DC's Original League Of Super-Pets Was Insane

Because CGI animals are far less likely to go on crime rampages across Hawaii, DC's latest superhero team movie is about a group of superpowered pets led by Superman's flying dog, who sounds a lot like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. That's a pretty nutty premise for a movie but, as usual, the insanity has been significantly downgraded compared to the original comics. For one thing, at least the movie doesn't have a horse who has the hots for Supergirl. 

Yes, one of the original members of DC's Legion of Super-Pets was Comet the Super-Horse, Supergirl's pet/creepy secret admirer. Comet's origin establishes that he was once a centaur who saved a witch's life, so she offered to make him 100% human in gratitude. Unfortunately, that stupid witch accidentally gave him the wrong potion and animorphed him into a full horse. She felt so guilty about it that she then gave him a random assortment of superpowers, including immortality, which just seems like a cruel way to extend his misery at this point.

Later, Comet gains the ability to turn human temporarily whenever a comet passes through the solar system. Instead of sharing the good news with Supergirl, he keeps this information secret in order to seduce her. He actually manages to make out with her under more than one fake identity without her knowledge, even though he always has the same face and, uh, presumably other body parts. 

The most famous member of the Legion of Super-Pets was, of course, Krypto the Super-Dog, Superboy's beloved pet who shares his exact powers. Good thing, too, because the Brat of Steel would have pulverized a regular dog within 20 minutes of ownership. 

When Superboy is mind-controlled by a race of floating telepathic brains from outer space, Krypto has no choice but to team up with other superpowered pets to stop them, since the evil brains' powers don't work on animals (or particularly dumb humans, presumably). That's how he first teams up with Beppo the Super-Monkey who, like Krypto, was one of the animals Superman's dad experimented with before shooting his baby into outer space. He was the Kryptonian version of all those monkeys NASA stuffed into rockets in the '40s and '50s, with the slight difference that he ended up gaining amazing powers instead of suffocating or burning alive. 

Then there's Streaky the Super-Cat, a regular Earth cat who gains powers every other issue by constantly running into the same "rare" form of kryptonite. Modern day comics took away Streaky's powers for good and explained that her name is derived from her refusal to use a litter box. 

The final member of the team was "Proty II," a sentient lump of shape-shifting goo from the future that we won't even attempt to explain in more detail. Together, the Legion of Super-Pets had a number of notable adventures, like the time Superman used them to infiltrate an 18th century circus as Superb-o, Animal Trainer Extraordinaire, because just being able to fly and burn things with his eyes wouldn't have impressed those old-time carnies. All of this, by the way, just to research an article Clark Kent was writing. 

Or the time they rebelled and beat the crap out of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes because they weren't getting enough respect. 

We seriously wonder how Marvel possibly overtook DC in sales during this period.

Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment on every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com. 

Thumbnail: Warner Bros. Pictures