Beast Boy
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Beast Boy (Garfield Mark "Gar" Logan) is a fictional character in the DC Comics universe, a shapeshifting superhero who is a member of the Doom Patrol and former member of the Teen Titans. Created by Arnold Drake and Bob Brown, he first appeared in The Doom Patrol #99 (Nov. 1965).
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[edit] Character biography
[edit] Character history
As a child, Garfield contracted a rare illness called Sakutia and was cured by a serum extracted from a green monkey. This serum had the unintended effect of turning his skin and hair green and gave him the ability to morph into any animal of his choice. The colors and appearance of these animals changed depending on the artist using the character at the time.
Before becoming a Teen Titan or part of the Doom Patrol, Garfield was placed in custody of Nicholas Galtry, the attorney for his parents' estate. While the young Logan was in Africa, Galtry had embezzled funds from Gar's inheritance. When Gar was found, Galtry plotted to kill the boy and have all the wealth for himself.
Originally and currently known as Beast Boy, he was adopted by Elasti-Girl and Mento, members of the Doom Patrol. He later joined the West Coast team of the Teen Titans (known as Titans West), and was part of the New Teen Titans assembled by Raven. It was at this time that he took the name Changeling. He remained with various incarnations of the team, forming a close friendship with Cyborg.
He later began using the name Beast Boy again, under which he got his own mini-series Beast Boy. Following a failed attempt to recreate "Titans West" as "Titans L.A.,", as recounted in Titans Secret Files #2, he rejoined the main team.
He has also worked as an actor, playing the role of an alien in the TV series Space Trek 2022 (which, even in the fictional setting, was a thinly disguised pastiche of Star Trek and Space: 1999, and was cancelled following threats of legal action on the grounds of plagiarism).
Beast Boy's character is often used as comic relief. However, this is only a facade, he uses humor to hide a deep inner pain. Beast Boy has suffered many hardships in his life (both his real parents have died, and his foster mother, whom Garfield became very close to, died in battle along with virtually all of the other Doom Patrol members with whom he was part of the team and his foster father was driven mad by a helmet he used to fight enemies). During his time with The New Teen Titans, Gar fell in love with Terra, a young girl with geokinetic powers and fellow Teen Titans member, who turned out to be a spy working for Deathstroke. Despite all his hardships, Garfield is friendly and upbeat.
His best friend is Cyborg (also a member of the Teen Titans). He is also close to Bette Kane, a former Titan who helped clear his name from the crimes committed by an impostor on an adventure in Los Angeles.
In one occasion, he gained an arch enemy in the Zookeeper.
[edit] "One Year Later"
While the events of Infinite Crisis unfolds, details of Beast Boy's life "One Year Later" are revealed in the current Teen Titans comic book.
Teen Titans (vol. 3) #34 shows us scenes from the year between the conclusion of Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, from the damaged Cyborg's POV. Garfield led the Teen Titans, before quitting the team following the break-up of himself and Raven. He then joined his original team, the Doom Patrol, citing that the team needed his help and that Robin could handle leadership. He was also feeling uneasy about remaining in a team without his best friend Cyborg.
Soon after Cyborg awoke, Beast Boy and the rest of the Doom Patrol helped the Titans fight off the Brotherhood of Evil, who had managed to clone Brain. The clone was a failure, and Mallah ended up tearing Brain's head off so that he could preserve his master's brain.
After returning, Beast Boy was infurriated to discover that the Chief had been manipulating them and trying to do the same to Kid Devil. Gar and his parents stood up to the Chief and made him step down as the Doom Patrol's leader. Gar stayed on his old team saying that they still needed him.
His costume post-Infinite Crisis resembles the one he wore in the animated series.
[edit] Personal life
Garfield Logan's life has been shaped by tragedy. His parents died in a boating accident when he was no more than 10 years old. To this day, he still believes he could have prevented this event. After he was saved from two kidnappers that tried to use his powers to help them in their crimes, he was left under the care of his despised guardian, Nicholas Galtry.
Galtry wasn't happy that Garfield was alive and plotted to kill the boy in order to claim his inheritance. The various villains he hired to kill young Logan were impeded by the Doom Patrol. His hopes of gaining Garfield's money were finally dashed when Rita and Steve Dayton adopted Garfield.
