Animal Superheroes

Supercow al rescate!!

Some heroes, such as Batman, Spider-Man and Wolverine, name themselves after, or have powers based on, a member of the animal kingdom. Others actually are members of the animal kingdom, or at least the Funny Animal kingdom.

The result of bringing together the most popular action-cartoon genre with the most popular comedy-cartoon genre. Usually come in one of three flavors. One is a Funny Animal comic that is a direct parody of superheroes, and likely to consist of bad animal puns. Usually considered non-canon in most comic "universes." Another type often features Animal Sidekicks and even superhero's pets, and this often is canon, though unlikely to play a very important role.

And the last type, possibly the best known, are straight-up superheroes who just happen to be animals, often of the very anthropomorphic type. You can thank the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for this type being so ubiquitous.

Will often have Alliterative Names. Not to be confused with an Animal-Themed Superbeing.

Examples of Animal Superheroes include:

Anime and Manga

• Ai to Yuuki no Pig Girl Tonde Buurin is a Magical Girl Warrior show about a girl who transforms into a superpowered pig
• Sweet Valerian likewise is a one where the three protagonists turn into superpowered bunnies.
• Samurai Pizza Cats
• Hyper Police

Comic Books

• DC Comics' Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, from "Earth-C" (for "cartoon") in The DCU: Rubberduck, Alley Kat Abra, Pig-Iron, Fastback (a turtle, natch), Yankee Poodle, Little Cheese, and Cap himself.
  • From "Earth-C-Minus," the Zoo Crew's sister team, the Justa Lotta Animals: Supersquirrel, Batmouse, Wonder Wabbit, Green Lambkin, the Crash (a turtle, natch), and Aquaduck.
  • Also historical Earth-C Golden Age hero (and Fastback's uncle), the Terrific Whatzit (DC's first funny-animal superhero).
• Marvel Comics' Peter Porker, Spider-Ham, and many others appearing in his universe (Deerdevil, Captain Americat, Hulk Bunny, the Fantastic Fur, Ducktor Doom.... the list goes on and on).
  • Comic book people sure love animal puns, don't they?
  • There's also the puntastic Marvel Apes series along with the Prime Eight spin-off. Just a small sampling: Spider-Monkey, Iron Mandrill, Nick Furry (same name as the funny animal in the Spider-Ham stories, oddly), Silverback Surfer, Doc Ook...
  • Does Black Panther turning into a literal anthropomorphic black panther in Earth X count?
• Boris the Bear, an ultraviolent ursine Anti-Hero who's made it his life's mission to destroy every other anthropomorphic animal superhero in existence, starting with the TMNT, except for Droopy.
  • Not really. That was only in his first issue. Still, the fact that this exists shows you how popular, almost tediously so, this trope was in the wake of the Turtles.
• Extinctioners - an indy comic featuring an entire planet of super-powered, human created "humanimals".
• A few stories had Tom Strong meet his Funny Animal counterpart, a rabbit named Warren Strong along with his wife Patience, daughters Topsy, Turvy and Fluffytail (a Shout-Out to Peter Rabbit) and archenemy Basil Saveen (a fox version of Paul Saveen, possibly named after Basil Brush).
• Rex, The Wonder Dog. He killed dinosaurs with atom bombs.
  • And he wasn't even anthropomorphic!!
• Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers, in which Team Pets from across the Marvel Universe band together without their humans getting in the way.
• The DC version of this (in the Silver Age, at least) was the Legion of Super-Pets, set up in the 30th century (even though most of the members came from the 20th century!) as an adjunct to the Legion of Super-Heroes. The LSP consisted of Krypto the super-dog, Streaky the (sometimes) super-cat, Comet the super-horse, Beppo the super-monkey, and Proty, a shape-shifting blob of protoplasm that the similarly-powered Chameleon Boy had as a pet. Proty (and his successor Proty II) was the only Super-Pet native to the 30th century; just as well all those super-animals could travel through time, wasn't it?
  • And then there was the Space Canine Patrol Agency, an LSH-like team of super-powered dogs that Krypto encountered on one of his romps through space and joined, sharing a few adventures. They don't quite qualify for this trope, though, as all the members were depicted as life-like dogs rather than anthropomorphic animals; that was left for the villains! We will mercifully pass over the Space Cat Patrol Agency, who also appeared in one panel of the first SCPA story...
  • As Silver Age flavour slowly creeps back into comics, Krypto has returned as Superman's loyal if unpredictable pet.
  • And we have a new animal Sociopathic Hero to boot, Red Lantern Dex-Starr!
  • There's also Detective Chimp, a genius (by human standards) chimpanzee who can communicate with animals.
  • DC also has at least two gorilla supervillain, Gorilla Grodd, an Evil Genius mind controlling gorilla who gained his powers from a crashed alien ship or a meteor, and Monsieur Mallah, who gained his superhuman intelligence from a Mad Scientist's experiements.
• Marvel's " Power Pachyderms", an Affectionate Parody of their own X-Men.
• The aforementioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of course.
• DC also has Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, a lapine version of the original Captain Marvel. Hoppy's "hero" name is Captain Marvel Bunny.
• Disney's Donald Duck and Goofy each have superhero alter egos.
  • At least in Italy (but probably, elsewhere), it's easier to list characters that have not a super identity. Donald Duck and Goofy are the most prominent, but even Goofy's nephew, Daisy, José Carioca (actually, a parody of superheroes), Gyro, and many others. It's good to know that at least once the Beagle Boys have been supervillains (with the X-Men powers).
  • These stories are now published for the English-language market by Boom Kids as Disney Hero Squad: Ultraheroes.
• Nedor Comics' Black Terror (now a Public Domain Character seen in Tom Strong: Terra Obscura and Project Superpowers) spawned a Funny Animal counterpart called the Black Terrier. Since the Terror's real identity was either Mark Benton or Bob Benton, the Terrier was Bark Benton.
• DC One Million had Justice Legion Z (for Zoomorphs), which was descended from the Legion of Executive Familiars, which in turn was the even-futher-future counterpart to the Legion of Superpets. The JLZ membership included Proty One Million, a version of Comet the Super-Horse and Mastermind, presumably a heroic descendent of Mr Mind, the World's Wickedest Worm. The Executive Familiars were Krypto-9, Wormhole, the Sun Dragons, and Octo the Eight-Dimensional Cephalopod.

