gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people know that our very existence is an act in total defiance of his god and that anyone who tries to decide their own fate in life "against" their own biology is headed toward some kind of terrifying afterlife.  He even went so far as to suggest that transboys and transgirls are destroying the "essence of the human creature" by trying to choose their own destiny.

Wow.  Comfort and Joy.

Of course, Pope Benedict could've taken his Christmas speech to discuss the epidemic of violence against women around the world.

He could've discussed the rash of mass shootings and the need for humans to care about each other.  He could've talked about young people killing themselves because of prejudice and bullying.  But that wasn't to be.

In his world view, LGBT people are much worse than any of the other things I've mentioned in this paragraph.

Let's remember that.

Someone who is considered one of the most religious people on the planet to particular faiths, who supposedly speaks for the architect of the universe, stated categorically at Christmas that the mere ACT of BEING an LGBT person is worse than raping someone, worse than shooting someone, worse than murder, worse than terrorism, worse than child abuse, worse than incest, worse than a hit-and-run, worse than any kind of human violence imaginable.  He said it as blessing to the world, all while claiming to be the voice of the force that designed the entire universe.

Now, a kid in the Third Grade isn't going to be able to stand up to that kind of browbeating, and I wasn't any exception to that.

I knew that nobody at that school would see me as a girl, no matter how I pleaded - so I didn't bother to plead.  I figure, for the religious dogmatists, that's part of the point.

But, I wasn't about to be totally defeated.  I just had to remember to use my secret super-power.

I used the power of being contrary - for no other reason than to keep myself sane.

Keeping oneself sane is a vital skill a lot of LGBT people find they are simply required to develop as a condition of existing in a heteronormative world.

And, if nothing else, I've always been good at surviving.

So I did what I could - I turned to that vital and essential super-power of being contrary.  But I want to be clear in case there are doubters reading this - I wasn't wishing to be seen as a girl so that I could rebel.  I was rebelling to keep myself from going crazy at the restrictions of a world who didn't see me as a girl.

Sure, the world pushed me to conform every day in an uncountable number of tiny ways - but by being so contrary, I allowed myself to push back a little bit, to say no to the world's insistence of conformity.  I couldn't change how people saw me, but if they weren't going to accept that they were looking at a girl then I would make sure I had a little fun to keep myself from going crazy.

I think a lot of trans people do that.  We're accused by those who don't understand of trying to "rebel" against our gender, the way Pope Benedict accused us all in his hateful Christmas speech.  But he's wrong.  I'm sure he doesn't care about that - he clearly cares about reminding us that we're going to his "hell."

And that's where Patsy Walker comes into the picture.

It's it's also where her deliciously wicked (and contrary) alter-ego comes into play.

But that alter-ego wasn't where we were first introduced to Patsy, so we need to start with a quieter and more reserved notion of what it means to be a hellcat.

The reason for this is because Patsy Walker didn't start out her literary existence as a super-hero, as you can see from the first image in this piece.  Rather, she started life in a series of  "romance/relationship" titles.

Now, I'll confess - to no one's surprise - that I'm a huge fan of old comics like PATSY WALKER.  They're silly, they're often blisteringly sexist - but I admit that I have fun reading them.

It's interesting to me to get a glimpse into how people saw each other through disposable entertainment of times far removed from when I lived my life.

So, yes, it's fascinating to see another world portrayed on the pages.

It's especially true that these pieces often reflect ideals and vsalues of their times, particularly in terms of the fashions, since many of the comics of this type (including PATSY WALKER) featured outfits for the characters designed by people who wrote in with sketches and fashion ideas.

I often wonder if any professional fashion designers ended up appearing first in the pages of one of those books. 

My aunt had huge stacks of comic books she'd left behind at my grandmother's house, and this is where I found these adventures, abandoned and mouldering in the basement.

But I didn't care - they were a secret treasure to me, especially because I felt like they somehow "belonged" to me.

Abandoned by my aunt, the comics were like a storehouse of the possessions I might have had if I'd been as the world saw me, and it was one of those delicious kinds of secret treasures that comes to find value because it's yours and nobody else's - that becomes worthwhile because it belongs only to you, where any actual value of the item itself is completely secondary to that joy.

Likewise, Patsy was a beautiful girl with red hair - a redhead like me.

When I would read her admittedly-outdated adventures, I found myself fantasizing dreamily that I was going on those romantic adventures instead.

I placed myself in the story, in which I was a beautiful girl, desired and admired.  Heck, I'd've even put up with a brat like Hedy if it meant I could've been like Patsy.

Such a jewel, Hedy - wasn't she?

Now, aside from the fact that Patsy herself is a feisty redhead - aren't all of us who're blessed with red hair? - she also shared with me another trait - she could be incredibly contrary.

