Felicia HardyBlack Cat

Felicia Hardy is a confident cat burglar and a constant thorn in Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man's side, whether as his enemy, his ally, or something even closer. For Felicia, it's about the adrenaline rush, the thrill of the chase, and stealing things nobody else can steal. The Black Cat has outlandish life goals and she is more than living up to them.

Bye, Felicia

Growing up as the daughter of world-famous cat burglar Walter Hardy, Felicia learns confidence from her father and to seize life by the horns. In college, Felicia’s assaulted by her college boyfriend Ryan, so she  trains in martial arts and acrobatics to kill her rapist.

Before she could, Ryan dies at the hands of a drunk driver. Unable to exact revenge against the man who ruined her life, Felicia becomes a cat burglar like her father, determined to be even better than he was. Donning a black costume and mask, she becomes the Black Cat and seeks to steal from the world to replace what was taken from her.

Her first act as Black Cat: break her dying father out of prison. Despite Spider-Man's interference, she succeeds; though Walter dies at home shortly after

More frequent run-ins and even a romantic relationship with Spider-Man soon follows, and wanting to be his equal, she acquires her signature bad luck powers. What she doesn’t know is that her powers are provided by Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, and they come with a price.

Hard Luck Woman

Black Cat is an expert thief and skilled acrobat. She also has extensive knowledge of the criminal underground.

Thanks to her bad luck powers provided to her by the Kingpin, Felicia can negatively affect the fortunes of her enemies. In the same manner that a superstitious person believes misfortune can be caused by actual black cats, she can cause someone to trip, miss an attack, fall down, or hurt themselves, keeping her opponents from harming her in battle. Her powers make every encounter with her as unpredictable as possible, naturally making her very difficult to catch.

Give Us a Hiss

The Kingpin is chief among Black Cat's enemies. Not only is he the man behind her power upgrade (without her knowledge), but he also manipulates her on many occasions. Since he gives her the powers, Kingpin feels like Felicia owes him. She, of course, doesn't see it that way.

Black Cat works with superspy the Foreigner in a conspiracy to kill Spider-Man, even carrying on an affair with him and with Parker simultaneously. Planning to betray Foreigner in the end, and since he can kill her easily, she has to flee the country to escape his wrath.

Claws of the Cat

The life of a cat burglar is a solitary one, and though Felicia has temporary alliances with other criminals, there are only a few the Black Cat keeps close.

One notable exception, of course, is Spider-Man. Depending on the week, Spidey is either a friend, lover, or bitter enemy. Spider-Man is the first hero Black Cat encounters after beginning her career as a masked burglar, and Felicia develops a crush immediately. Not one to associate with criminals, it takes Spider-Man awhile to return the affection; but eventually, he is won over by Black Cat's charm.

Detective Mercedes Knight, AKA Misty Knight, though a former policewoman and hero for hire by trade, still manages to become good friends with Black Cat. Felicia is known to help Misty on cases and even joins the same Super Hero team on occasion, including short stints with the Heroes for Hire and Fearless Defenders, with Misty overlooking some of Felicia's pettier crimes in return.

Don't Cross Her Path

After kicking off her career in masked cat burglary, the Black Cat quickly drew the ire of Spider-Man, who didn't much care for masked burglars. Felicia's immediate infatuation took Peter Parker off guard, considering he never became comfortable with romantic attention from women. Despite Felicia's life of crime, they began an on-again, off-again romantic relationship that would last for several months. Felicia even considered giving up her life of crime for the wall-crawler.

After the Black Cat was injured during a battle with Dr. Otto Octavius, AKA Doctor Octopus, and landed in the hospital in critical condition, Parker decided he cared for Felicia enough to reveal his secret identity to her. He was met with bewilderment. Black Cat couldn't understand why Peter, despite his Spider-Man alter ego, continued to live his mundane, paycheck to paycheck life. To her, the life of a costumed thrill-seeker was everything. There was no other half. She made Peter put the mask back on and leave it on as often as possible.

From then on, the Black Cat rejected and was hostile towards Parker, while remaining in love with Spider-Man. Still, the Black Cat's lack of powers made her feel inadequate. When Spider-Man was sent to Battleworld by the Beyonder, Felicia found an underworld connection to grant her wish. At the abandoned lab of Dr. Harlan Stillwell, the Fly’s creator, a mysterious benefactor agreed to grant her powers in exchange for future services. She agreed and Felicia was imbued with bad luck powers. But, unbeknownst to her, those powers were provided by her and Spider-Man's enemy, the Kingpin.