In his days with the Doom Patrol, Garfield held a romantic relationship with a girl from his high-school named Jillain Jackson. After he saved her from Galtry (who was using the alias "Arsenal"), the relationship dissolved. Beast Boy was the only survivor of the Doom Patrol, a loss which deeply affected him. Since then, they have all returned to life, but this began his habit of his making jokes to cover up his fear that those he cares about will die.
Garfield felt insecure and inadequate as a Teen Titan. He hid his insecurity by constantly cracking jokes which even he described as "stale" and humorously flirting with the female members of the team. He even suggested that Raven reformed the Titans just to meet him (something none of the other Titans would ever believe). However, it is a mystery exactly why Raven chose to recruit Garfield into the New Teen Titans.
Logan developed a more serious interest in Tara Markov. He was heartbroken to discover that she was a traitor working for Deathstroke and hated the Teen Titans. Even after her death, he refused to believe for a long time that she was a traitor and blamed Deathstroke for corrupting her and using her. He, however, came to grips with her true colors when it was revealed that she killed King Tawaba. Despite this, he blamed her betrayal on Deathstroke until he disclosed the real details of his relationship with her to him. This added to his fears of losing those he is close to. However, he and Deathstroke parted on peaceful terms after this, and strangely enough over the course of time(specifically during the Titans Hunt and Total Chaos story arcs), even developed a friendship between them. After Terra's betrayal and death, Jill returned to Garfield's life to ease his pain. Unfortunately, the relationship dissolved just as it did before. Jackson's fate remains unknown. Logan also had a short-lived relationship with Flamebird when he led the also short-lived Titans L.A.
Upon returning to the Titans under Vic Stone's leadership, he began flirting with his female teammates again. His flirts became minimal, however, when Raven was revived and rejoined the team. He did, however, flirt with Raven occasionally. In issue 30 (vol. III) of the Teen Titans, Raven kissed Beast Boy without explanation. It was revealed in the following issue that Raven kissed him because it was "just what she wanted to do". She had been developing feelings for him since her recent rebirth. Despite fan speculations that this affair was influenced by the Shipper fan community, writer Geoff Johns has gone on record to note that he had long been preparing these two slowly to have a relationship before the animated series even began. However, Robin revealed in Teen Titans #34 that the two have broken up, though no reason why was given, and both left the team as a result. Interviews with Geoff Johns indicated the relationship would be explored again during and after "OYL".
[edit] Powers and abilities
As a shape shifter Beast boy has the ability to morph his body form according to his desire into any animal that he has seen himself or has seen an illustration or picture of (as is the case when he shapeshifts into an animal such as an extinct dinosaur). These transformations take only a second and Beast Boy has demonstrated that he is capable of rapidly changing his form with little or no effort expended. His power enables him to completely alter his body mass being able to take the shape of animal far larger and heavier like an elephant, hippopotamus, or Tyrannosaurus Rex (though until recent stories, such larger forms would physically exhaust him), or smaller and lighter than himself like a mouse or an insect. Also his power enables him to radically alter his body structure and take forms of animals without limbs like a snake or without bones like an octopus. While in the form of animals he gains all physical abilities and characteristics of the animal like strength, speed, durability, the ability to fly or to breathe underwater. With many animals he'll gain special abilities they have, such as a poisonous bite from a spider or snake. While in animal form he still completely retains all his human intellect, mind and memories, and retains the ability to speak. No matter what form he takes, his skin, hair and eyes remain green.
When Raven implanted Garfield with an evil seed of her father Trigon, he began to transform into more demon-like creatures. Eventually, he found himself more comfortable in these horrific shapes rather than as a human, and stayed shifted. After becoming completely corrupted by the evil seed, he was used by Raven and Trigon, and eventually returned to normal.
In the "Titans of Tomorrow" storyline Garfield, calling himself Animal Man, has the power to create copies of himself, and the ability to become mythical animals.
[edit] Teen Titans animated series
Beast Boy appears in the Teen Titans animated series, voiced by Greg Cipes.
