Wildcat (Ted Grant)

Ted Grant first donned the Wildcat costume in Sensation Comics #1 (January 1942), the same issue in which Mister Terrific premiered.[5]

Wildcat in the 1940s; art by Irwin Hasen

Wildcat's origin is chronicled in Sensation Comics #1 as well as Secret Origins #3 (1973) and All-Star Squadron Annual #1 (1982). Henry Grant vowed on his baby son's crib that the child would not grow up afraid of life, so he encouraged his son to participate in sports. Orphaned during the Great Depression, Ted Grant found himself unemployed in the big city. One night, he saved "Socker" Smith, the heavyweight boxing champion, from a mugging. "Socker" took Ted under his wing, and soon Ted became a heavyweight boxing champion in his own right. He also became tangled unknowingly in his manager's sinister plans. His mentor, "Socker" Smith, was killed by Grant's managers Flint and Skinner who used a syringe, loaded with poison, in a boxing glove. The dose was only intended to slow down Smith, but the duo misjudged the potency. When Grant was arrested for the crime, Flint and Skinner, afraid that he might know what had really happened, arranged for the young fighter to be killed. Grant escaped the attempt and survived, but the policemen with him were killed. As a result, he became a fugitive. Later, he came upon a child who had been robbed of his Green Lantern comic. The boy, describing the mystery-man Green Lantern, inspired Grant to create the costume of a large black cat. He took the name Wildcat and vowed to clear his name. He brought Flint and Skinner to justice; the criminals were forced to confess, clearing Grant's name, and obtaining justice for Smith. Using the identity of Wildcat, Grant continued to fight crime.[6]

By issue #4, Wildcat had a custom motorbike, the Cat-o-Cycle and a comedy sidekick named Stretch Skinner.[7]

In the pages of All Star Comics, Wildcat had a few adventures as a member of the Justice Society of America (JSA). In the 1980s, when the All-Star Squadron was published, it created a retroactive continuity in which the majority of WWII mystery-men interacted with each other. Wildcat had a place as a member of that conglomeration of heroes as well. The 1970s run of All Star Comics (1976–1979) had Wildcat play a central role as a JSA member. In the story arc, which saw Green Lantern go berserk, and Commissioner Bruce Wayne issue arrest warrants for the JSA, it was Wildcat's ability to look fear in the face that allowed him to defeat the real mastermind of the disaster: the second Psycho-Pirate. But in 1985, during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Ted's legs were shattered by an out-of-control Red Tornado and he was told he would never walk again. He soon discovered that his goddaughter had recently become the second Wildcat.

An Earth-One version of Ted Grant existed pre-Crisis and teamed up with Batman, himself a retired world heavyweight champion like his Earth-Two counterpart, on several occasions. This Grant had a relatively minor career, and his early years, such as his origin, were not chronicled.[8]

This version of Ted Grant ceased to exist following the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths with the Earth-Two version becoming the dominant version on the new unified universe.

After the Crisis, the injuries that Ted had sustained were downgraded from paraplegia to less severe injuries from which he recovered quickly. He was also still a former heavyweight champion of the world. In addition, Ted is credited with being an expert at combat, though he prefers to trade punches as part of his brawling style. Even in his advanced years, on several occasions Ted has knocked out experienced fighters with a single punch.

Later, Ted was present when the JSA willfully exiled themselves into Limbo in order to prevent the Norse Mythology event known as Ragnarok as part of a time loop. He remained there for several years until he was freed with the rest of the JSA in Armageddon: Inferno. He was present during the Justice Society's disastrous fight with Extant during Zero Hour and fell victim to Extant's time manipulation powers, which restored Wildcat to his proper age, that of an elderly, sickly man. However, following the universe being reset at the end of Zero Hour, Wildcat, along with the Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott, and the Golden Age Hourman Rex Tyler were de-aged and restored to health.

Wildcat and Hippolyta share an intimate moment. Art by Phil Jimenez.

In the wake of Zero Hour, Wildcat retired from active crime fighting and again became a full-time trainer in his role as a professional boxer. In private, he continued to train younger superheroes in the martial arts. In addition, new details were revealed about Wildcat's past, one being the existence of two sons. His eldest son Jake was kidnapped by the Yellow Wasp and later murdered by the Killer Wasp. His youngest son Tom was raised exclusively by the boy's mother without Ted's knowledge.

Ted also had torrid affairs with Selina Kyle[9] as well as an affair with a time-displaced Queen Hippolyta.[10]

Twice during his post-Zero Hour retirement, Ted was severely injured defending innocent lives. He received the first injury defending patrons of the bar Warriors, run by the ex-Green Lantern Guy Gardner.[11] Later, he was injured in rescue operation during a planet-wide snowfall.[12] On both occasions, he was treated on site at Warriors and miraculously recovered from his injuries.