Film

• Bolt, which is in fact, a subversion in several ways.
• Cats and Dogs features superspy felines and canines, including Siamese "ninja", the Russian Blue (a cat assassin with a Russian accent), and Tab Lazenby Voiced by George Lazenby himself.

Literature

• In the world of Soon I Will Be Invincible, it's stated that the thousand or so superpowered beings include three dogs, four cats, and a bird, as well as more unspecified aquatic superbeings, which may or may not be human.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppet Show episode guest starring Lynda Carter had a sketch with Miss Piggy as Wonder Pig, and another with Super Sheep.

Tabletop Games

• The Worlds of Freedom sourcebook for Mutants and Masterminds features a Funny Animal version of the Freedom City setting called Furrydom City. The Furrydom League includes Captain Thunderkat, Bunny Liberty, Duck Daedalus, Sea Otter, Johnny Rabbit, Bowmoose, and Dr Metropomouse.
• The "Supertoon" setting for the Toon role-playing game.

Video Games

• The Super Sheep weapon from Worms. It's a sheep which flies around wearing a red cape. And then explodes.
• Earthworm Jim.
• The Angry Birds got superhero makeovers in Angry Birds Space.

Webcomics

• Supermegatopia is an Affectionate Parody of superhero comics that takes place in a world of anthropomorphic animals.
• The Adventures of Dr. McNinja brings us Sparklelord, a unicorn taking the form of A motorcycle the Doctor found, who is one of the few things the King Radical fears, because Sparklelord is an Omnicidal Maniac who nearly destroyed the Radical Land.

