In the old 'Silver and Golden age' of comics, Supergirl had a couple of 'pets', Streaky the Supercat, who came from Krypton, and of course Comet, the Superhorse. Comet was a regular looking horse, but he had superpowers. He could fly, and had heat vision etc. He didn't come from Krypton however, and he hadn't always been a horse.
Comet used to be a centaur in ancient Greece named Biron who fell in love with the goddess Circe. Although Circe was a lovely human woman, why he would give up his centaur form to be with her is difficult to understand. Anyway, after saving her from Maldor,an evil rival wizard, Circe was so grateful she rewarded Biron by attempting to grant his greatest wish, and cast a spell to transform him into human form.
As might be expected, the spell didn't go as planned, and of course was irreversible. Instead of transforming Biron into a human, she turned him into a horse. Ack! But to make up for his loss of hands, speech, and any possibility of relations with Circe or any human woman, she awarded him superpowers. That'll be a great consolation as he stands in a field eating grass.
Anyway, in the wonderful world of superheros, Biron accepts his new form and ends up in the 'present day' of the 50s and 60s to become Supergirl's pet. In the Superman universe, Comet has telepathic abilities so Supergirl is fully aware of his history. As he knows her secret identity and her own story, she feels she can be a bit more at ease with him. In later issues, it is found that under certain circumstances, Comet can return to centaur, then to human form. Where as 'Bronco Bill', he and Supergirl fall in love. His changing from human to centaur to horse form and back again, give an interesting sexual subtext to these occurrences. I won't go there.
The current Comet has a whole different history. His origion has nothing to do with 'magic', and the sexual subtext of the Comet of the present day, makes Biron's attraction to Circe look tame. Go to The New Comet page for pictures and information concerning his story.
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This issue of Action Comics reveals where and how Comet the Super Horse came to be. Not always a 'super horse', he was once a centaur in ancient Greece. Click on the thumbnails to see how he tells his story to Supergirl.
Only the pages featuring Comet, or Biron in centaur form, telling his story are shown here. |
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So Supergirl now has the alliance of a centaur who has been changed into a horse. On the previous page, Supergirl 'shoes' the invunerable 'horse' by using her heat vison to melt the edges of his hooves to hold the shoes on, glueing them on in a sense. We then see her 'branding' him in the first of the displayed pages. I won't even go into how even her powers can effect an 'invunerable' being.
So now Supergirl and Superhorse are buddies, and can go on adventures together. And maybe more...
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In this issue, Superman asks Superhorse to use his superpowers to travel to the planet Xerox (I'm not kidding!) that orbits a red sun. Superman and Supergirl only have superpowers under a yellow sun, but as Superhorse's powers are magical, he isn't restricted by the color of the sun. While there, a spell is cast that causes him to go from horse to centaur form, and then to that of a human. |
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This opens up some interesting possibilities for the already strong attraction between Biron / Comet and Supergirl. As is shown in the following pages...
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As Biron / Comet - Superhorse / Bill Starr only retains his human form as long as a comet is 'in range', the difficulties his romance may encounter as the comet moves out of range can only be imagined.
