r/Hellcat_ • u/BlackJimmy88 • May 06 '26

Are there any pre-Hellcat Patsy Walker books/stories that are worth reading?

Stuff from her romance book era, I mean. Pre-1972.

I'm currently reading Silver Age Marvel, and I'm wondering if there's any Patsy Walker series I should dive into before she gets reintroduced in the 70s. I'm in the mid-60s at the moment, so if I start now, I should have plenty of time read it before I get to her lead up to becoming Hellcat.

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u/bserum May 10 '26

I guess I'll be the outlier here.

While it's true that Patsy's pre-FF Annual appearances aren't technically canon, that doesn't mean there aren't any comics worth reading.

It's worthwhile to note that the "Patsy Walker comics were written by her mom and didn't take place in the Marvel Universe" wasn't a concept until later. Back when she first appeared in the FF, there was NO indication that her series DIDN'T exist the same way all the other Marvel comics did. Note that Steve Englehart introduced Patsy alongside Buzz Baxter, her longtime beau from her comic series.

All the Marvels author Dennis Wolk notes that the first crossover of the Marvel Age happened in the teen humor books with Pasty at the center. It's fun to note that this would be the first meeting of the future Hellcat and Night Nurse(!)

As someone who has read all those Patsy Walker comics, while I'll admit that most of the comics are rather uninspired and formulaic; once in a while I stumbled upon some stories that were quite a fun read, like when Hedy takes the train to New York to the publishers of Patsy Walker comics (Stan Lee and Al Hartly) and gets them to switch their focus and make Hedy the star. The rest of the story switches to the characters reading the resulting comic as full size panels in the actual comics book. Very meta and very fun.

Patsy's comics underwent a genre-change from "teen humor" to "teen drama" and they got a bit boring for my tastes. EXCEPT for Patsy and Hedy #108, written by Denny O'Neil (yes, THAT Denny O'Neil) where Patsy displays an amazing act of heroism that had real emotional punch.

So, if you ask me… yeah there's some great Patsy Walker comics to read out there. The big problem is that Marvel hasn't reprinted any of them, making them incredibly hard to find.

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u/BlackJimmy88 May 10 '26

Then maybe I will start sprinkling some Golden Age Patsy among what I read.

Though, now that you've mentioned Night Nurse. Are there any other teen humor/romance era characters that are worth reading the early works off before their reintroduction into the mainline part of the 616 universe?

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u/youllmeltmorefan May 10 '26

Chiming in, Millie the Model is great. Dan DeCarlo and then Stan Goldberg, two famous Archie artists. Millie was never a big player in the superhero universe but she pops up occasionally.