Bumblebee | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | DC Comics |
First appearance | As Karen Beecher: Teen Titans #45 (December 1976) As Bumblebee: Teen Titans #48 (June 1977) |
Created by | Karen Beecher: Bob Rozakis Irv Novick Bumblebee: Bob Rozakis José Delbo |
In-story information | |
Alter ego | Karen Beecher-Duncan |
Species | Human or metahuman (depending on the continuity) |
Team affiliations | Teen Titans Doom Patrol |
Partnerships | Lilith Clay Dick Grayson Roy Harper Cyborg Garth Wally West Donna Troy |
Abilities |
Bumblebee (Karen Beecher-Duncan) is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics and other related media, commonly as a member of the Teen Titans. [1] She first appeared as Karen in December 1976's Teen Titans #45, and adopted the Bumblebee identity three issues later. Historically, Bumblebee is sometimes considered DC Comics' first Black woman superhero character, though this distinction is also accorded to Nubia, [2] a less traditional costumed crimefighter than Bumblebee, who debuted three years earlier in 1973.
Karen Beecher first appeared in Teen Titans #45 and was created by writer Bob Rozakis and artist Irv Novick. [3] Her Bumblebee alias first appeared in Teen Titans #48.
Scientist Karen Beecher is the girlfriend of Teen Titans member the Herald (a.k.a. Mal Duncan). To help make Herald look good in front of the team, Karen secretly made herself a bumblebee-themed supersuit and attacked the Teen Titans. She escaped without her true identity being revealed. [1]
When she later explained to Mal and the Titans what she had done, they were impressed enough to offer her membership, which she accepted. She and Mal subsequently moved to the new Titans West team, having relocated to San Francisco. When the Titans team dissolved for a time, Karen and Mal married and 'retired' from superheroics. Karen took a job with S.T.A.R. Labs, where she designs non-lethal weaponry.
They have returned to crime-fighting from time to time to assist the team, most notably during a short-lived revival of Titans West and the JLA/Titans event, which reunited everyone involved with the team. A fight broke out over the fate of Victor Stone, Cyborg. Bumblebee personally fought Zauriel, a member of the Justice League. Despite the assistance of the current Supergirl, Bumblebee was swiftly defeated.
Following this, Mal and Karen briefly joined the latest incarnation of Titans West (now called Titans L.A.), but this incarnation of the team never really got off the ground, and the heroes returned to their lives of semi-retirement.
Several years later, Mal and Karen briefly returned to action as part of a team of over two dozen past and present Titans who were called in to stop a rampaging Doctor Light.
Bumblebee and her husband are among the heroes recruited by Donna Troy to help avert a coming crisis that threatened the existence of the universe. After a battle in space, most of the heroes were trapped by a Zeta Beam Ray that Adam Strange was hoping to use for teleporting away the heroes from the rift in space. Due to the ray interactions with the rift itself, the Zeta Ray altered Bumblebee's physiology, apparently transferring her body mass to Hawkgirl. This left Bumblebee approximately six inches in height and temporarily left Hawkgirl some 25 feet tall. [1]
In Teen Titans (vol. 3) #34, Bumblebee is shown to have joined the Doom Patrol sometime in the past year along with her husband (now known as Vox) and Beast Boy. [4] She must now take medicine developed by Doom Patrol leader Niles Caulder to prevent her heart from going into cardiac arrest, due to her tiny form.
Much like Beast Boy, she now strongly resembles her animated counterpart in costume and hair style.
Per Birds of Prey #100, Karen—along with numerous other DCU heroines—was contacted by Barbara Gordon and asked to join the expanded roster of the latter's team, the Birds of Prey. However, the team disbanded before she participated in any missions.
Karen is a member of the Doom Patrol. Due to medicinal efforts from Dr. Caulder, she has grown to a height of seven inches, and she can live in a dollhouse.