She was undecided in that sophomoric fashion that one finds in titles like this, always trying to figure out whether it was better to go with her friends to the ski lodge or stay home and study like she promised and tutor the nephew of the elderly librarian (I'll be you're wondering if the nephew turned out to be a handsome football player - I'll let you remain in suspense).

But that didn't mean she wasn't prone to sarcasm, prone to pettiness, prone to the types of imperfections that would later inhabit the personalities of Marvel characters almost like a trademark for that brand.  As a result, it's no surprise that Patsy eventually transitioned into the Marvel Universe.

Of course, there would have to be changes for Patsy if she was going to make it in the new market of super heroes.

The "girls' own adventure" comics were on the wane.

By that time Patsy had graduated from college and was trying to make her way in the world as a career woman ...

America might have loved the new PATSY WALKER, but what they loved more were the exploits of costumed adventurers.

Marvel didn't want to throw the character away, however - so, in the grand but then-uncommon tradition of character-reboots, Patsy had to change.

As a result, she would eventually find herself transitioning from being "The Prettiest Gal in Town" to becoming someone else entirely.

Patsy's abilities were borrowed from a Marvel character named THE CAT.  THE CAT hadn't really gone anywhere as a concept, and so PATSY WALKER and THE CAT blended together into a "new" character who would become known as HELLCAT.  And I loved everything about her, because she was pure ferocity and pure ostentatious refusal to conform to the conventions of super heroes of the time, at least in my mind back then.

I want to point out an element of her costume - its coloration: bright, glowing yellow.

I absolutely adored this.

It doesn't make much sense from the view of someone interested in tactical realism in their comics, but that didn't matter to me back then.

What mattered was that she was boldly contrary.

Whereas other "night vigilante" type characters such as Batman were dressed in the colors of the night, HELLCAT was proud and brazen.  She practically popped off the page when she appeared, especially standing alongside her fellow teammates in her group of choice, THE DEFENDERS - but she even stood out among the stalwart A-List characters of THE AVENGERS!

To be fair, she's the center of the image, but the point is still well-made by that image.  Even with other characters featuring a dominant yellow motif, her outfit is the definition of eye-catching.  Add to that her bright red hair and she's practically walking out to her own theme music when she appears.  And anyone who's read her adventures knows she has a tendency to be a little dramatic from time to time.  It's her nature.  

Patsy's bold nature, her joy at the way her costume enhances her abilities to the pinnacle of human endeavor - it's all there.  And there was something more, too.  There was that wickedness in the very name of the character.  

HELLCAT.  Hell - Cat.

I'll admit to not being terribly fond of religion, as you can probably guess from this piece alone.

Certainly, there was an element of that which spurred on my contrary nature, with regard to comic book characters.

As a child, there was a likewise delicious feeling of wickedness on my part at even saying the names of these dark supernatural characters that were viewed as dangerous by the organized church:  HELLCAT.  MEPHISTO.  BELASCO.  And others ...

They reached a fever pitch of popularity during the Satanic Panic of the late 70s and early 80s and I gloried in the spookiness of walking on the edge with these characters.

Of course, this seems silly now - but this was a time when vile so-called humans like Pat Roberston were insisting that watching MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE or THE SMURFS meant a child's soul was forever doomed.

As a result, I enjoyed skirting the edge of these "threats" through harmless characters like Marvel's supernatural demonic powers-that-be.

It was a way for me to vent my frustration over the ridiculous policies and my mistreatment by the Catholic schools of my youth, a sort of early teenage rebellion that I knew was ultimately utterly meaningless and without consequence.  

I didn't have the power or authority to speak out against the vile behavior of the Catholic church, but I could buy a copy of THE DEFENDERS and stake my side clearly, be contrary to what I had been taught and make a statement that I saw more good and worth in HELLCAT than I did in any Pope.  And I still do.

While Pope Benedict preaches his vicious sermons calling for the world to unite and exterminate LGBT people, Patsy Walker was joining forces with other outcasts in THE DEFENDERS, fighting for nobility and justice while carrying a name that was associated with ultimate evil, flirting with wickedness.

To me, that was an important element, too.  I was accused on a day to day basis with being wicked whenever I had to hear about people crying out in hateful rage against LGBT individuals.

I knew I was one, but I had to stand in silence.  Likewise, Patsy's DEFENDERS were often seen as evil or, worse, demonic.  She wasn't, despite the flirtations of various writers with giving her demonic abilities later in the characters' life (I was never a fan of her actually having supernatural abilities - being an awesome acrobat was enough for me.), a being of any actual hell.

But she and her DEFENDERS  were shunned like I was shunned in real life, albeit for totally different reasons.  

Most of all, though, what I admire about Patsy is her tenacity, as a character and in the way her presence has carried on - in the background, but NEVER quietly - for decades.  I expect she'll be around as long as the Marvel Universe is around, in one form or another.  She's a survivor.  

And when you're hated by despicable forces, surviving is the most contrary act of all. 

Take that, universe.  Mwah-HAH-HAH!