Catseye

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Powers and Abilities

Catseye can rapidly shift to a feline-like form.

This alternate form is quite dangerous – supple, fast, ferocious and fiercely clawed.

She could move quickly even in inverted positions, clinging to the ceiling — and attack by surprise from such a position.

Catseye‘ feline form also sports a strong prehensile tail.

Catseye is know to have a superhuman sense of smell. She can recognise smells like she would recognise faces. Whether she has other feline senses is unknown – see our Animals File for DC Heroes scores for various felines if you think she does.

Emma Frost’s notes describe Catseye as exceptionally intelligent and gifted with total recall. This was reflected in our DC Heroes RPG stats, even though there’s no clear indication of this outside of Frost’s notes.

Frost also indicates that Catseye went from complete illiteracy to reading proficiently within less than a year.

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A kind of Magik

During her first appearance, Catseye appears to be hit by Magik (Illyana Resputin)’s Soulsword.

By this point, that blade has already been firmly established to only affect magic and magical beings.

The three main possibilities to interpret this are :

• Consider it a continuity error and move on.
• Biased interpretation of the art. For instance, Catseye reflexively dodged the blade and the impact was actually her hitting the wall behind her.
• Note that there is an undocumented mystical aspect to Catseye’s nature, which was never alluded to again. This wouldn’t be extraordinary. Frex, her teammate Tarot’s abilities also have a magical nature.
• There’s a weak pattern of felines being tied to magic in the Marvel Universe. Examples include the mystical abilities of Hellcat or Black Cat, various cat familiars such as Ebony, the Cat People, etc. So being cat-like might intrinsically count as magic.
  Or perhaps the enchantments of the Soulsword include measures against felines to fight mystical entities such as cat familiars and Cat People.

History

See our “base camp” entry for the Hellions (Massachusetts Academy).

From Frost’s research, Sharon Smith is an homo superior mutant. But she became able to use her powers well before puberty, perhaps even at birth. She was abandoned as an infant in Manhattan and grew up as a feral person.

Sharon chiefly ran with stray cats. Presumably, as a little girl, her feline form was about house cat-sized. The cats treated her as a peer, and a female even served as a surrogate mother.

It has been speculated that Catseye might be some sort of mutant cat able to adopt a humanoid form. But Frost’s teams always describe her as homo superior.

Whether they were able to determine who her parents were, or the name “Sharon Smith” had to be made up, is unrevealed.

In 1985, Frost estimated that Smith was 14 or 15.

During her teens, the mutant was detected and scooped up by Emma Frost’s teams at the Hellfire Club, to become one of her Hellions.

Frost forced the feral Smith to act as a human being and generally stay in her human-like form, gradually adopt a diurnal life cycle, talk, behave like a human, etc.

Description

The exact look, mass, limbs shape and prehensility, and apparent strength of Catseye’s feline form has greatly varied from artist to artist. Though at first it seemed possible that it was an effect of maturation, the variance is simply too great.

Perhaps Catseye’s exact form varies depending on mood, moon cycles or whichever. Or perhaps she can deliberately adjust it a bit when morphing.

Catseye in 1991.

One hypothesis is that the more humanised-looking forms are reached by not morphing all the way through to an animal shape. But that doesn’t explain why she can look panther-like, cat-like, lion-like or lynx-like depending on the artist.

Catseye was visibly uncomfortable in her human body. It felt alien, ugly and clumsy. Said human body is rake-thin, giving the impression she eats very little in human form.

Like her feline body, it shows constant variations – tail or no tail, eye colour and structure, hair colour, etc..

Personality

Her personality was that of a free spirit. Catseye’s youth and lack of sophistication hid considerable intelligence.

She rapidly learned English, but mostly used made-up words with a sing-song quality. Numerous quotes are provided to help get a feeling for Catseye’s peculiar speechway, yes ?

Although Catseye was mostly a nocturnal feline predator, Frost insisted that she be regularly active during the day and in human form. Catseye was uncomfortable doing so but was, like other Hellions, highly loyal toward the White Queen (whom she called “Missy”).

Frost imprinted herself as a new surrogate mother on the still-feral Catseye early on. But Catseye feels about Frost like a kitten does toward its mother, not like a human child toward their mum. Catseye called the Mass. Academy the “happyplace” and didn’t want to leave.

Catseye felt great empathy toward other “furpersons”. This seemed to be a very broad category. She treated them pretty much like close brothers and sisters. She’ll likely act very friendly toward anybody who can adopt a furry animal form, unless they smell particularly wrong.

Thus Catseye immediately became a friend of Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair). She usually wanted her to ditch her clumsy human form and have fun with her romping around.

Other traits

Being a fairly young feline, she enjoyed romping around and playing. With her predatory instinct, she occasionally “played” by chasing terrified Hellfire Club maids around the property, like mice.

Catseye enjoyed being outdoors to run freely and chase things. She was a young, energetic feline who wants to have fun.

Catseye seemed oddly fearless. She took paranormal events in stride without any hint of being scared. She occasionally had to be restrained from meleeing people far more powerful than she was. She once had to be prevented from pouncing on Magma, despite Magma being obviously on fire.

In a fight, Catseye was generally tough and unhesitating.

Catseye considered the New Mutants, and particularly Rahne, as her friends. She rejected the Hellfire Club politics making the Mutants her foes.

This completely disappeared when she became a transmode revenant, though. In this version she’s just a cruel, hungry carnivore.

Quotes

“Intruder go hushabye !”

“Sun’s up. Sleepytime, yes ?”

(Meeting Wolfsbane) “Girl furperson, like Catseye ? Smell funny — look not so pretty-pretty — but maybe friends ? Redfur stay ?”

(Catching Empath trying to manipulate Wolfsbane) “Sneaky badboy plays hurtful heartgames with Hellions’ new friends ? Maybe play a game with Catseye, yes ? See which is stronger — nasty heartpower, or claws ?”

(After Jetstream and Cannonball flew in through a wall) “Sillynoisies like fuss — crash bash mess show-off ! Redfur come with Catseye — run and howl and play — feel great soon, promise !”

“Say hello, funny way, big-laugh, yes ? Catseye feel heartgood to see small redfur friend !”

“Catseye smell badscent. Minty badscent. Funnysmell. Mintyscent. Badwoman !”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Mostly X-comics.

Helper(s): Chris Cottingham, Adam Fuqua, Pufnstuff, William Chamberlin, Darci.