Catseye
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- For other uses, see Cat's Eye.
Catseye (Sharon Smith) is a fictional character, a mutant in the Marvel Universe. She was created by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema in New Mutants #16 (1984).
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[edit] Fictional character biography
Sharon Smith was a member of the original Hellions recruited by Emma Frost to be a competitive team to the New Mutants and a tool for the Hellfire Club. Her character was the antithesis of Wolfsbane who could transform into a wolf. She engaged in several battles with the New Mutants—mostly petty competition—but occasionally got along with the students, sometimes having dances for socialization. Her personality was that of a free spirit. Catseye's youth and comparative lack of sophistication belie a ferocious intelligence. She was capable of total recall from her photographic memory, and instinctively knew when she was being lied to. Under Frost's tutelage, Smith progressed from total illiteracy to upper grade school reading levels in less than a year. She still retained several feline qualities whilst in human form, having been forced to provide for herself since earliest infancy. Upon her first meeting with Wolfsbane, rather than attack out of an animalistic nature, she smelled Rahne and said that the two of them shared a kindred spirit and that they should be friends—this in spite of the obviously played feline/canine feuding roles.
When the New Mutants were in a state of emotional turmoil over being killed and resurrected by the Beyonder, Emma Frost saw it as her opportunity to sweep in and take control. She convinced Magneto—the current leader of the team—to allow the New Mutants to come to the Massachusetts Academy for psychic counseling, where she promptly accepted them into the ranks of her Hellions. Catseye shared a room with Rahne and the two of them became close friends. The two teams became quite fond of one another but were separated when Magneto realized that his emotions had been manipulated by Empath to convince him to relinquish the students.
Soon after, Emma threw another party which the Hellions as well as the X-Men Gold team attended. It was there that Trevor Fitzroy—a member of the villainous group known as the Upstarts—crashed the party with the goal of killing Emma in order to gain points within the group. The Hellions were mere formalities: some were killed in the crossfire and the rest, including Catseye, were drained of their life energies in order to fuel his teleportation portal in Uncanny X-Men #281 (1991).
[edit] Alternate version
- Catseye was still alive in the alternate reality called the Age of Apocalypse and was a Hellion. She and the others were hunted down and apprehended by the X-Men.
[edit] Powers
Catseye's mutant power is ailuranthropy, the ability to become a cat. She can transform into either a housecat or a human-panther hybrid (a werecat). In her panther form, she has superhuman strength, agility and reflexes, in addition to keen senses, razor-sharp claws and teeth, a prehensile tail, and a slight healing factor.
Even in her human form, she retained some catlike physical features such as slitted pupils and a tail.
It was stated in earlier New Mutants stories that Catseye may in fact be a mutant cat with the power to assume human form, explaining why she found human speech difficult and appeared to be more "animalistic" in character.
[edit] Notes
- Catseye made a postmortem appearance in the 1997 Annual of Generation X. However, this was just a trick played by the demon D'Spayre to agitate Emma Frost.
- Also in the Generation X #55-56, the Generation X members become trapped in an illusion by Adrienne Frost where each of them is a different Hellions member except for Jetstream, reliving their last day. Jubilee was Catseye.
