Felicia Hardy

Biographical information
Occupation	Cat burglar, thief
Family	Walter Hardy (father)
Physical information
Height	5'10"
Weight	150 lbs
Gender	Female
Abilities	Expert burglar Skilled martial artist and gymnast Utilizes a miniature grappling hook device and sharp retractable claws
Behind the scenes
Portrayed by	Erica Lindbeck

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Felicia Hardy, also known by her alias Black Cat, appears as a central character in Marvel's Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps: The Heist for Marvel's Spider-Man, the PlayStation 4 video game. She is also mentioned and referenced throughout the base game, after being introduced in the mission Stakeout.

History

Early history

Felicia Hardy is the only daughter of former cat burglar Walter Hardy, the original Black Cat, who faked his death to prevent the Maggia crime families from coming after her. When Felicia grew up, she decided to follow in her father's footsteps, becoming the new Black Cat.

As Black Cat, she chose to only steal from well-off people, or in her eyes, "people who deserved it". At an unknown point, she met Spider-Man, whom she grew fond of, eventually falling in love with him. Due to her feelings for the wall-crawler, Black Cat gave up on her criminal ways and became Spider-Man's partner for a brief period, both professionally and romantically. However, the partnership ended when Spider-Man realized she had started robbing criminals again, prompting Black Cat to leave New York.

Marvel's Spider-Man

Black Cat calls Spider-Man from a blocked number, taunting him to catch her by coming to a specific address, where she has left a tape recorder and a message for him. Apparently back in town, she tricks Spider-Man into collecting several cat dolls throughout the city, knowing that he would report them to police captain Yuri Watanabe. Together, the dolls shut down the alarms of the police department's evidence lockup, allowing Felicia to recover her old costume and gear, instead of looting $50,000,000 worth of stakeouts. This makes Spider-Man note that Black Cat has something bigger planned.

The City That Never Sleeps

Main article: Marvel's Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps

Now working for Hammerhead, Black Cat sneaks into the MMoCA art museum, with her eye on the "Maria" painting, where she comes face-to-face with Spider-Man. To his surprise, she breaks the "Maria" in half, revealing that she in in fact after a data drive hidden within it before escaping. This triggers conflicts between the Maggia crime families, one of which she orchestrates to distract Spider-Man while she steals the drive belonging to the Cicero family. When Spider-Man arrives at her current location, Black Cat escapes, leaving him to deal with the Cicero thugs as she watches. Black Cat claims ignorance when asked by Spider-Man about the contents of the drives. When Spider-Man asks she's stealing them for Hammerhead, she answers that Hammerhead will kill her son if she doesn't and retreats via smoke grenade.

Black Cat proceeds to steal more Maggia data drives throughout the city. Her next target is hidden within a rare book: after taking the drive, she hands the empty book to the Maggia thugs while she kept the drive to hand to Hammerhead. As Black Cat steals the fourth drive, Spider-Man catches up to her, wanting to talk. Black Cat responds by throwing an EMP grenade to disable his Web-Shooters, forcing Spider-Man to chase after her on foot through the streets. Eventually, Spider-Man's Web-Shooters reactivate, and he manages to finally catch her. Explaining that he knows about the nature of the drives, he talks her into letting him help. Felicia agrees to stall Hammerhead while Spider-Man finds her son, being coy when Spider-Man asks if he could be her son's father.

Some time later, Black Cat contacts Spider-Man with a vague request for his help and hangs up, knowing he'll rush on over anyway. When he arrives at the location of the bar she sent, she explains that she has a tip that Hammerhead is keeping something valuable at the office above. Spider-Man draws out the Maggia thugs, allowing Black Cat to sneak in undetected. As the fight escalates, Black Cat joins in and helps Spider-Man defeat all of them. As she helps herself to a drink from the bar, Felicia notes that she couldn't find the vault where her son was being held, but at least they're getting closer. She continues to evade Spider-Man's questioning of her son's paternity, asking instead if he ever misses the two of them working together (to which Spider-Man grumbles about being shot at which Felicia steals things). Before leaving, Felicia assures him that she'll call him when she needs an extra pair of hands.

She is contacted again by Spider-Man, who has located a massive Vault in a storage harbor on the Hudson River, noting it as the most likely location for Hammerhead to be holding her son. The two work together in stealthily taking out all of Hammerhead's goons in the area. However, she disappears when more Maggia goons arrive, this time with equipment from Sable International. When Spider-Man enters the vault, Black Cat turns on him, locking him inside the vault and revealing her trickery: she never had a son, and had only been using Spider-Man to steal Hammerhead's data drive. Having kept all five data drives for herself and giving Hammerhead duplicates, she intends to steal the Maggia's collective wealth for herself.

