Krypto the Superdog is easily the most popular and adorable super-pet there’s ever been, especially with his appearance in James Gunn’s Superman and subsequent comic book redesign. Everybody knows and loves Krypto, but what many don’t know is that he isn’t Superman’s only super-pet. Sure, Supergirl has her own animal buddies in Streaky and Comet, but this isn’t about them, this is about the one and only Beppo the Super-Monkey. Beppo first appeared in Superboy #76 way back in 1959, just four years after Krypto’s debut and actually before either Streaky or Comet. Yet, almost nobody remembers Beppo, which might be for a good reason, considering even Superboy didn’t like him.
Super-Monkey the Super-Pest
Beppo, much like resident good boy Krypto, was originally a normal monkey from Krypton, who was used as a test subject in Jor-El’s spaceship experiments to make sure that they could support life. However, unknown to everyone, Beppo snuck aboard young Kal-El’s ship as Krypton exploded, and hitched a ride to Earth alongside the Baby of Steel. After the crash landing, Beppo used his new superpowers to escape the ship and head out into the wilderness, where he learned to control the incredible powers granted to him by Earth’s weaker gravity, as the explanation of the sun as Kryptonian’s power source hadn’t been introduced yet. Beppo even defended other monkeys from gorillas who tried to steal their bananas, and made sure to tie leaves around his hands to not hurt the other primates too badly. One day, he used his telescopic vision and found Clark Kent as a toddler, who then went by Superbaby (it was the Silver Age, okay?), and decided to pay the flying baby a visit.
Beppo wound up proving the old adage of ‘monkey see, monkey do’ by mimicking everything he saw Superbaby do. First he stole some of his extra clothes in order to look more like him, which had the unintended consequence of convincing the Kents that Clark was misbehaving when they saw a red and blue blur acting out. Beppo saw Clark staying underwater in his pool, so Beppo hopped into the bathtub and ruined Pa’s bath. He saw people give change to an organ grinder (a street performer with an organ and a pet monkey) so he swiped Ma’s savings and dumped them all in. When Superbaby finally found the monkey that was ruining his reputation, the Last Monkey of Krypton proceeded to ruin most of Clark’s toys by grabbing them. Superbaby pretended to take a nap to slip away from the aggravating little guy, and used the heat from his x-ray vision to light Pa’s cigar for him. Beppo, who had woken up and followed Superbaby, saw this and decided to light up the Kent’s Fourth of July fireworks. The lights and booms scared Super-Monkey into space, where he thought a comet was a firework chasing him, and he eventually got lost in the cosmos fleeing it.
A Recurring Supplier of Monkey Business
Naturally, Beppo wasn’t just a one off character, having plenty of more appearances over the years prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot. Most notably, he became a founding member of the Legion of Super-Pets after he was led back to Earth by Supergirl when she encountered him in deep space by sheer coincidence. Beppo had plenty of adventures in space and on Earth, each exactly as weird as the last. Like in Superboy #142, where the teenage Clark Kent was exposed to Red Kryptonite, which back in the day especially had completely random effects on the Boy of Steel. This time, it transformed him into the first living thing he looked at while undergoing the transformation, which was the organ grinder’s monkey. Things only got worse when Clark went from a normal super-monkey to a massive King Kong-sized monster, which attracted the attention of Beppo, who flew in to fight the giant primate meanie. Of course, Beppo was exposed to the Red K, and because he was looking at the massive Super-Ape, he transformed into Clark Kent. With some clever uses of super-ventriloquism (yes that’s a real power all Kryptonians have) and some rapid changing, the pair managed to keep Superboy’s identity a secret from Lana Lang until the Red K wore off.
At the end of the day, Beppo is a weird and wacky part of Superman’s mythos, but there are plenty of those, and somehow Beppo is nowhere near the wildest thing to come out of the Silver Age. Beppo is pretty obscure nowadays, and he wasn’t exactly getting on the lunchboxes way back either, but I still say he deserves his chops. He’s a menace sometimes, sure, but he tries his best to be the best Super-Monkey he could be, and honestly you can never go wrong with more super-pets. Which super-pet is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!
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