Greer Grant Nelson is a fictional character, created for The Cat comic book and Marvel Comics.
Greer Grant was a sophomore at the University of Chicago when she met her future husband, policeman Bill Nelson. She was walking one spring day with her friend, Jenny, when she dropped her change in front of a patrolman. Greer and Bill dated, and were married at the end of her sixth quarter. Greer wasn't happy playing homemaker, but Bill always talked her out of resuming college.
One mid-summer night, after exitting the local cinema, the couple interrupted a robbery at Lake Shore Drive Drugs. When Bill pulled his service revolver and stopped one robber, a second thief shot Bill and left him to die in Greer's arms. Greer sold their house, rented an apartment, and tried to find a job. "I had two years of college with a biology major..." All she found was the injustice which gave rise to the women's liberation movement. One day, she encountered her old physics teacher, Dr. Joanne Tumulo. Dr. Tumulo hired Greer as her assistant.
After several months, Dr. Tumulo told Greer about a personal experiment she was conducting. Her goal was to help women achieve their full mental and physical potential. She asked Greer to be her first subject. But the financial backer, Malcolm Donalbain, had other plans. His choice for the experiment was Shirlee Bryant, and he left no room for discussion! Greer persuaded Dr. Tumulo not to give up, and let Greer receive identical conditioning in secret.
All Greer's faculties were improved. Her physical strength and agility, her mental prowess, and intuition were boosted. Conversely, Shirlee's results worried Dr. Tumulo. Worried about side effects, she went to Donalbain's headquarters to put an end to his involvement. There, she clandestinely observed Shirlee trying out a yellow-and-blue "cat" uniform. The blonde was to be the prototype for a secret army of superwomen who would work in Donalbain's health clubs and carry out his plans. Donalbain talked Shirlee into wearing a special studded blue collar. His will-nullifier would be issued to all his trainees, reducing them to mindless minions. "Yes, Mr. Donalbain...I am quite ready to do as you wish," she agreed. Without regard for her own safety, Shirlee followed Donalbain's orders, climbing six stories above the floor using clawlike devices built into the costume's gloves and boots. She fell to her death. Fleeing, Dr. Tumulo stumbled across a closetful of "cat" outfits and took one as evidence of Donalbain's scheme.
Dr. Tumulo returned to her lab and related the events she had witnessed. Greer left her to retrieve a some belongings to stay with the distraught scientist. She was gone long enough for Donalbain's henchmen to set of an explosion which destroyed the lab and critically injure Dr. Tumulo. The only thing not destroyed was a safe, contining the "cat" costume. Greer took it.
Greer couldn't help but appreciate the strange garb. Drawing on the cat-eared mask, she found that the folded hyperbolic horns molded into the cowl enhanced her hearing. The eye-coverings produced superior night vision. Recalling Shirlee's cat-like climb, she flexed the proper muscles to extend the retractable steel claws built into the gloves and boots. When the muscles relaxed, the claws retracted. She donned the costume the doctor had appropriated and set out to bring him to justice. Adapting quickly, Greer became "The Cat" in the time it took her to climb and leap from building to building across the city.
Donalbain was surprised to see another woman in Shirlee's uniform, but used a soporific gas to subdue the brunette. After boasting about his plan, he had one of his henchmen attempt to place a will-nullifier around Greer's neck. She broke free and escaped, hiding in the air ducts. Later, she emerged in the lab and wrecked Donalbain's copy of Dr. Tumulo's equipment, accidentally setting fire to his headquarters.
With Donalbain out of the way, Greer (still dressed as the Cat), made her way to Dr. Tumulo's hospital. When she reached its rooftop, she had to fight off more henchmen. They belonged to the Owl, an old Daredevil foe who had relocated from New York. The villain slaughtered his own men, rather than let them be captured, and escaped in his helicopter. Inside, and out of costume, Greer met Dr. Tumulo's attorney, Ben Richards, and her nephew, Arthur Tumulo. According to Art, Dr. Tumulo dropped out of the family years before. She had wanted no part of their munitions factory, or the traditional female role they expected her to play.
