Greer Nelson

Chicago police officer's widow Greer Grant Nelson volunteered for Dr. Joanne Tumolo's secret research program, gaining peak human abilities as the costumed hero the Cat. She later underwent a second transformation by the mystical Cat People, merging with a magical cat-soul to become the fur-covered powerhouse Tigra.

Few Marvel characters can claim an origin story as groundbreaking as Greer Nelson's — she burst onto the scene in 1972's The Cat #1, co-created by the remarkable team of Roy Thomas, Linda Fite, and Marie Severin during a Bronze Age moment when Marvel was pushing boundaries and putting bold new faces at the forefront of superhero comics. Over more than five decades of continuous publication, Greer has proven herself one of the publisher's most enduring figures, racking up 325 catalog appearances and 14 collector-significant key issues that speak to a legacy built issue by issue. Her world is populated by the heaviest hitters in the Marvel Universe — she shares adventures with the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man, and Hawkeye — and her deepest roots run through The Avengers, West Coast Avengers, and Avengers: The Initiative, the kind of cornerstone titles that define a character's place in the mythology. If you're tracing the arc of Marvel's Bronze Age heroines and want a name that genuinely matters, Greer Nelson is exactly where to start.