As these powers began to affect and injure Spider-Man whenever she was around him, they were forced to break up, which is exactly what the Kingpin wanted. In fact, this bad luck began to surround Spider-Man permanently, forcing him to visit Dr. Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, to rid himself of it. Strange's magic had the side effect of morphing Felicia's powers into more cat-like abilities, including claws, speed and stealth.

A run-in with master spy the Foreigner followed. Though Felicia was severely outclassed, he did not kill her, but in fact offered Felicia a deal to kill Spider-Man. She agreed, planning to betray him later. She resumed her romance with Spider-Man, even moving in with Parker despite her ongoing affair with the Foreigner. Ultimately, though, her double-cross was revealed, and Felicia was forced to flee the country.

Returning to New York, Felicia was horrified to learn that Parker had married Mary Jane Watson in her absence. She began dating Parker’s friend Flash Thompson to get back at Parker, but her revenge plan was subverted when her relationship with Flash blossomed into something genuine. She managed a friendship with Parker and even with Mary Jane, assisting Spider-Man against Cletus Kasady, AKA Carnage's war against the city. Unfortunately, Flash broke up with Felicia, revealing that he knew about her dual identity all along, believing it would eventually come between them.

During the Civil War that brutally divided Super Heroes, Felicia opted to register via the Superhuman Registration Act. Felicia then joined the re-formed Heroes for Hire, alongside Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, to apprehend unregistered heroes and villains.

After the Civil War ended, Black Cat joined up with the Fearless Defenders for a time, assisting her friend Misty once again. They battled the Doom Maidens alongside Brunnhilde, AKA Valkyrie, Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat, Greer Nelson, AKA Tigra, and others.

Eventually, Felicia grew bored of the chase and began to save up for retirement. After running into Spider-Man, who was at this point Otto Octavius in Peter Parker's body, and getting punched in the mouth for her trouble, Felicia was motivated to become a crime boss, on the heels of Spider-Man's perceived betrayal.

Gathering allies like Max Dillon, AKA Electro, Mac Gargan, AKA Scorpion, and Hammerhead, Felicia began to amass power in the criminal underworld. Thanks to associate crime boss Martin Li, AKA Mr. Negative, her bad luck powers were back and stronger than ever before, now powered by her ruthless mindset. Black Cat's burgeoning criminal empire dissolved after working with Spider-Man to take down rival Lee Price. Still retaining her bad luck powers, Black Cat operated as both a vigilante and burglar.

When Super Heroes’ gear went missing, like Spider-Man’s web-shooters and Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America’s shield, Black Cat knew who dunnit. She asked Spider-Man for help against the perpetrators known as the Thieves Guild, who had chapters all over the world going back for the last couple of centuries. As a member in good standing, Felicia had an in that they could use to retrieve the goods stolen before they were gone forever. When they found the loot stored away, Felicia agreed to take her half, shocking Spider-Man, but they were soon caught by the Guild’s leader, Odessa Drake. Black Cat defended herself and asserted that some of the items stolen were needed to save lives, showing that she had changed from her more villainous ways. Thankfully Spider-Man had alerted other Super Heroes of their location, and the thieves vanished, leaving all the stolen items for their rightful owners.

Felicia admitted to Spider-Man that her days as a mob boss were behind her and how she had been in a dark place. She also revealed that she couldn’t remember him and felt like part of her life had been taken from her. With help, Spider-Man had removed all knowledge of his secret identity from everyone on the planet, so Felicia wasn’t wrong. He revealed his identity to her again, which moved Felicia to tears. 

Felicia started remembering bits and pieces of her relationship with Parker/Spider-Man as she took a deal from Hammerhead to help him find crime lord Leland Owlsley, AKA Owl, in exchange for his hidden loot. But while looking for Owl, she ran into Billy Connors, Dr. Curt Connors, AKA the Lizard’s son. She and Billy soon were captured and taken to Sergei Kravinoff, AKA Kraven the Hunter, who was coordinating a great hunt, gathering all animal-like costumed heroes and villains, all to defeat Spider-Man. The notion that Felicia was being used as bait infuriated her. She and Billy were ultimately dropped into Central Park with all the other heroes and villains to be hunted by robots. Fighting them off, Felicia suffered an injury and found herself up against Kraven’s clone and defeated, but the Lizard arrived and saved them both. The hunt ended and the trio was liberated.