The next day, Greer arrived to see an ambulance taking Dr. Tumulo away. She followed in her convertible, eventually losing the ambulance in the warehouse district. The Owl's gunmen captured Greer and brought her inside. The Owl revealed that Arthur was actually one of his henchmen, Broussard, and that he was going to drain the doctor's memories to tapes, just as he had other scientists, artists, and businessmen. With his accumulated knowledge, the Owl could dominate the economy and become a king-maker. They locked Greer in a closet until they could deal with her later, which gave Greer a chance to change back into her catsuit. While she was battling the Owl, Broussard decided he'd had enough of the Owl and would download the knowledge tapes for his own use. The pistol shot he fired at the Owl went wild, striking the machinery and overloading his brain. The Owl fled, leaving Greer with the helpless Dr. Tumulo.
About this time, a female assasin killed one of the candidates for mayor of Chicago, and Greer trailed her to New York. There, she teamed with Spider-Man to defeat the Man-Killer.
Back in Chicago, Greer moved Dr. Tumulo to a house in the country. Since they had a day nurse, Greer took Ben Richards up on his offer to take her scuba diving in Lake Michigan. There, her hypersensitive hearing detected a pinging sound. She lifted Ben's key from his pocket and returned in his boat that night to investigate. She was run over by a cabin cruiser, and the crew of that boat were puzzled to pull a woman dressed in a cat outfit from the lake. They took the unconscious Greer back to their headquarters, an underwater dome. Greer awakened just in time to help them fight off an attack by Commander Kraken, an old Submariner foe. Assuming her captors were U.S. Navy personnel, she aided them in driving him off. After she resurfaced, the dome rose from the water and flew off. Greer realized she had been among aliens.
The next title planned was never published. In it, Greer uncovered a cult replacing the souls of prominent citizens with the souls of cult members. While waiting for a body, the souls were stored in the bodies of housecats. The cult decided that the superpowered body of the Cat would be an appropriate home for one of the their souls, but Greer managed to put an end to them.<\p>
Instead, Greer's last adventure in her own title occurred in the Chicago stockyards. While showing her old high school friend Sally around, they decided to have lunch. A masher approached them, and Greer easily fended him off. The masher turned out to be another old Daredevil villain, and surreptitiously injected himself with the serum that made him the Bull. Greer sent Sally home in a cab and donned her Cat costume. She easily defeated the Bull as well.
In "Giant-Size Ceatures" issue #1, agents of Hydra attempted to kidnap Dr. Tumulo. Greer, back in her Cat costume, drove them off, but not before receiving a fatal dose of alpha radiation. Dr. Tumulo offered to save her by making her one of the Cat People. Greer accepted, and they flew cross-country in a private plane to the Pacific coast of Mexico. There, in a gathering of Cat People, Greer was injected with a serum that caused her to become a were-cat, with feline features, clawed hands and feet, and a tiger-striped pelt. Her already highly developed senses became more refined than ever, and she developed even more strength and agility. The Cat People used a mystic ritual to bind one of their souls to hers (sound familiar?). They recognized the result immediately. She had become a reincarnation of one of their legendary heroes, Tigra.
Greer next appeared in "West Coast Avengers" #15, in which she was temporarily deprived of the ability to change into Tigra and back. The Hellcat (aka Patsy Walker) who had adopted a version of the old Cat costume, offered it to Greer to help the Avengers escape from the Cat People. "It's been years since I used it last -- but it's still as natural to me as breathing!" Greer said. Unfortunately, she thoroughly destroyed the Hellcat's costume when the king of the Cat People, who had been holding the Tigra soul in a jar, loosed it once again. It rejoined with Greer, this time integrating more fully with its host. Tigra was back, stronger, more self-assured, and with a tail this time.
Greer Nelson next appeared in the "Tigra" miniseries, in which she solved the mystery (we didn't know there was one) behind the murder of her husband, Bill Nelson. She joined the police force in her human form, and discovered he had died due to a conspiracy within the police force. Greer enjoyed police work, and decided to remain on the force after revealing the conspirators.