Fans now know when “Jessica Jones” will premiere on Netflix thanks to the new trailer, but the Jessica news doesn”t stop there. Yesterday Yahoo! revealed a brand-new series loosely tied to that same corner of the Marvel universe and dropping this December:
PATSY WALKER AKA HELLCAT #1 brings one of the most meta characters in the Marvel library front and center once again.
But how is this comic – timed to the release of “Jessica Jones” on Netflix – related to the Private Eye? Because Jessica and Patsy are friends, with Hellcat having also been on the Defenders superhero team with her. As Hellcat has also been cast for the show, it makes sense to reignite interest in her within the comics community. But just who IS Patsy Walker?
Originally Patsy was the daughter of an ambitious mother who turned her teenage daughter into the star of a series of romance comics that became wildly popular within the Marvel universe. Riffing off Patsy”s real life exploits and tweaking them slightly, her mother virtually turned Patsy into a reality TV star, only in print.
Growing up around comic books, Patsy came to idolize superheroes and wanted to become one despite have no real powers to speak of. After a brief stint with the Avengers, Patsy – now Hellcat – was approached by Moondragon to train on the moon Titan. During this time, Hellcat's nascent natural psionic ability was augmented through organic technology. Once her potential was reached, Patsy returned to Earth and joined the Defenders.
She also married the son of Satan, Damion Hellstrom. That went about as well as could be expected. Which is to say, very badly. So there”s that.
A lot of that original story appears intact in the latest iteration of Hellcat, though updated for a modern audience. Patsy”s mother still wrote fictionalized version of her daughter's life in a popular comic, but they were private until a frenemy reprinted them. Patsy trained on Earth's moon instead of Titan, and Damion* is merely an ex-boyfriend instead of an ex-husband.
PATSY WALKER AKA HELLCAT will be written by Kate Leth with art by Brittney Williams.
*With Damion returning to the page, can we PLEASE get a Satana book already????