Because I’m a big nerd, the whole “Poor, Poor Tigra” thing has led me on a pointless journey down memory lane. And I don’t even like Tigra that much. I’ll spare you by putting it after the jump.
She has a certain amount of historical gravitas, surprising as that may be. Introduced as the star of Claws of the Cat in 1972, I believe Greer Nelson was the first post-Spider-Man Marvel super-heroine to have her own series. It only ran five issues, but it’s worth noting. She was also co-created by a woman writer, Linda Fite.
She was one of the few prominent (or intended-to-be-prominent) Marvel super-heroines who was not a reformed villainess (like the Scarlet Witch, the Black Widow or Medusa) or a girlfriend, sidekick or both (like the Wasp, Crystal and the Invisible Girl). especially And she wasn’t a spin-off of a male super-hero like many of the solo super-heroines who would follow her. (Perhaps the failure of the book led to that?)
The Cat wasn’t spectacularly original in terms of character conception. Three years prior, DC had re-introduced a Golden Age heroine with “Black” in her codename who, like Greer, was the widow of a cop. About five years prior, the Batman television series had introduced a female adventurer with a pointy-eared cowl to great success. And DC also had a high-profile, pointy-eared female with long black hair, though theirs was a villainess (for the most part).
After the failure of The Claws of the Cat, Greer got a second shot at fame in Marvel Chillers (fame is relative, obviously), being reintroduced as Tigra, taking the cat motif to its logical conclusion. The series was subtitled to reflect Tigra’s starring role, though I don’t think that lasted a whole lot longer than Claws of the Cat.
I think Tigra was just about as derivative as the Cat, though I can’t seem to find a reference as to precisely when the Cheetah went from being a crazy woman in a costume to an actual crazy were-cat, thanks to the same kind of mystical-scientific mumbo jumbo that transformed Greer. That might not have happened until after the first Crisis. Even without Cheetah comparisons, were-anything isn’t conceptually novel.
Greer did actually get a legacy hero of her own. Her old Cat costume was adopted by Patsy Walker, longtime star of Marvel’s defunct romance comics. Like Greer, Patsy’s marriage was over (she’d divorced her husband, though she probably wouldn’t have minded widowhood), and super-heroism came with her efforts to build a new life for herself.
While portrayals have been inconsistent since her introduction, her C-list status has become sort of her thing. Her initial stint as an Avenger (written by Jim Shooter) was characterized by insecurity and ineffectiveness. After joining the West Coast branch of the team, she encountered many of the same problems, compounded by conflict with the feline part of her persona. (She’d find herself becoming uncontrollably amorous and violent.) Writer Steve Englehart was actually playing up those insecurities in order to correct them, putting Greer at rock bottom before rebuilding her. Both Chris Claremont and Kurt Busiek did this to varying degrees with Carol Danvers with the intent of making the character more functional, and I’m never entirely convinced by this strategy. Why do a full tear-down instead of just starting with the status quo?
After Englehart’s fairly painstaking character rehab, John Byrne proceeded to have her revert to pure bad kitty when he took over the book and left before the situation could be resolved. High point: the guy who tried to commit suicide after Tigra dumped him shrinks her and puts her in a terrarium to keep her out of trouble. I’m sure he would have gotten around to helping her.
The solicitation text for New Avengers #35 is really tacky.
I don’t ever remember anyone mentioning Tigra’s mother before.
It’s kind of hard to argue that a depiction of a woman getting pistol-whipped and kneecapped as her blouse tears open, with the event videotaped and broadcast for a group of cheering men, doesn’t have some kind of deeply ill-conceived intent to create uncomfortable titillation.
The arguments that this could have happened to any C-list Avenger as a counterpoint to any inherent sexism is actually a reasonably sound one. Of course, arguing that the choice of victim was completely interchangeable doesn’t exactly speak to the quality of the writing.
It’s entirely possible that this could all be leading to another big Tigra empowerment arc.
It’s equally possible that this could all be leading up to a big “You touched my stuff, and now you must pay” arc for Tigra’s A-list associates.
However will she be able to protect her sainted mother from the insidious schemes of a C-list thug? If only she worked for one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the United States who has a lockstep army of super-heroes at his disposal.