Black Cat ignores Spider-Man's pleas to hand the drivers over to police, saying that she's earned them and warning him that her work will only, if anything, slightly delay Hammerhead in his ambitions. She makes her escape as more of Hammerhead's goons arrive. Learning of Black Cat's deception, Hammerhead orders his men to kill her. Within seconds, Black Cat is called by Spider-Man, who informs her that Hammerhead's drive has a tracker. Expressing her confusion at how Spider-Man can be so nice in spite of what she did to him, Black Cat dismisses his warning about her penthouse being rigged to explode and bids him farwell. Felicia returns to her apartment, and as she moves to enter, Spider-Man races to stop her. She gives a slight smile before the bomb detonates, destroying the penthouse and likely taking Felicia with it.

Just before the explosion, Felicia disappears in a puff of smoke, suggesting that, like her father, she faked her death to cover her tracks.

Appearance

Concept art

Felicia Hardy is a tall, curvaceous woman, with white-platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. Her outfit consists of a black suit with white accents and black goggles, and also features retractable cat claws.

Personality

Felicia is a cunning and morally ambiguous individual, whose playful and flirtatious demeanor mask an intelligent and relentless burglar with a powerful self-righteous streak. She has little to no qualms about lying and manipulating others, even the people close to her, for personal gain. While she tried to come clean during her relationship with Spider-Man, she has since resigned herself to criminal ways, claiming that being altruistic is simply not who she is.

However, Felicia seems to have some sense of morality. She only steals from wealthy individuals or from criminals, people who in her eyes deserve it. This attitude may stem from her father's supposed death, who was targeted by the Maggia for refusing to work for them. She also shows concern about Hammerhead's plans for retaking New York. As a result, Felicia is neither fully criminal nor vigilante, but rather somewhere in the middle.

Abilities

• Gifted Intellect: Felicia is highly intelligent, showing proficiency in engineering and strategizing.
• Master Thief: Felicia is a master cat burglar.
• Master Acrobat: She is shown to be an acrobatic and agile combatant, on par with Spider-Man in terms of skill despite her lack of superhuman abilities.

Equipment

• Black Cat Costume: Black Cat's costume is both form-fitting and practical. It is equipped with grappling hooks, akin to the web shooters of Spider-Man, and is armed with tough, retractable metal claws.
• EMP Grenades: Black Cat is seen using electromagnetic pulse (EMP) grenades, which upon activation emits a powerful electromagnetic pulse capable of temporarily disabling electronic equipment.

Relationships

Spider-Man

Felicia has a complicated relationship with Spider-Man. The two began as enemies, stemming from the standard criminal-vigilante relationship. Eventually, Spider-Man managed to convince Felicia to give up her criminal ways and use her abilities in the service of others. During their time as partners, the two engaged in a romantic relationship, having intercourse at least once. Their relationship ended when Spider-Man learned she had relapsed to her criminal ways. Felicia generally interacts with Spider-Man in a playful and flirtatious manner. Before, during, and after their time as partners, she would use her charms to take advantage of him, leaving him with the brunt of the issues while she helped herself to what she pleased, much to his chagrin. However, within her misdirections and manipulations hides genuine admiration and affection for Spider-Man. She has difficulty understanding his selfless righteousness, especially in light of all the things she has done.

Interestingly, while Spider-Man refers to her as Felicia, Black Cat never refers to him by his name, only calling him "Spider".

Walter Hardy

Walter Hardy is Felicia's father.

Original appearance

For more background of Felicia Hardy throughout comic book history, see all appearances of Black Cat and the original appearance of Felicia Hardy on the Marvel Database

Black Cat first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #194 (July 1979).

Behind the scenes

Erica Lindbeck is the voice actor for Black Cat in Marvel's Spider-Man.

Trivia

• In The Heist, a split second before her apartment blows up, she  can be seen disappearing in a cloud of smoke, indicating she may have escaped the blast.
• Her costume design has elements from her Ultimate universe incarnation (goggles instead of the domino mask) and her brief "pure crime empress" stint from the main Earth-616 universe (fully closed catsuit, sans the tacky cat eye designs on her shoulders).

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