That Darn Cat! (Part Two of a Streaky Overview!) ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post!

Just so you know, fellow babies, this two-part series about Streaky the supercat is not going to talk about every single damned appearance of the little feline. And I'm also going to ignore virtually every post-Silver Age story (okay, okay, except one) featuring Streaky. They've had various cats with the name Streaky during the last few years, some super-powered, some not, some male, some female...

You see, as a kid, I had assumed that Streaky was a male cat, a tomcat, as it were. (And the name doesn't exactly indicate any specific gender, ya know?) But some -- not all --versions in recent years have definitely been female. A non-powered cat was named Streaky by one of the new incarnations (don't ask) of Supergirl because, as Supergirl herself said in 2007, "she doesn't get the concept of the litter box."

Anyway, back to our main storyline here...

Action Comics #266 featured the second appearance of Streaky, in a story called "The World's Mightiest Cat!" Notice, if you will, that the cat on this cover looks more like a real cat, rather than the cat with the cartoony face we saw in the first Streaky appearance. Different artists, different styles. Famed Superman artist Curt Swan tended to draw Streaky realistically, while regular Supergirl artist Jim Mooney drew the cartoony version.

"Which Team is The Mightier?" (Hey, that's the way they capitalized it!) Good

question! Unfortunately, not one that was answered in this issue's Supergirl tale.

So. In the above sequence, Paul Dexter -- whoever the &$@# he was -- thought that simply putting a cape on something or someone would give it the ability to fly?!? I'll bet Paul ended up as one of those legendary kids who put a towel around his own neck and jumped off a freakin' roof!

Of course, lucky for Paul -- well, maybe not lucky for Paul so much as lucky for us readers -- he just happened to attach a cape to the one cat on the planet who'd actually had super powers in the past! As I asked y'all last time, what were the odds?!?

(I guess we'd have to ask Jerry Siegel, who wrote the first Streaky story and this one, too. Unfortunately, Superman's co-creator died in 1996.)

Didja catch that? Streaky just happens to be playing with a ball of twine, which just happens to roll to the exact spot where the previous story's X-Kryptonite is, and then the X-K just happens to get "entangled inside the twine." Uhhh... Excuse me? Inside?

And hey, in this story, at least, Streaky is definitely male. "As Streaky pounces on the twine... he detects the delightful odor..." etc. (Emphasis mine.)

Ahhh, the hell with it. I'm not even going to finish telling you the rest of that particular story. 

Almost a year later, DC once again lures kids into spending their hard-earned dime on a copy of Action Comics by promising "The Battle of the Super-Pets!"

Another cover drawn by the great Curt Swan, so Streaky looks relatively realistic again!

Inside the comic, though, the art chores once again fall into
Jim Mooney's capable hands, so we get the cartoony Streaky.

In yet another story written by Jerry Siegel, Supergirl praises Superman's dog, Krypto, and Streaky proves to be a jealous little shit. And as you just read, Supergirl can tell that the little fellow is broken-hearted. (Hey, I always know exactly what kinda mood my cat is in!)

Here's just some of the ensuing action from the contest between the supercat and the superdog.

I guess Jerry Siegel was running out of ways for Streaky to "accidentally" obtain a cape whenever he got his powers back, so Supergirl actually makes him one!

But... but... That doesn't tell us how he puts it on when he gets his powers, or how he gets it off when  he loses his powers, or where the cape is when he's not wearing it...

"I ain't just merely good" (emphasis mine)? What a bad role model for the little kiddies!

Well! DC was much too smart to piss off any of their devoted readers by having either Streaky or Krypto triumph, so the whole thing is disappointingly voted a draw.

Siegel did throw in a cute little kicker at the end of the story, though. Krypto and Streaky are grudgingly admitting that they like each other after all, and who should show up but...

Yep! There was a super-freakin'-monkey, too! Beppo was his name. And like Krypto, but unlike Streaky, Beppo was actually from Krypton. He'd stowed away in the rocket that brought Superman to Earth, y'see, and...

No. Really.

Streaky hung around the various titles in the "Superman Family" for a number of years. And during that time, he was mostly drawn by Curt Swan or Jim Mooney.

A fairly realistic drawing of Streaky. By now, you know that it was drawn by Curt Swan, right?

But here's the entire illustration from Action Comics #334. Doesn't that cat look kinda... big?

Actually, there were several instances where Streaky appeared rather large.

Here's yet another... And believe me, fellow babies, this isn't all!

Oh, if you're wondering who all those costumed teens are in that panel above, they're members of a team called the Legion of Super-Heroes. This team operates 1,000 years in the future, in the 30th century!

Eventually, Streaky, Krypto, Beppo, and Comet the Super-Horse all go to the 30th century and -- I swear! -- form a team called the Legion of Super-Pets!

Regardless of the existence of the Legion of Super-Pets, on one of Supergirl's visits to the 30th century, she meets a cat which she at first assumes to be Streaky. But he's not. As oh-so-conveniently explained on the cat's collar, he's Whizzy, a descendant of Streaky. Makes perfect sense, right? And fortunately for Supergirl, Whizzy can communicate with her, because one thousand years of evolution have given Streaky's descendants the power of telepathy... although apparently, no cats outside of Streaky's lineage have this ability, nor do any humans.

And let's not even ask how Whizzy has superpowers to begin with. Streaky's powers couldn't possibly be hereditary in nature, any more than a man whose leg gets chopped off will end up with one-legged children.

Anyhoo, in conclusion... All good things must come to an end, and in the early 1970s, DC decided to get just a tad more realistic, and introduced a storyline which had all Kryptonite on Earth changed to iron (a "permanent" decision that was later reversed). This enabled DC's editors to explain that their stories no longer featured a super cat because the chunk of X-Kryptonite became iron as well!

So, no more Streaky.

Until...

Supergirl had several of her own comic series over the years, and one of them, in the 1980s, gave Linda Danvers (Supergirl's secret identity) a non-powered cat named... well...

Thanks for your time.