WILDCAT (Ted Grant)
Created By: Bill Finger & Irwin Hasen
First Appearance: Sensation Comics #1 (Jan. 1942)
Role: Bad-Ass Senior, The Elder Statesman, Grouchy Old Guy
Voice Actor: Dennis Farina
Finest Moment: Beat the ever-loving PISS out of Green Arrow
PL 10 (121)
STRENGTH 3
STAMINA 4
AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 8
DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 1
AWARENESS 2
PRESENCE 2
Skills:Acrobatics 4 (+8)
Athletics 6 (+9)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 7 (+15)
Deception 5 (+7)
Expertise (Streetwise) 2 (+3)
Insight 2 (+4)
Intimidation 7 (+9)
Perception 4 (+6)
Stealth 2 (+6)
Vehicles 2 (+4)
Advantages:Accurate Attack, All-Out Attack, Benefit (Ambidexterity), Diehard, Fast Grab, Improved Critical (Unarmed) 3, Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Improved Hold, Improved Trip, Power Attack, Prone Fighting, Ranged Attack 2
Powers:"Immense Hitting Power" Enhanced Strength 1 (Flaws: Limited to Punching Guys in the @#$!ing Face) [1]
Offense:Unarmed +15 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +4
Defenses:Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +12 (DC 22), Toughness +4, Fortitude +7, Will +7
Complications:Motivation (Fighting)- Ted trained a lot of the younger Leaguers, but now all he wants to do is feel useful. He does this by fighting.
Total: Abilities: 52 / Skills: 66--33 / Advantages: 16 / Powers: 1 / Defenses: 19 (121)
-Ted Grant is yet another guy to get way more credit after the Golden Age than during it. Created as little more than a variation of Batman (which is why the JL episode where they went back in time had a "Catman" who looked just like Ted) with a boxer gimmick, he was a JSA member back in the day, and thus got brought back into modern times in the JSA's own reboot, and "All-Star Squadron". Writers furthered his character to include traits such as his sometimes blatant sexism, his badass charm (he's romanced Catwoman AND Hippolyta), etc., making him stand out on a team of Nice Guys and Milquetoasts. Ted also seems to be a favourite "fall guy" character, getting brutally injured in nearly every big JSA story (he's gotta be one of the only heroes I've EVER seen wearing a cast; much less wearing one every cross-over...), and they even made an attempt to permanently replace him with a minority during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. But yet, here he is, surviving as one of the sole remaining JSA originals, and gaining a new legacy in his son.
-Ted "Wildcat" Grant is one of the best characters on the JSA, in my opinion. It's bugged me for years how a team of guys born & raised in the 1940s can be so open-minded and PC about everything in the world, like a bunch of flawless superbeings, so someone like Ted, who speaks his mind, has controversial opinions, and is still stuck in his ways, is a breath of fresh air. Being horribly non-politically correct, Ted will piss of "Power Chick" without a moment's notice, accidentally call someone a "Jap", boink every woman he meets (Hippolyta AND Catwoman!?! They called the wrong guy "Superman"!), and generally bother everyone with a hard-nosed comment or two, but he's still one of the most dependable people on the team.
-The young heroes respect him as an elder and a mentor, as he's a big more "hard-edged" than the super-polite Jay Garrick or stick-in-the-mud Alan Scott. Plus, when you count BATMAN as one of your best proteges, you get eternal cred as a bad-ass. As much as he annoys Stargirl sometimes, even she admires what he's come to (being an ordinary man amongst gods), and his occasional bouts of wisdom ("You never forget learning how to be a hero"). The old guys respect his skills and inability to be broken. His enemies have learned not to underestimate him (he once beat the ENTIRE Injustice Society, mostly while wearing a bathrobe and having casts on an arm and a leg- and this team usually challenges the whole JSA at once). Ted rocks.
-And all that for a character who, by all rights, should barely even be remembered. I mean, he's just a lame-duck Batman rip-off, at heart. But like so many Golden Age D-League characters, he just lucked out- that JSA link meant that he could show up in retrospectives once the JSA made it out of "Earth-Two" and teamed up with the JLA. By now, the entire JSA but he, Jay & Alan were gone, as Extant wiped out Mid-Nite, Hourman, Hawkman and The Atom, and most of the others had faded away or got written out over the years. I always got the sense that Ted was around more because they casually offed the rest of the team and thus when doing retrospective stuff, they needed at least four guys to still be alive. So all of a sudden, Ted Grant of all people is one of the last Golden Age heroes alive. One of those weird things in comics, my friends.
-Ted only has a one-shot appearance on "JLU", but it's a helluva one, fighting for Roulette in her "Meta-Brawls", beating the snot out of super-villains in an attempt to recapture the time when he was useful. An old warhorse, he now gets handed "easy" assignments by J'onn, and gets sent to train new heroes. When Black Canary comes to snap him out of it, she drags Green Arrow along, and Ollie ends up fighting Wildcat in the arena... and gets the CRAP beaten out of him, in possible the single most-brutal fight in the entire series. I mean JESUS, Ted just beat him to a PULP in there. Of course, thanks to some quick-thinking, Ted ended up realizing the error of his ways, and went back to being a good ol' Leaguer.
-Ted is a positively lethal combatant, making PL 9.5 (actually .5 higher than I'd make his ACTUAL DC iteration). He would be a near-insurmountable challenge for Green Arrow or The Question, and probably beat either Huntress or Canary without their gear. This guy was INTENSE, and a high-powered brawler. I don't think ANY other human-level character hit with his level of power.
