Beast Boy
24 years ago - Garfield Logan's parents move to the Congo basin to research "the Red". He is born in their jungle labs.
20 years ago - 4-year-old Gar contracts Sakutia, a deadly disease that turns him green. To save his life, his father exposes him to his experiments with "the Red", unlocking his bodies genetic memory. This interacts with the disease, rendering him capable of rapidly changing his form to any animal within his genetic memory.
19 years ago - 5-year-old Gar's parents die in a tragic accident. He is taken in by Galtry, his scheming foster father who hopes to embezzle his inheritance. He breaks into the Doom Patrol's mansion, wanting to find friends more like himself.
18 years ago - 6-year-old Gar manages to escape the control of Galtry when Rita Farr adopts him.
14 years ago - 10-year-old Gar is left in the care of Steve Dayton, whose grip on reality is beginning to slip after the disappearance of the Doom Patrol at the hands of Vandal Savage.
13 years ago - 11-year-old Gar joins the reformed Doom Patrol with Steve Dayton in the hopes of finding Rita Farr.
11 years ago - 13-year-old Gar is left alone when Steve Dayton suffers a mental breakdown when Niles Caulder finds evidence that Rita Farr's body was scatted across the ocean.
9 years ago - 15-year-old Gar falls in love for the fist time when Tara Markov joins the Teen Titans. Gar & the Titans confront Madame Rouge's secret assassin academy.
8 years ago - 16-year-old Gar's heart is broken when Tara Markov betrays the Teen Titans. Gar moves to LA & begins an acting career in Sci-Fi television.
7 years ago - 17-year-old Gar gets a guest appearance on his show for Jennifer-Lynn Hayden.
6 years ago - 18-year-old Gar & the Doom Patrol go into the blast zone of the Qurac bombing to rescue the surviving members of the Teen Titans West.
3 years ago - 21-year-old Gar moves into Vic Stone's new Titans Tower to help mentor the new Teen Titans. He helps save a resurrected Raven & helps her acclimatize herself to a normal life.
2 years ago - 22-year-old Gar joins Buddy Baker, and Mari McCabe in fighting Aku Kwesi to stop him from absorbing the red when he rebuilds the alien Animus. He brings the Teen Titans to help the Doom Patrol recover Rita Farr. He & Raven lead the remaining Doom Patrol into the Paths Beyond to save Rebis & Danny the Street from the Key after he kills Niles Caulder. They choose to leave the Titans to rebuild the Doom Patrol, moving the team to Will Magnus's Oolong Island..
Some DC characters are folk heroes all on their own; the Superman & Batman & Wonder Woman's of the world all tell their own story, and drive a huge portion of the legacy of DC Comics. You'd be forgiven for thinking that this is the main archetype of what a superhero IS. Truthfully, however, when you really think of what a comic book character looks like, Beast Boy is by far the better example. He comes from a weird series that not many people knew about for a very long time, grew to popularity in a different team book rather than his own series (he's only ever had on 4-issue miniseries to himself), became one of the most recognizable characters in the entire DC catalog entirely from appearances outside of comics, and is utterly beloved even though the comics sometimes struggle to capture what makes him so likeable elsewhere.
Beast Boy is one of the best examples of this sort of character. For that, he might be the definitive comic book superhero.
Beast Boy is one of the best examples of this sort of character. For that, he might be the definitive comic book superhero.
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Beast Boy's Comic HistoryBeast Boy appeared for the first time in 1965 in issue #99 of the original Doom Patrol series by Arnold Drake & Bob Brown. This is a great book if you're into classic comics; just loaded with weird shenanigans. Beast Boy is an obvious reaction to the growing popularity of teenage sidekicks in that he's an attempt to grant the whole team their own sidekick, but Gar was very much in keeping with the overall strangeness of the series. His powers were literally insane; he didn't just turn into green animals at first, they were animals that maintained a green version of his human face. (or as we call it in the business, "the stuff of nightmares"). He also had kind of a weird home situation; He was set to inherit a vast fortune when he turned 21 so he was under the thumb of his scheming guardian Galtry, and therefore had to hide his super-heroics under a purple mask. This meant that he actually had a secret identity... and that secret identity was green.
