Black Cat (Marvel's Spider-Man)

Felicia Hardy, better known as The Black Cat, is the secondary antagonist of The City that Never Sleeps, the DLC sequel to the 2018 Marvel's Spider-Man video game, and a minor character in the 2023 sequel, Marvel's Spider-Man 2. She is a professional thief and cat burglar who operates in New York City and a recurring enemy/ally and ex-girlfriend of Spider-Man.
She is voiced by Erica Lindbeck, who also voiced Barbie and Queen Amelia in the Barbie franchise, Sophitia Alexandra in Soul Calibur VI and Cassie Cage in Mortal Kombat 11.
==History==
===Early life===
Black Cat is the daughter of and successor to, a professional cat burglar and thief named Walter Hardy. She followed in his footsteps (against his wishes), as a professional thief and career criminal. During her time stealing, she crossed paths with the superhero Spider-Man and became enamored with him. The attraction was mutual, and for a while Black Cat tried to go straight under Spider-Man's guidance.
But despite Spider-Man's earnest attempts to change her, Black Cat could not fully overcome her addiction to stealing and backslid into her old ways, which ended their relationship. Afterwards, Black Cat left New York City behind and the police acquired her gear (though they were not able to identify her as the criminal they were seeking).
===Marvel's Spider-Man===
Later, Felicia Hardy returned to New York City, leaving clues around New York City for Spider-Man to find to trick him into thinking she was planning to rob many high-profile targets. In fact, the whole thing was a diversion so that she could steal back her Black Cat costume and gear from police lock-up. When Spider-Man brought all of her cat dolls that she had left at the scenes of her would-be crimes to the NYPD, they created a mass EMP discharge that knocked out security and allowed Felicia to make off with her costume and gear. In "gratitude" for Spider-Man playing his part in her manipulations, Felicia left him a present in the form of a new black and red costume.
Later, after the crisis with the Sinister Six, Black Cat returned ostensibly working for Hammerhead. She was assigned the task of stealing important data drives belonging to each of the main Maggia crime families. When Spider-Man confronted her, Black Cat claimed that she was only working for Hammerhead because he had kidnapped her son and was using him as levrage against her. In reality, this was a lie said by her to manipulate Spider-Man into helping her pull off a heist that was too big for her to pull off on her own. Under the false assumption that Black Cat was being strong-armed, Spider-Man inadvertently helped Black Cat steal the rest of the data drives. Unbeknownst to anyone, Black Cat had been giving Hammerhead fake data drives all along, having been manipulating him and Spider-Man, and planning to keep all of the data drives (and the fortune they granted access to), for herself.
Eventually, Spider-Man realized that Black Cat had been lying to him and using him all along, but nevertheless tried to save her when he realized that Hammerhead had put a tracker on the data-drives she'd stolen and was following her. Unfortunately, Spider-Man was too late to stop Black Cat from returning to her penthouse, which Hammerhead's men had planted a bomb at. The penthouse thus exploded as Black Cat went in through the door, seemingly killing her, though her body was not found.
As it turned out though, Black Cat survived, and laid low for a time (likely to keep Hammerhead from trying again to kill her). She later revealed herself to Spider-Man when she saved him from death at the hands of the now cyborg Hammerhead. She apologized for earlier deceiving him, and gave him a hard-drive containing information on Hammerhead before departing again, noting that now "they were even".
===Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales===
More than a year after the defeat of Doctor Octopus and the Sinister Six, Black Cat is nowhere to be seen or heard from during Tinkerer's campaign against Simon Krieger. In this time, Miles Morales, Peter Parker's superhero apprentice has taken over his role as the sole Spider-Man in New York City while Peter goes to Symkaria with Mary Jane.
She is mentioned in the database of the Roxxon Energy Corporation, which reveals that she worked for them as a contract agent, and was mentioned in a voice memo as one of the potential villains Krieger wanted to recruit to stop Spider-Man from ruining his plans to destroy Harlem. However, Krieger didn't hire Black Cat due to her redemption (which was sometime between after The City that Never Sleeps and before the spin-off itself), leading him to hire Prowler instead.
===Marvel's Spider-Man 2===
At some point after retiring, Felicia began a relationship with an unknown woman in Paris. In 2020, Kraven the Hunter began targeting several of Spider-Man's allies and enemies in his "Last Hunt", with Black Cat being one of those targets. After finding out about this, Spider-Man sends the other Spider-Man to warn Felicia about the hunters, but he is too late. The hunters are already after her and follow Felicia to the Sanctum Sanctorum, where she steals the Wand of Watoomb, which allows her to create portals to anywhere. She explains her girlfriend in France is in trouble because of her and needs help. After defeating the hunters, Spider-Man and Black Cat use the artifact to open a portal to Paris, and Felicia leaves New York to help her girlfriend.
==Personality==
Felicia Hardy is cunning, whimsical, and manipulative. Her playful, flirtatious banter, and her coy secrecy, shroud her in mystery and mask an intelligent and relentless burglar with complex motivations and moral ambiguity. Felicia is resilient and determined, able to bounce back from hardship. She does so operating alone, valuing her independence due to her past and her mistrust of others' methods. This also means she has no qualm using and betraying people as needed.
However, it has also meant that despite making apparently earnest attempts to operate within the law, it did not last long before she reverted to her old ways, something she has expressed regret for (though it is unclear how serious she was about it). Despite having the motivations of a Robin Hood in stealing from those who have hurt others, rather than give her gains to the poor, she keeps them for herself.
While her moral compass and affection for Spider-Man have led them to work with him, her disapproval of his methods (believing that working within the law is inadequate) and her steadfast independence have led her to betray him, a conscious choice to push him away so as not to become reliant on him. Felicia also does not wish to learn Spider-Man's real identity, preferring to avoid the mundanities of civilian life and enjoy their costumed adventures together.
==Trivia==
*Within her hideout contained:
**Financial data on the Maggia crime families.
**A painting she stole from Kingpin.
**Wine from a Maggia vineyard.
**A statue from the time Spider-Man first caught her, she eventually managed to come back to steal it.
**Cat paintings, two of which show a cat dancing with with a spider and then imprisoning it in a jar.
**Several more cat dolls.
*She is bisexual, because she has a girlfriend.
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