Who's This? A forgotten cat villainess.
The facts: Created by Mort Meskin as a recurring foe for Wildcat as of Sensation Comics #68 (August, 1947), the original Huntress made half-a-dozen appearances in that strip, and also fought the JSA as a member of the Injustice Society of the World, in the Golden Age and in the Bronze Age revival of All-Star Comics. An appearance in Batman Family, fighting Batgirl and Robin, confused the Earth-1/Earth-2 issue, but after Crisis, the point became moot. To avoid a connection with the new Huntress, Roy Thomas gave her an earlier career as the more heroic Tigress in Young All-Stars, and in the present-day, the parent of the villain Artemis, alongside Sportsmaster. Appearances have been sporadic post-Roy Thomas (a cameo in Young Justice here, a New52 appearance there), at best.
How you could have heard of her: The well-remembered Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith made use of the character. She appears as Tigress in the Stargirl show, played by Joy Osmanski.
Example story: Sensation Comics #75 (March 1948) "The Snake That Backfired!" by Arthur F. Peddy and Bernie Sachs
As originally envisioned, she was a cat villain à la Catwoman or Cheetah - and on the scene much later than these better-known characters - but we'll allow it because Wildcat deserves a feline enemy. Of course, she's also a "huntress", and therefore hunting a wild animal (Wildcat), so is her cat-like appearance more of a "Kraven"? Wearing a costume made of former prey? Is Wildcat to become a fashionable black belt? But wait, this story opens with Wildcat already caged and the Huntress keen on rescuing him. What!?
Now, I've read a lot of comics, folks, so the possibilities open up before me. Are they doing that thing where the villainess is in love with the hero? Is it that she can't bear for someone else to win her prize? Or is it more complicated than that? Let's see if they can surprise us. We flash back to the beginning of the story, which has Wildcat (not Ted Grant, WILDCAT) holding a press conference to announce his exhibition boxing match with the "Congo Kid", a kind of Rumble in the Jungle with white athletes. It was 1948. So you know those thousand-dollar tickets (for charity) are pricey indeed. The sportsman promoting it, Mason, also promises to donate his entire animal collection to city zoos if Wildcat wins, and Wildcat agrees to become PART of the collection if he loses. Damn wealthy elites. But hold on. On the next page, Ted Grant - the REAL Ted Grant - is "astounded" to hear about this. So he crashes the match that night and makes short work of this imposter. DING DING DING
The "Congo Kid" (who I bet isn't actually from Africa) is next on his card, but I'm not sure I'd call that a legal move:
With Huntress is the mix now, Ted wonders if she and Mason are in cahoots, but she reveals Mason really did think that was the real Wildcat when he was actually one of her men. She played Mason like a violin, but to what end? Before we can learn more, Mason knocks him about the head, claiming he missed the Huntress, and she vanishes down some stairs. Running after her, likely groggy, Wildcat runs right into her trap.
Meanwhile, Mason's donors are angry. Not only have they been cheated out of a show, Huntress robbed them too. But maybe they'll get a show anyway. She gases Wildcat, and when he wakes up, we're back to the top of the story, and she's trying to free him from the cage. We're just as confused as we were, I'm afraid. She opens the cage and Ted makes a break for it - through Mason!
But when she gets to the yacht, Wildcat's already there waiting for her. The crucial clue was that Mason electrified the cage hoping for the Huntress to electrocute herself in this unnecessary stunt (she had Wildcat dead to rights) so he could keep all the money, and only thanks to Ted's warning did she don rubber gloves to open the door. Wildcat even says Mason "confessed everything" though at no point did this happen. And was Huntress lying when she said Mason didn't know he had a contract with a fake Wildcat? I guess so. All way too complicated, and with no writer credited, I don't know who to blame. It gets more complicated still when Huntress escapes (to her seeming death) and Mason's island EXPLODES!
Don't worry, no one died, as we learn from another impossible off-screen confession. And the whole reason for her "unnecessary stunt" is that one of her goons gagged Wildcat with a treasure map, basically, and she wanted it back before SHE double-crossed Mason by exploding his island. I guess? Well, kind of dud, even though it's specifically referenced in the Who's Who entry. But I still like the idea of a villain who goes after crimefighters so as to make crime easier for herself and others.
Who's Next? Batman's daughter.
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