Beast Boy

Beast Boy
File:Pic medbeastboy.jpg Beast Boy, currently (art by Carlo Barbieri & Mario Alquiza)
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	The Doom Patrol #99
In-story information
Alter ego	Garfield Mark Logan
Team affiliations	Teen Titans, Titans West, Doom Patrol
Notable aliases	Changeling
Abilities	Shapeshifting, communication with many forms of animals

Beast Boy (real name Garfield Mark "Gar" Logan) is a shape-shifting superhero in the DC Comics universe.

History

As a child, Gar came down with a rare illness called Sakutia and was cured by a serum from a green monkey. This serum had the unintended effect of turning his skin and hair green and gave him the ability to change into any animal (the colors and appearance of these animals changed depending on which artist was using the character at the time).

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.," 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 is a comic relief character. Whatever team he is part of, he likes to joke around with people and make jokes of the situations the team get themselves into. However, this is only a facade. In reality, Beast Boy is a boy who has suffered many hardships in his life (both his real parents have passed away, and then 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. Also, his foster father was driven mad by a helmet he used to fight enemies). He also has lost many teammates and fell in love with Terra (a member of the Teen Titans) and was heartbroken to discover that she was a traitor working for Deathstroke and hated the Teen Titans with a passion. 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. As a result of all of this, he uses his jokes to cover the fact that he is scared of losing anyone else he is close to. Despite all of his hardships though, Garfield is friendly and upbeat.

His best friend is Cyborg (also a member of the Teen Titans). He is also close with Bette "Flamebird" Kane, a former Titan who helped save his life on an adventure in Los Angeles.

In the "Titans of Tomorrow" storyline, wherein the Titans glimpsed a grim, possible future, Beast Boy had changed his name to Animal Man (II) and fought alongside his fellow, fascist Titans to make the United States a police state. This future Beast Boy is shown as feral shaggy, and more bestial in appearance. He is also characterized as still bearing a grudge against a possibly-resurrected Terra, who, in this future, is a member of the more benign rival group Titans East.

In the Teen Titans animated series

Beast Boy appears in the Teen Titans animated series, voiced by Greg Cipes.

In the series, Beast Boy (nicknamed "BB", "Beasty Boo" 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"). He also has pointy ears (which he finds to be an attractive quality of himself) and a much younger look than in the comics; he is also a ladies' man. He is a full-vegan vegetarian, having been most of the meat-producing animals (he said so himself in "Final Exam"). He's also prone to causing much of the mischief around Titans Tower, such as the time he kept a mutant 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).

Season 5 of Teen Titans supposedly focuses on Beast Boy a great deal, as it deals 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 Logan).

External sources

• Beast Boy's description on the animated series