Super-Pets
Entry updated 15 August 2024. Tagged: Theme.
Since humans have long enjoyed close companionships with animals – mostly Cats and Dogs, though many other animals have functioned as pets – it was probably inevitable that Superheroes would be accompanied by supportive animals sometimes sharing their amazing abilities. Several of these were introduced in the 1950s and 1960s, though none achieved great popularity; as Comics shifted to an adult audience, they became less prominent in the 1980s and thereafter, though they have been more visible in films and on television as ideal subjects for animated programs aimed at a juvenile audience.
The first significant super-pet was DC Comics' Krypto the Super-Dog, who was created by Otto Binder and Curt Swan and first appeared in their "The Super-Dog from Krypton" (August 1955 Adventure Comics #210). It transpired that Superman's father Jor-El, before launching his son to Earth, had sent the family's dog into space as a test run for the flight, and he eventually found his way to Earth, where he was reunited with Superboy and became his pet, featuring in a number of adventures. Krypto was depicted as unusually intelligent and possessed all of Superman's powers, making him a useful ally. But he was featured less frequently in the 1960s in Superboy stories, and to explain his previous absence from stories about the adult Superman, it was explained that he developed a passion for randomly travelling through space (in defiance of the known habits of domesticated dogs) and only periodically returns to Earth to be with Superman. However, Krypto was featured in a series of solo adventures in the 1970s. In a single story, artist George Papp's "The Dog from S.C.P.A." (July 1966 Superboy #131) – scriptwriter unidentified – Krypto encounters and joins a spacefaring team of super-powered dogs, the Space Canine Patrol Agents. As is generally the case with older characters, Krypto has been repeatedly reimagined in recent DC comics, sometimes with different origin stories and altered powers.
Superboy subsequently encountered another animal from Krypton, Beppo the Super-Monkey, introduced in Binder's and Papp's "The Super-Monkey from Krypton" (October 1959 Superboy #76). He was an experimental monkey in Jor-El's laboratory who stowed away on Superboy's Spaceship to Earth and escaped when it landed, later meeting Superboy, though he preferred to adventure in the jungle and rarely figured in later stories. Super-Turtle, created as a humorous parody of Superman, was featured in one-page vignettes in various DC titles and also appeared in a few canonical adventures; he is, like Superman, an Alien launched into space by his father from a dying planet.
Superman's cousin Supergirl had two super-powered pets. The first was Streaky the Super-Cat, who debuted in "Supergirl's Super-Pet" (August 1960 Action Comics #261) by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney. Experimenting to create an antidote to the lethal Element Kryptonite, Supergirl creates a nugget of X-Kryptonite, and whenever Supergirl's cat Streaky plays with it, he gains super-powers equivalent to those of his master. Streaky also had a super-powered descendant in the thirtieth century, Whizzy. When Streaky presumably proved to be insufficiently popular, he was effectively replaced by Comet the Super-Horse, introduced without explanation in Siegel's and Swan's "The Legion of Super-Traitors" (February 1962 Adventure Comics #293), but given a proper origin story in Leo Dorfman's and Mooney's "The Secret Origin of Supergirl's Super-Horse" (October 1962 Action Comics #293). He is unusually connected to Mythology instead of the dubious science explaining Superman and his cohorts, as he is Biron, a centaur from ancient Greece, accidentally turned into a horse by the sorceress Circe; to compensate for her mistake, she grants him super-powers and Immortality; and an adventure in outer space had the result of turning him into a human whenever a Comet appears in the sky.
The aforementioned animals first appeared as a team, the Legion of Super-Pets, in "The Legion of Super-Traitors", and they soon added a fifth member: Proty II, the pet of Chameleon Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes, a blob of protoplasm that shares Chameleon Boy's powers as a Shapeshifter. (There was an original Proty who sacrificed his life to revive a deceased Lightning Lad.) After making a few appearances in the 1960s, the Legion of Super-Pets was officially removed from the DC universe in the 1980s, though of course both individual members and the team itself have subsequently been revived, with several unmemorable new members added to the roster, ludicrously including the Bat-Cow and Flexi the Plastic Bird, who can distort his body in the manner of Plastic Man.
Other superhero pets in the DC universe outside the Superman saga include Big Red, a hawk that assisted the Golden Age Hawkman; Streak, a dog who accompanied the Golden Age Green Lantern; Robbie the Robot Dog, who was intelligent enough to converse with his master, the original Robotman, and was his regular partner; Rex the Wonder Dog, who was granted unusual strength and intelligence by a serum and subsequently became a crime-fighter; Detective Chimp, an intelligent chimpanzee who appeared with several superheroes in addition to his own adventures; Ace, the Bat-Hound, a smart dog who teamed up with Batman and Robin whenever his owner left him with Bruce Wayne while he travelled; Blackie, an intelligent hawk who was once a companion to the aerial adventurers Blackhawks; and Topo, a gifted octopus (whose talents included playing several musical instruments) who served as Aquaman's sidekick until he vanished when Aquaman acquired a teenage companion, Aqualad. Metamorpho recently gained a pet, Element Dog, who also had his master's ability to transform his body into various elements.
Marvel Comics's Ant-Man had a devoted ant companion, Korr, who was killed off after the hero acquired a female colleague, the Wasp, and spent no more time socializing with ants, as he was then transformed into Giant-Man. Other Marvel super-pets include the Inhumans' Lockjaw, an enormous dog with great strength and the power of Teleportation; Redwing, companion of the Falcon, who is Telepathically linked to his master; and Dogpool, the canine pet of Deadpool.
Without entirely vanishing from view, as noted, super-pets became less prominent in comic books from the 1980s and thereafter, but were regularly featured in other media. The animated series Super Friends (1973), to appeal to younger viewers, added to its lineup of heroes from the Justice League of America two teenagers, Wendy and Marvin, and their pet Wonder Dog, who lacked super-powers but was intelligent enough to assist the group in their adventures. Versions of Krypto have appeared in several animated series and the live-action series Smallville (2001-2011), and it is reported that he will be included in the next Superman movie; Streaky has also been featured in a few animated series. The animated film DC League of Super Pets (2022) featured a team of animals that included Krypto, Ace the Bat-Hound, and several new characters. [GW]
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