Felicia got back to her regular programming by pulling off several successful heists, starting with a piece from the Frick Collection. Her new benefactor was the skilled thief and teacher known as The Black Fox, who enlisted Felicia and her crew to hit unusual targets, stealing artifacts from Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Danny Rand, AKA Iron Fist, and James Howlett/Logan, AKA Wolverine, all to rob the extradimensional vault of the New York chapter of the Thieves Guild.

But the guild’s leader Odessa Drake kidnapped the Fox and declared war on Felicia. Felicia freed the Fox and went on to protect her mother after Drake’s threat. Hiring Jack Taggert, AKA Firepower, to assist her in her heists, she continued stealing valuable, high-tech items, which landed her in a fight with Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, in her own Iron suit though Firepower was captured. While wearing this suit, Felicia attacked Drake, but Iron Man intervened. Being the master escape artist that she is, the suit revealed that she wasn’t actually in it and she fulfilled her true purpose, freeing Firepower and stealing a key from Stark Unlimited’s Nanoforge.

When the God of Symbiotes, Knull, invaded the planet, Black Cat and her crew were in the middle of a high-octane heist and soon interrupted by a symbiote dragon. Black Cat joined Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to fight the invasion, but they were overwhelmed. Before being consumed by the symbiote, Captain America asked Black Cat to free Doctor Strange to defeat Knull. Black Cat regrouped with her crew at Alchemax where they sought the help of symbiote expert Dr. Steve. They also enlisted the help of Bats, Strange’s ghost dog who possessed a magical artifact—a branch from Yggdrasil, the World Tree—that could help Strange defeat Knull. After swimming through symbiote goo and scaling skyscrapers, they reclaimed the Sorcerer Supreme but he was out of commission. Black Cat took the mystical artifact and imbued herself with the powers of Asgard. Channeling the raw power of Creation itself, threatening the world more than Knull. When Creation offered her her past loves’ adoration, she couldn’t dare to make others love her through magic and chose to release the power.

After helping Earth’s heroes repel the planet-wide invasion, the dust settled and Felicia returned to her glamorous criminal life as a jewel thief. Using the things she previously stole, the painting, original deed to Manhattan, an old book, and the schematics for the dimension-hopping Randall Gate and a key for said gate, Felicia and Fox traveled to the extra-dimensional vault’s entrance to the NY Thieves Guild. Fox also revealed to Felicia that he was dying. When they gained access to the vault, Fox struck a deal with a godlike entity, the Gilded Saint, who could grant him immortality. Felicia couldn’t stop Fox from making his offer to the Saint, which included her as part of the deal, in exchange for the deed to Manhattan. The city was sucked into the vault and Felicia, desperate, could only reach out to Drake for help. The pair formed a plan and saved New York but at the cost of Fox. She was sad to lose him but she couldn’t sacrifice a whole city for her old mentor. Despite her loss, she felt like celebrating with Drake and kissed her, though she didn't see a future with her.

When Peter ended up in the hospital after a battle with the U-Foes, Black Cat teamed up with Captain America to help him in his recovery, particularly in the fighting crime department. Though she didn’t think he was ready to fight the good fight for a while. She also helped MJ with stopping Parker Robbins, AKA the Hood, and when Peter saved her from the clone of Dr. Ashley Kafka, AKA Queen Goblin, she believed him ready to return to his heroics.

As Peter continued to insist on fighting on his own, Felicia reminded him that she was there for him. She attended his birthday party, which was attacked by Doctor Octopus, while she and Flash Thompson were kidnapped by the Ultra Living Brain, who hoped to find out Spider-Man’s secret identity. Spider-Man found them and as Felicia and Flash helped the other guests to safety, Spider-Man defeated the Brain. She kissed Peter to make up for his birthday blunder.

Felicia then went to rescue Mary Jane when demons attacked New York, but discovered that MJ had slot-machine powers and was capable of protecting herself. Though the pair were soon relocated to Limbo by Belasco, who demanded that they steal the Soulsword. While there, Felicia’s luck powers saw MJ’s as a threat, since Felicia was dating Peter and saw her as a threat to their relationship, and thus flipped MJ’s powers, turning unlucky and leaving them in the lurch. They were soon saved by the demon Sy’m, and Felicia opened up to MJ, revealing that she was in a relationship with Peter. Sy’m shared that Belasco planned to kill whomever the Soulsword bonded to, so Felicia and MJ each each took half of the sword, undoing Belasco’s plot.

They left the sword with Sy’m and returned to their world where Felicia met MJ’s family from when she was previously stuck in an alternate world. Felicia resumed dating Peter and fighting villains alongside him.