He made his first Titans appearance all the way back in issue #6 of the Teen Titans, where he lamented that he couldn't join them for the same reason he couldn't join the Doom Patrol; because he couldn't have permission from his guardian. the issue ended with a 4th wall breaking question to the reader as to whether Beast Boy should join the Titans which clearly didn't go anywhere, because he didn't show up again in the pages of the Teen Titans for 11 years, when he became a founding member of the Titans West. |
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Beast Boy made regular appearances in the Doom Patrol series over the next decade or so, eventually being adopted by Elasti-Girl so that he could appear more regularly. He largely vanished from comics after the end of that series (save for the few issues in Titans featuring the Titans West), but that all changed in 1980 when Marv Wolfman & George Perez built what is very likely the most popular and prolific team in DC Comics, the New Teen Titans.
Gar no longer had to hide his face; in fact, he had regular work in low budget sci-fi television. He was a playful figure, but he was also plagued by crippling anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression; it was never flat-out stated, but it was often brutal to watch him beat himself up for his feelings of inadequacy. In short, he was a Doom Patrol character through and through, but he brought that pathos into this new team space, and the Titans were far more dramatic because of it. Gar would appear regularly in a wide variety of series... occasionally as a part of one Doom Patrol resurgence or another, but almost always as a part of the Teen Titans. He was a background character in Devon Grayson's Titans, and a featured member of Geoff John's 2006 revival series... but at that point, the comics were taking their cues from a far more important source. |
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The Animated Beast BoySome comic characters get reinvented after they appear in some outside media, but the characters in the Cartoon Network animated Teen Titans series are in a class by themselves. Beast Boy wasn't really changed that much; he was a goofball, and a vegan, and a walking catchphrase machine, but some of the best moments of the show actually showed the pathos that made him stand out in the classic comics.
If nothing else, the cartoon established that Beast Boy is, in fact, a fantastic superhero. He's been interpreted over and over since then in almost every subsequent animated take on the DC universe, from Young Justice to the live action Titans Series, and as weird as his powers are and as bizarre as his origins might be, he's become a mainstream staple of the DC universe, and that's largely due to this cartoon. |
Our Beast Boy StoryThe tricky thing with Garfield's timeline is actually the early part, because we wanted to make sure we gave enough space to all the strange things that happened to him in his childhood; being born to scientists working in the Congo basin studying "the Red"... the strange energy that connects all animal life on earth, and empowers heroes like Animal Man & Vixen. Contracting the strange disease Sakuita that, combined with his father's experimental cure, gives him his VERY weird powers. His parents death, and being taken in by Galtry, his scheming foster father. Being adopted by Rita Farr before her disappearance, and his time alongside the Doom Patrol.
Of course, it's vital that we make him a huge part of the Teen Titans; that team lasts for a long time and their relationships remain hugely important forever. The animated series went to a lot of lengths to establish a connection between Beast Boy and Raven, which was later copied in the comics. Often this sort of thing can feel forced, but in this case we actually think that this was a great way to show Garfield maturing. He became less self-focused when he was with Raven, and frankly that should really be the core of his story as he gets older. Because of this, we chose to regularly lean into the idea that Garfield is growing into someone who dedicates himself to caring for other people, and who chooses to spend his time with someone who needs so much support. |
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Beast Boy's FutureThe Doom Patrol is a HARD team to get right; there are iterations of them that run such a wide gamut of what a comic book team might be. If we're going to start moving them in a new direction, however... if we want to try to merge all those weird magical meta-concepts and something more traditionally super-heroic, then step one is to ground the whole series with a core protagonist we all adore, and no one could possibly fill that role more than Beast Boy.
As we wrap up our timeline, Garfield is in his early 20's. He's chosen to continue the legacy of the heroes that gave him a home when he was a boy. He's doing it alongside his new partner, choosing to advance their story in a new and exciting direction. It'll be a great space to watch him continue to grow up, and I honestly think this book would be a fantastic read. |
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