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.

Future Zoo: Review of the Parakat, By Johnathan

As I mentioned in the previous post, Superboy was hitting on a sweet piece of Xanthu named Zynthia in order to make Lana jealous as a lesson to her for trying to make him jealous. Meanwhile, Jughead was judging a hamburger-eating contest at Pop's Chok'lit Shoppe but was having a hard time paying attention to the contestants and not the food.

The writers of this comic have made an assumption that the one thing that teenage girls want is for their beaus to give them things, and especially things that require the use of superpowers. This may be true, which would explain my dating track record in high school. In any case, the girls keep asking Superboy and Star Boy to do things like making huge gemstones or glowing dresses. This is cool, but then Zynthia pulls out this request:

Dude! What? You want a tiger? Why the hell do you want a tiger? Is it just as proof that Superboy likes you enough to do things for you, like the time a girl got me to eat a worm? Because there are things that you can get him to do that won't screw up a tiger's life. You could get him to, say, eat a worm. C'mon, it'll be hilarious!

Since Zynthia isn't as cool as me (or that girl I mentioned), Superboy goes after the tiger. And then we learn why it's called a Parakat:

It's a terrible pun! Xanthu was settled by punsters! Or perhaps just punster zoologists. Stopping only to diss the poor creature a little, Superboy leaps into action!

Y'know, someday someone's going to try this in a Vertigo comic and there's going to be all kinds of severed tiger tail action. Seriously: I don't think that most animal tails are built to withstand that kind of stress. Okay, maybe monkey tails, but they're prehensile. This poor critter's going to need some sort of therapy after all of this is done. Hopefully it doesn't need the tail for balance or anything.

Stunning revelation! The beast is sentient!It totally formed a sentence all on its own! Seriously, if it just mimicked human speech like Superboy assumes, wouldn't it be saying something like "Argh! It got my leg! My god, the pecking! Sweet moons of Xanthu, it's mimicking human speech while it eviscerates Larry!" and so forth? I mean, when does a bird-faced tiger hear the word 'dizzy'? Stupid anthropocentric speciesist Superboy doesn't see things that way, though, and promptly enslaves what is clearly an oppressed species to begin with (you can be damn sure that they didn't think up the name 'Parakat', for one thing).

And so the noble Parakat, feared throughout the Jungle Mountains of Xanthu, is reduced by an uncaring Superboy to the status of greeting card. The poor beast, a great leader among his people, was later slaughtered in order that Zynthia might have a Parakat-skin bikini and seat-covers for her Sky Canoe. Plus her father used the skull for an ashtray. Parakat-skin clothing soon became the height of fashion, resulting in rampant poaching. Today (well, a thousand years from today) there are less that 47 Parakats remaining in the wild. Thanks, Superboy.

The Parakat is JOHN APPROVED. Zynthia? NOT APPROVED.