As of Doom Patrol (vol. 5) #1, Karen is now a divorcée. In issue #18, Karen rejoined the team after months of inactivity due to her divorce from Malcolm. Now sporting a new costume and a Beehive hairdo, Karen returned to active duty just in time for a confrontation with the Secret Six, who had come to the team's home of Oolong Island to claim it in the name of a teenaged crime lord. [5] In the ensuing battle, Bumblebee inexplicably vanishes after a brief tussle with Bane, while her teammates ultimately fight the Six to a draw. As the members of the Secret Six are being forcibly deported from Oolong, Elasti-Girl stops Rag Doll and forces him to empty out his pockets, where Karen is found tied up with her mouth duct-taped shut. Ragdoll reluctantly returns Bumblebee to her teammates, telling them that he had wanted to keep her as a "souvenir". [6]
Following the disbandment of the Doom Patrol, Bumblebee appears as one of the former Titans who arrives at Titans Tower to repel Superboy-Prime and the Legion of Doom. [7]
In the DC Rebirth continuity, Karen is the pregnant wife of Mal Duncan. [8] She later reveals that she has the power to fire energy blasts from her hands, which comes in handy during the former Teen Titans' battle with Mister Twister. At the end of the fight, she goes into labor and eventually gives birth to a daughter. [9]
Eventually, Karen is taken by Mal to Meta Solutions to evaluate her powers, as it was the same company that took his powers away. Unlike her husband, Karen likes her super powers and wants to find a way to control them. Unbeknownst to them, Meta Solutions is run by Psimon and the Fearsome Five, which Mal realizes after spotting Mammoth in the lobby. Though the Fearsome Five claims to have changed, the Titans investigate their headquarters and come under attack. Karen suits up using a special suit designed for her by Meta Solutions and discovers she has the ability to fly and shrink. She manages to rescue the Titans, but Psimon manages to take away her memories of Mal and her child. [10] She decides to stay with the Titans as Bumblebee until she got her memories back much to Mal's displeasure. She eventually regains them when the Titans battle H.I.V.E. and Donna Troy's evil alternate future counterpart, Troia. She quits being a super hero after the Justice League disbands the Titans to be with her family. [11]
Bumblebee originally had no true superpowers and her unique abilities were derived from her scientific superpowered high-tech battle suit. The suit greatly increased her strength, speed, stamina, endurance, agility, reflexes and acted as body armor. It also allowed her to fly, create painful electric blasts that stung like actual bee stings and emit a stream of "honey", actually a powerful adhesive capable of disabling her opponents by miring them in the sticky, yellow goo. She later got stuck at a shrunken size and now possesses superpowers. She can fly and produce exceptionally strong hypersonic blasts.
The Teen Titans are a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, frequently in eponymous monthly series. As the group's name indicates, the members are teenage superheroes, many of whom have acted as sidekicks to DC's premier superheroes in the Justice League. The original team later becomes known as the Titans when the members age out of their teenage years, while the Teen Titans name is continued by subsequent generations of young heroes. First appearing in 1964 in The Brave and the Bold #54, the team was formed by Kid Flash, Robin, and Aqualad (Garth) before adopting the name Teen Titans in issue 60 with the addition of Wonder Girl to their ranks.
Doom Patrol is a superhero team from DC Comics. The original Doom Patrol first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80, and was created by writers Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, along with artist Bruno Premiani. Doom Patrol has appeared in different incarnations in multiple comics, and have been adapted to other media. The series' creator and fans have suspected that Marvel Comics copied the basic concept to create the X-Men, which debuted a few months later.
Cyborg is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, and first appeared in an insert preview in DC Comics Presents #26. Originally known as a member of the Teen Titans, Cyborg was established as a founding member of the Justice League in DC's 2011 reboot of its comic book titles.
Starfire (Koriand'r) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. She debuted in a preview story inserted within DC Comics Presents #26 and was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. The name "Starfire" first appeared as an unrelated spacecraft in the story "The Answer Man of Space," in Mystery in Space #73 written by Gardner Fox.