In the series, Beast Boy (nicknamed "BB", and others) plays the role of the light-hearted jokester of the group, though often the butt of many jokes himself (similar to his comics self). He wears a black and purple Doom Patrol uniform, complete with gray gloves and purple sneakers with seemingly velcro straps (although they were temporarily shown as shoelaces in the episode "Mother Mae-Eye"). The costume also has a mask that goes along with it (which he wore in his days with the Doom Patrol, as seen in "Homecoming: Part 1," "Homecoming: Part 2," and "Go!"); he discarded it after Cyborg told him it was goofy, and Raven pointed out that the mask wouldn't hide his secret identity anyway, as since his skin is green, he doesn't really have one. Beast Boy also has pointy ears, which he finds to be an attractive quality of himself, and appears much younger than in the comics. The ears were adapted to the comics in Teen Titans volume three. He exhibits very feral habits as well, such as sitting with his feet on his chair and moving his ears up and down.
Beast Boy's ability to speak in animal form is normally absent in the series. However, in episodes such as Apprentice: Part 2, How Long is Forever, Date with Destiny, Haunted, and Crash, he has been shown as talking or making "human" sounds in animal form.
Beast Boy is a full vegetarian, having been most of the meat-producing animals (he stated as such in "Final Exam"). He's also prone to causing much of the mischief around Titans Tower, such as the time he kept a large mutant moth larva hidden in his bedroom, whom he named Silkie. In "Can I Keep Him?," the larva devours much of the Tower while the team is on a mission fighting Johnny Rancid. While trying to hide him from the others, Beast Boy entrusts Silkie to Starfire to hide, but she ends up adopting the creature.
Beast Boy, like in the comics, also had a romantic relationship with a girl named Terra who had the ability to control earth and the elements in the earth. As in the comic book, Terra betrays the Teen Titans as an ally of Slade (Deathstroke). Ultimately, she receives redemption in helping the Titans defeat Slade; however, she is turned to stone in the process. In a departure from the comic book, Beast Boy retains strong feelings for Terra, as can be heard in "The End: Part 2" by "Evil Beast Boy" (an evil clone of BB created by Trigon, representing his evil side). In the final episode "Things Change" Beast Boy saw Terra, although it's unclear whether or not it was the real Terra as he was the only Titan who saw her. The episode was designed to serve in much the way JLUs' second season finale "Epilogue" was designed to wrap up the Batman portion of the DCAU, focusing on one or two central characters and resolving unapproached issues.
In the season 3 episode The Beast Within, Beast Boy gained a new "Man-Beast" form when he was doused with an experimental DNA compound. The Titans had assumed that he'd used this form to attack Raven. However, it was in fact Adonis, who had been affected by the compound as well, who attacked her, and Beast Boy was protecting Raven from him. Beast Boy disliked this form and refrained from using it again until he and the other Titans were fighting off Slade's fire-soldier army in The End: Part 1. He never used it after then, suggesting that even with the strength and abilities it gave him, he considered it a "last resort".
Season 5 of Teen Titans focused on Beast Boy a great deal, as it dealt with his history as a member of the animated series' incarnation of the Doom Patrol. In the second episode of the fifth season, Beast Boy becomes the first male Titan in the series to be explicitly referred to by his real name (Garfield). In "Titans Together", Beast Boy showed a remarkable amount of leadership skills and led Herald, Jericho, Pantha, and Mas on an assault on the Brotherhood of Evil. He remained leader even after Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, and several other Titans joined the fight. Beast Boy only stood down from leadership when Robin was thawed out; thus fulfilling his dream (revealed in the episode "Go!") to be Robin's sidekick.
One part of Beast Boy's depiction in the animated series that has garnered attention is his effort to form a connection with his team-mate, Raven, going so far as to make a decisive effort to get her to respond to his jokes. His comedic and innocent nature often plays off on Raven's more distant and harsh one, and certain episodes focus on building their friendship ("Spellbound" and "The Beast Within"). However, the producers have gone on record to say that this was not intended to be the basis for a romantic relationship - as some fans have hoped.
Until Homecoming, in which his former teammates make a guest appearance, Beast Boy was the only member of the Doom Patrol to appear on the show.
Beast Boy also has an obsession with owning a vehicle of his own, more specifically, a moped. In one episode, he acquires one and affectionatly calles it the "B-Ped". Ironically, after using it to save the world from killer tofu, it falls to pieces. He often has fantasies of impressing girls on a moped, dressed in a stereotypical French style: black and white striped shirt, black trousers and a beret.
[edit] External sources
- DCDP: Beast Boy - DC Database Project
- Titans Tower Biography
- Beast Boy's description on the animated series