Web Original

• Bad Horse from Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog is a rare example of an Animal Supervillain. He's also one of the few to be played by a real animal, albeit only in one short scene. Naturally this has turned him into something of an Ensemble Darkhorse, pun very much intended.
• In the League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions there was The Insector, an insect superhero.

Western Animation

• Atom Ant
• Batfink
• Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse
• Danger Mouse, in a variation, was an animal super-spy.
• As was Secret Squirrel.
• Perry the Platypus in Phineas and Ferb, along with the other animal agents of the OWCA.
• The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs, of course.
• And also Tuff Puppy.
• Darkwing Duck.
• Dynomutt Dog Wonder.
• Earthworm Jim.
• Gizmoduck from DuckTales (1987)
• Hong Kong Phooey, #1 super-guy.
• Krypto the Superdog later got his own Animated Series, where his partners included Streaky the cat, the Dog Stars and Ace the Bat-Hound (Bruce Wayne's dog) -- all of whom were based on actual Silver Age comic-book characters.
  • The Krypto series also featured examples of "Animal Supervillains", such as Ignatius, an iguana pet of Lex Luthor; Isis, one of many felines owned by Catwoman; Bud and Lou, a pair of hyenas belonging to The Joker; the Penguin's trained birds, and the Darth Vader-esque Mechanikat.
• Loonatics Unleashed, which cast descendants of the classic Looney Tunes characters as futuristic super heroes.
• The Powerpuff Girls - Mojo Jojo, although he's a villain.
  • There was also the episode where Mojo Jojo turned the girls into dogs, not taking into consideration the fact that super-powered girls turned into dogs are still super-powered.
  • And an episode where Bubbles gave an injured squirrel some Chemical X, and ended up giving him/her superpowers.
• The Mighty Ducks (from the Disney animated series)
• Mighty Mouse
  • Ralph Bashi's New Adventures Of Mighty Mouse introduced another: Bat-Bat (with his sidekick, Tick, the Bug Wonder).
  • One episode of New Adventures also featured the Legion of Super-Rodents. Some of whom were actually insectivores or small mammals rather than rodents. And one of whom was The Golden Sloth.
• One episode of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic had Rainbow Dash being upstaged in saving Ponyvillers from danger by "the Mysterious Mare Do Well".
• Road Rovers
• Swat Kats
• Plucky Duck of Tiny Toon Adventures took on a few superhero alter-egos, most notably as The Toxic Revenger and as Batman parody Batduck, with Hamton as sidekick Decoy. The latter set-up spun off a segment where all the major animal characters appear as Justice League members. Babs also parodied Supergirl once.
  • Plucky and Hampton also once tried to join an in universe Animal Superhero team. The Radioactive Immature Samurai Slugs. They named themselves after painters as well—Earl Schieb and Sherwin Williams.
• Underdog
• Monkey from Dexter's Laboratory.
• Examples from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers: Flash the Wonder Dog and his sidekick Conrad Cockatoo, the Red Badger of Courage (all of whom are fictional), and Dale himself as Rubber Bando.
• Two Looney Tunes shorts featured Bugs as "Super Rabbit" and Daffy as "Stupor Duck".
  • A Happy Meal toyline also played with the concept: Bugs was "Super Rabbit", Daffy was "Bat Duck", the Tazmanian Devil was "Taz-Flash", and Petunia Pig was "Wonder Pig".
• As shown above, Super Cow from Cow and Chicken.
  • Although it's debatable whether Super Cow has actual super powers or is just Cow speaking Spanish and willing to use the proportionate strength of... a cow.
    • She's been shown flying on several occasions, so it's more than likely superpowers. In fact, it was made a plot-point in one episode that her powers come from her "magic cape", which is actually Cow's blankie.
• The Hanna-Barbera El Kabong shorts, where Quick Draw McGraw became a Zorro-esque character who bashed people with a guitar instead of slashing at them with a saber.
• An obscure and very low quality film called The Adventures of the American Rabbit stars a rabbit who fights forest crime by painting himself as the American flag and putting on roller skates to fly around and give speeches of Eagle Land grade A quality.