Cat Week: The Future is Terrified of Tigers

During my extensive research into the Thirtieth Century and its irrepressible superteens, I have read of many terrifying encounters between future-man and future-beast. In a tomorrow filled with a near-infinite variety of life-forms, humanity appears to have reverted to an almost Medieval state of horrified fascination with the creatures that exist in the wilds of the galaxy. Curiously, though many of the most feared animals of the future resemble nothing that has ever been seen in our time, a special dread seems to have been reserved for those beasts that resemble the Terrestrial tiger. Witness the dreaded tigerram:

Admittedly, nobody is doing much dreading in this sequence, but keep in mind that El Mustacho there is the greatest hunter in the galaxy. Even his most feeble prey has got to be the sort of thing that would go through a regular person like a hot knife through space butter, right? Or was the Hunter merely taken in by the tiger's fearsome reputation? Other future-folk seem to place great stock in the impressiveness of the beasts, after all:

See how Jungle King not only tries to impress his way into the Legion with his ability to tame the dreaded borlat, but also plays up his manly jungle image by wearing a tigeroid skin singlet. Judging by Sun Boy's reaction, his ruse succeeded, but unfortunately for Jungle King he was far too much of a sap to capitalize on his good first impression.

Oh that poor chump. Never turn your back on a borlat, even if they can be defeated with light.

Meanwhile, how does Superboy attempt to impress a futuregirl named Xynthia?

That's right: he subjugates a bird-tiger, and it really seems to pay off! It is perhaps with a mind turned toward this success and not toward the failure of Jungle King that our final example came up with his disastrous idea. I speak of Beast Boy, one of the oft ill-used Heroes of Lallor:

Seeking to impress his people at the Heroes' first public appearance, Beast Boy demonstrates his power by transforming into a gurn! And what is a gurn?

A gurn is a two-headed borlat, evidently. Kind of a let-down, but Beast Boy's exhibition really had an effect on the audience, leading the dictator of Lallor to exile him and his whole dang team for fear that their popularity would end up toppling him from power (and after they're exiled, they come under the influence of Jungle King's evil brother! Eerie stuff). Such is the fear that is generated by a two-headed, six-legged tiger in a future it never made.

But the tragedy doesn't stop there:

Yes, even after the Heroes of Lallor managed to return home, poor Beast Boy was viewed with suspicion and fear. "Once a tiger, always a tiger." was the common opinion, and as stupid  as that was it managed to drive Beast Boy into madness, isolation and ultimately getting eaten by a little blue critter in order to save a little girl. So I suppose that the moral of this post, if there is one, has to be

NEVER TURN INTO A TIGER.

It's just good sense.