Golden Age Wildcat (Ted Grant) Appreciation 2021

[achilles]

First of all, Ted Grant as Wildcat is a great character, and an underrated one. I keep seeing suggestions that he be an MMA guy rather than a boxer; to which I say "No!"

Boxing is very underrated as a self defense tool, and if you posit that Grant is trained as well in old school boxing...before about the 1860s or so, he's already pretty much an MMA guy, but with added moves that even MMA bans. And he'd be nearly superhumanly tough. That old school boxing had it all, including kicks, some weapons, biting, headbutting, even some grappling. But new school boxing is tough as well.

Ted is IMO overdue for another mini, or even a monthly in addition to whatever JSA title winds up happening in about the year 2780 at the earliest.

[sifighter]

Honestly what I love about Wildcat is his gruff nature and how he can literally say stuff like "I trained Batman to fight before he put on those ridiculous purple gloves, hell I gave good ol' superman a lesson or two" But that is also my love of generational/legacy stuff.

[MajorHoy]

From Sensation Comics #2 (February 1942):

to be continued . . .

[John Venus]

Is it the same Joan whom Jay Garrick dated or did both of them date two different women with the same name?

[MajorHoy]

Is it the same Joan whom Jay Garrick dated or did both of them date two different women with the same name?

I doubt they were the same character.

Besides, I don't think "Joan" was necessarily an uncommon name back then.

[MajorHoy]

From 52 #23 (December 2006):

[MajorHoy]

By the way, Wildcat got a figure in the Imaginext "DC Super Friends" series:



NOTE: Images taken from internet.

The code for Wildcat's figure is "04" on the back.

[MajorHoy]

All-Star Squadron Annual #1 (1982) featured a story that tied together the early days of Ted Grant, Al Pratt (The Atom), and The Guardian (Jim Harper).
Here's Wildcat's retelling of his origin:

[Hypo]

By Doc Shaner:

[Hypo]

By Doc Shaner:

https://twitter.com/DocShaner/status...943555/photo/1

[Frontier]

By Doc Shaner:

https://twitter.com/DocShaner/status...943555/photo/1

Dinah, Selina, Zatanna, and Dr. Fate?

[achilles]

From 52 #23 (December 2006):

Looking at his skills list, er, no. Capoeira is fun to watch and do, and mostly useless in a fight, Krav is fine in theory, but in practice is largely garbage with uneven instruction, Hapkido...yeah, it's got kicks and stuff, but anyone who relies on it in a real fight likely has a nickname at the local coroner's office, "John Doe #4", in a tag on their toe. Also, there's no real theme there; they are all wildly incompatible fighting styles. You don't box someone and suddenly throw a capoeira move...it wouldn't work.

Yes, Muai Thai is really all it's cracked up to be and mixes very well with boxing...but if the guys who wrote that had done a lick of research, they would have known it isn't needed if he does in fact practice boxing as it was done prior to about the 1860s, when it was essentially a no rules affair that had everything. If Ted knows that, and he should, he doesn't need anything else, save maybe dome weapons training, perhaps some sort of escrima. Or if they want to be original, something like HEMA training, though that only really got started fairly recently IIRC. That would meld with boxing, and give him everything else he'd need, from grappling to every sort of weapon.

I wonder, BTW, how many bad guys he defeated simply because they were rolling on the floor laughing at his costume...

[signalman112]

Mike Norton.

NortonWildcat.jpg

[Frontier]

Mike Norton.

NortonWildcat.jpg

Ted with pupils or without pupils...hmm.