It was later revealed that Ted possesses "nine lives", the result of the magician Zatara altering a curse placed upon him by a sorcerer named King Inferno after Ted refused to throw a boxing match for the wizard. Ted was given nine lives as opposed to being turned into a cat as King Inferno wanted. Since then, Ted has lost his nine lives as a result of a variety of deaths, many of which occurred off-panel. In JSA #34, Mordru told Ted that he had nine lives for every "cycle", although Mordru did not define a cycle's duration. This meant that Ted had somehow regained his spent lives. In JSA #36, this was confirmed. Ted gained nine lives at any given time, meaning that he had to be killed nine times in rapid succession to be killed permanently.

In 2011, "The New 52" rebooted the DC universe. In the continuity of Earth 2 and featuring in the story Earth 2: Worlds' End, Ted Grant appears as a boxer living in the same World Army refugee camp as Dick and Barbara Grayson during Darkseid's invasion of Earth. After Barbara's death, Ted trains Dick in offensive and defensive fighting techniques and joins him on a mission to recover his lost son.[13]

In the "Watchmen" sequel "Doomsday Clock," Wildcat is among the superheroes that return after Doctor Manhattan was inspired by Superman to undo the experiment on the timeline that erased the Justice Society and the Legion of Super-Heroes. He was seen with Yolanda Montez in her Wildcat attire.[14]

Wildcat cameos as the world heavyweight champion, defending his title against Cassius Clay.

In Kingdom Come, Alex Ross (and writer Mark Waid) portrayed Wildcat as a humanoid panther with the soul of Ted Grant. He is seen working with Batman's group and with the other offspring of the Justice League. It is not clear whether or not he dies when the UN unleashes a nuclear attack against the metahumans at the end of the comic.

Wildcat is portrayed as boxer (not superhero) Ted Grant in Prez Rickard's world in The Sandman: Worlds' End.[18] A woman obsessed with Wildcat shoots at Prez and his girlfriend, killing her and injuring him. Prez has Wildcat spend several hours with him while he is at the hospital. It is said that there is no ill will between them—Prez even offered clemency to the assassin, but she was still sent to the electric chair.

In the prequel comic to the second game, Wildcat is first seen becoming a parental figure for Black Canary and the alternate Green Arrow's wedding. When the League of Assassins' Suicide Squad kidnaps Black Lightning's daughters, and Canary and Arrow's son Conner Lance-Queen, as well as taking Alfred's corpse and ever since the terrorists killed the original Blue Beetle Ted Kord, Wildcat is among of the Insurgency members to join the raid on Ra's hideout, located in South America. Wildcat later battles the impostor Batman, but was fatally shot to near-death by the impostor's dirty tricks, until Conner Lance-Queen returns to save Wildcat's life, blasting the impostor Batman with a sonic scream he inherited from his mother Black Canary. Due to receiving severe wounds, blood loss, and extremely small chance of full recovery caused by the impostor Batman, a near-dying Wildcat is sent to Gotham General Hospital. Batman visits the unconscious Wildcat and pulls out the life-support system to trigger Wildcat's resurrection ability. He then has Wildcat take him to the isolated Dr. Mid-Nite so the latter could perform open heart surgery on Superboy.

J.R. Ramirez as Ted Grant and Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance in Arrow

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• Ted appears briefly in the Smallville episode "Absolute Justice" (which featured the Justice Society), played by actor Roger Hasket. Chloe Sullivan and Clark Kent find old black-and-white footage of Ted, along with his criminal record. Very little is said about him, other than that he is still alive and is a heavyweight champion.

• Ted Grant appeared as a recurring character in Arrow's third season, portrayed by actor J.R. Ramirez. Grant ran the "Wildcat Gym" as a place to help kids on the streets by training them to box in the hopes it will steer them straight. He trained Dinah Laurel Lance to box, providing her the foundation she would later need to become a skilled combatant when she trained under Nyssa al Ghul. He used to be a vigilante who fought street crime in the Glades, but gave it up after his partner, Isaac Stanzler, beat someone to death; something he felt was morally wrong. He later helped Arrow and his friends defeat Stanzler.[19] and stop Daniel Brickwell's siege on the Glades. Ted was wounded in the battle and his fate was left unknown. However, producer Marc Guggenheim has stated that the character did not die. Grant's youngest son from the comics, Tom Bronson, was stated as being one of his students.

• Ted Grant appears in the DC Universe series Stargirl, portrayed by Brian Stapf.[20] This iteration of Grant is a formidable boxer and heavyweight champion who wears an exo-suit that enhances his natural athleticism to aid his superheroics. At some point, he was banned from boxing for fixing his fights which he didn't commit and was able to redeem himself in a boxing match with his opponent. In the pilot episode, Grant was with the Justice Society the night when the Injustice Society attacked their headquarters. When Pat Dugan arrived, Grant's body was thrown from a window by an unknown opponent and landed near him.