Teen Titans is an American animated superhero television series created by Glen Murakami and developed by Murakami, David Slack and Sam Register. Based on DC Comics's superhero team of the same name it was produced by Warner Bros. Animation, and DC Entertainment. The show premiered on Cartoon Network on July 19, 2003; its first two seasons also aired on Kids' WB. Initially, only four seasons were planned, but the popularity of the series led to Cartoon Network's ordering a fifth season. The final half-hour episode of the show, "Things Change", aired on January 16, 2006; it was later followed by a TV movie, Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, that premiered on September 15 the same year, serving as the series finale. A 15-minute episode titled "The Lost Episode" was released as part of an online promotional campaign by Post Consumer Brands in January 2005.
Jinx is a fictional supervillain appearing in American books published by DC Comics. Created by Marv Wolfman and Chuck Patton, she first appeared in Tales of the Teen Titans #56. The character is often depicted as a skilled Indian sorceress and one of the leaders of the Fearsome Five, a group of super-villains most notable for being adversaries of the Teen Titans and its derivatives. The character bears no relation to the male character of the same name who first appeared in Adventure Comics #488 as an adversary of Chris King and Vicki Grant.
The H.I.V.E., which stands for the Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination, is a fictional terrorist organization appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.
The Brotherhood of Evil is a group of DC Comics supervillains, archenemies of the Doom Patrol, Justice League and Teen Titans.
Elasti-Girl is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, primarily as a member of the Doom Patrol. Created by writer Arnold Drake and artist Bruno Premiani, the character first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80.
Psimon is a fictional supervillain appearing in comic books published by DC Comics.
Malcolm Arnold "Mal" Duncan, currently known as Vox, is a superhero appearing in media published by DC Comics. Introduced in April 1970, he is DC's first African-American superhero.
Mento is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.
Titans East is the name of several DC Comics superhero teams. The teams appear in the Teen Titans comic books and animated series. The comic book incarnation of Titans East first appeared in Teen Titans #18 (2005) during the "Titans Tomorrow" storyline, which is set in the future. A present-day incarnation appeared in Teen Titans #43 (2007), as a group of villains led by Deathstroke. Cyborg later assembled a new version of the team.
"Titans Tomorrow" is a storyline of a possible alternate future in the DC Comics Universe, from Teen Titans vol. 3 #17–19 (2005), by Geoff Johns and Mike McKone. The story arc has been collected as part of the Teen Titans: The Future is Now trade paperback.
Wendy Harris, Marvin White and Wonder Dog are fictional characters from the 1973 American animated TV series Super Friends, based on the famous superheroes published by DC Comics. The series featured a lineup of DC's most popular characters, including Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but Hanna-Barbera, the show's producers, wanted to include young sidekick characters that the children in the audience could identify with. This led to the creation of Wendy, Marvin and their hero pet Wonder Dog, who appeared alongside their more famous friends. Because of the success of the Super Friends cartoon, a Super Friends comic book was also created, in which the trio made their first comics appearance.
Beast Boy is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. He has also gone under the alias Changeling. Created by writer Arnold Drake and artist Bob Brown, he is a shapeshifter who possesses the ability to metamorph into any animal he chooses. The character first appeared in Doom Patrol #99 and is usually depicted as a member of the Doom Patrol and the Teen Titans.
Silas Stone is a character appearing in the comics that are published by DC Comics. He is the father of Cyborg and the creator of Titans Tower. Silas Stone first appeared in DC Comics Presents #26 and was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez.
Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse is a 2022 direct-to-video animated superhero comedy film and a crossover between the television series Teen Titans Go! and DC Super Hero Girls, which is adapted from the DC Comics superhero team of the same name, and the DC Super Hero Girls franchise. It is the first DC Super Hero Girls film in four years since 2018's DC Super Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis, and the first one to center on the 2019 incarnation. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 24, 2022, followed by a premiere on Cartoon Network on May 28. The film also served as the fourth Teen Titans Go! film, following Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans, and Teen Titans Go! See Space Jam, and also served as the series finale of the DC Super Hero Girls TV series.