Black Cat Fact — November 6, 2026

Today's Fact

Felicia asked magic to fix her luck; magic edited her body instead and handed her a cat's toolkit.

DOCTOR STRANGE CURED SPIDER-MAN — AND ACCIDENTALLY GAVE BLACK CAT CLAWS!

The Featured Fact

When Doctor Strange lifted the bad-luck hex clinging to Spider-Man in Spectacular Spider-Man #115 (1986), he cured the wrong patient by remote control: the hex was anchored in Felicia Hardy, and pulling it out of Peter Parker switched her powers off mid-job. Felicia discovered the loss the hard way, leaning on her luck during a confrontation at the Foreigner's penthouse and taking a fist across the face — complete with a broken nose — because the probability field simply was not there anymore.

Then the spell's side effects reported for duty. Confronting Strange in the issues that followed, Felicia learned her powers had not vanished but mutated: the mystic tampering rebuilt her bad luck into literal feline equipment — night vision, superhuman speed, strength, agility and endurance, and retractable claws in her fingertips. The cat burglar who had bought probability from the Kingpin got her cat traits from the Sorcerer Supreme, free of charge and entirely by accident.

The feline package did not last either. Felicia later lost those gifts as well and rebuilt her edge the practical way — Tinkerer-built gear, then a Doc Tramma implant called a quantum probability pulsator that restored her bad-luck field through machinery. Her power history is a relay race between a crime lord, a wizard and two mad scientists, and she has never once held the baton for long.

Why It's Obscure

A cure, a broken nose and a brand-new set of claws — all from one house call Felicia never booked.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #115 (1986)

Things fall apart. Strange confirms the hex on Spider-Man and removes it; across town, Felicia's powers cut out at the exact moment she is counting on them, mid-robbery.

THE BROKEN NOSE

Payment in full. Trusting luck that no longer existed, Felicia let a thug take his swing — the spell's first confirmed casualty was her face, and she spent the next issues furious about it.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #117 (1986)

The mutation revealed. Felicia breaks into the Sanctum Sanctorum to punch Strange's lights out and learns she can see his astral form — the first visible sign her senses had been rebuilt along feline lines.

CLAWS AND NIGHT VISION

Literal cat powers. The mutation's full inventory — retractable talons, night vision and cat-proportioned strength and agility — is the only period where the Black Cat's name was a physiological description.

Gallery

Felicia with her claws out, a portrait in the classic fur-trimmed suit, and the sorcerer whose cure rewired her.

Black Cat with a claw raised — **Claws out** Felicia in mask and fur trim with one long retractable claw raised beside her face — the feline hardware Strange's spell installed is plainly visible.

Black Cat portrait — **The classic look** Felicia Hardy in her signature black suit and white fur collar, the costume she was wearing through the whole powers merry-go-round.

Doctor Strange casting a spell — **The accidental benefactor** Doctor Strange, whose attempt to scrub a hex off Spider-Man rewrote Felicia's biology instead — the most consequential house call in her life.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Wikipedia — Black Cat (Marvel Comics) Summarises the chain: Kingpin-granted luck, Strange's removal, and the mutation into feline abilities including claws and agility.
Marvel Database — Spectacular Spider-Man #115 Issue record for the hex removal, with Felicia's own line on the page: her bad luck powers are gone.
Screen Rant — Black Cat almost killed Spider-Man with terrible luck Retrospective tracing how Strange's cure blinked her powers out mid-fight and then mutated them into strength, speed and retractable claws.