Wildcat as seen in Justice League Unlimited.

• The character appeared in the cartoon series Justice League Unlimited. The actual Ted Grant iteration of Wildcat appeared in the latter series voiced by Dennis Farina. He had a prominent role alongside Black Canary and Green Arrow in the episode "The Cat and the Canary" where he was competing in Roulette's Meta-Brawl after he became less involved in missions, leaving him time to train the other heroes on the Watchtower. He defeated Sportsmaster, but his match with the Atomic Skull was interrupted by Green Arrow and Black Canary. Black Canary made a deal with Roulette to let her to fight her mentor; if Black Canary won, Roulette would ban Wildcat from MetaBrawl forever, but if she lost, Black Canary would never get involved with his life there again. Green Arrow used a knockout gas arrow on Black Canary, and fought Wildcat instead and faked his own death via an unseen stunner that put the archer in metabolic stasis. This helped Wildcat see the horror of the match and quit; Wildcat is seen later in therapy with Martian Manhunter. In subsequent episodes, Wildcat appears among the League's front-line fighters.

• Wildcat appears in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold, voiced by Golden Globe-nominee R. Lee Ermey.[21] He was previously Batman's mentor as he was seen training with him yet he does not want to give up fighting crime. In the episode "Enter the Outsiders!", he helps the Dark Knight fight the Outsiders, Black Lightning, Katana, and Metamorpho, working for Slug. They later found Slug's hideout, but ended up captured and were about to be fed to the giant turtles. Wildcat was released because of his trash talking, but Slug left Batman for the giant turtles. Wildcat fought and defeated Slug, and threw him in the polluted river. Wildcat persuaded the Outsiders not to consider themselves freaks. Slug emerged from the polluted river, Black Lightning and Metamorpho reactivated Wildcat's heart. Wildcat later trained the Outsiders to box. He appeared again in the sub-plot of "Menace of the Conqueror Caveman!" to help Batman against Bane. At first, he thought Bane was a pushover because he was extremely frail and scrawny without Venom. He was unsure whether to punch Bane, or feed him a protein shake, but after seeing Bane enhanced with Venom, he began to think twice. Wildcat used one of Batman's batarangs to cut Bane's Venom-strengthening tubes. This was done on a set of train tracks, shocking Bane once the tube's liquid poured out onto the tracks. Wildcat appears as a member of the JSA in the episode "The Golden Age of Justice!". Black Canary, in a bid to help the others see that she is an adult, helps him face his greatest regret: not being able to help the original Black Canary. He and Black Canary help the rest of the JSA and Batman in the fight against Per Degaton. Wildcat appears again as a member of the JSA in the episode "Crisis 22,300 Miles Above Earth!" where he is invited, with the rest of his team, up to Justice League International's satellite, and ends up getting into fisticuffs with them. The two teams later join together to help Batman take down Ra's al Ghul. Additionally, Ted appears in a non-speaking cameo in the two parts of "The Siege of Starro!", first among the heroes possessed by Starro, and later as one of the heroes that have already broken free of the mind control and battle against Starro's titan form. The Crime Syndicate counterpart of Wildcat appears in episode "Deep Cover for Batman" in flashbacks.

• Wildcat also appears briefly in the Young Justice cartoon series. In the episode "Humanity", he appears during a flashback scene taking place in the 1930s, among other well known members of the Justice Society of America, such as Jay Garrick and Alan Scott.

• Wildcat appears in DC Super Hero Girls, voiced by John DiMaggio. He works as a gym teacher at Super Hero High.

• The character appears both in and out of costume in the animated film Justice League: The New Frontier. He is seen in costume in the opening credits and later out of costume fighting in a boxing match with a man named Cooke. In this film, he is a former member of the now retired Justice Society of America which had disbanded after the death of Hourman.

• An alternate version of Wildcat from a parallel Earth appears briefly in the animated film Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. He is among the underlings of the Crime Syndicate known as the Made Men.

• Wildcat makes a brief appearance in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.

• Wildcat appears in Batman: The Brave and the Bold video game, voiced again by R. Lee Ermey.

• Wildcat appears in DC Universe Online, voiced by Ken Webster.

• In Batman: Arkham Knight, there are posters for a cancelled boxing match featuring Ted "The Wildcat" Grant vs. Albert "The Goliath" King appearing on many places of Gotham City.

• Wildcat is mentioned in Injustice 2 by Batman when fighting Black Canary. If Batman depletes Black Canary's first health-bar, one of the random dialogues that he may say is "What has Wildcat been teaching you?"

Wildcat was the first figure released in the ninth wave of the DC Universe Classics line and was available in his black and blue costumes.

Wildcat briefly appears in Robot Chicken DC Comics Special seen fighting alongside the Justice League against the Legion of Doom. He is shown being confused over his fight against Darkseid and is quickly disintegrated by the villain.