The time has come for another animal-themed superhero list! A recent issue of Nightwing alerted me to the existence of a character that I didn’t know existed, and that prompted me to check all of comics to find six of that example. What character? You’ll have to read the list to find out, but I think it’s safe to say they are elephant-related.

Comic book superheroes have always been closely connected to animals. Batman and Spider-Man are two of the most famous and popular superheroes in the world! And nobody cats an eye about their animal-theming. But when we look elsewhere in the animal kingdom, the pickings get a bit slimmer. Why did a bat and a spider get so big? Why are there no prominent lion superheroes? Or cats or dogs? I’ve also looked at bears, pigs, frogs and many more! There’s also sorts of neat animal comic book characters, and now we can add elephants to that list. Who doesn’t love an elephant?

Join me after the jump for the best and brightest elephant-themed superheroes in comics!

6. Tantra

Reuben O’Hara is one of those mutants whose mutation simply turns them into an animal, in this case, an elephant. He’s just an elephant. But Tantra did get a little bit extra in the mutant department. He also had the power to manipulate a person’s libido, making them get turned on by whatever he wanted. He made Bishop start making out with a tree in his one notable appearance in X-Treme X-Men way back when that was a comic. Tantra then lost his powers in M-Day, and is theoretically hanging out on Krakoa these days, being an elephant boy.

5. Man-Elephant

Now that we’ve got an awesome She-Hulk TV show to watch, perhaps Man-Elephant will get his due and make an appearance. He has the classic comic book origin of being a gifted engineer who developed a super-suit, using hydraulics to give him enhanced strength. The elephant theme was just for kicks and giggles, it would seem. He fought She-Hulk in an attempt at fame and glory and got his butt whooped. Then things escalated, as they do, when Manfred Haller visited a mystic in Timbuktu and was transformed into a legit elephant-themed monster. He became Behemoth and clashed with a couple of other heroes.

4. Elephant Man

Elephant Man is the character who inspired this list when I saw him show up in an issue of Nightwing last week. I’d never heard of him before, and for good reason. He’s a super obscure dude created only a couple of years ago. He was randomly thrown onto the Brotherhood of Evil to battle the Teen Titans, because every team needs some muscle. And he hasn’t done much since, other than showing up in Nightwing, where he once again got trounced by the Titans. I think he also teamed up with Cheetah at one point for an animal-themed villain team? Makes sense for a guy like him.

3. The Elephantmen

The Elephantmen aren’t exactly superheroes, but they are some pretty prominent comic book characters, at least if we’re talking comic book characters who are elephants. They come from an Image Comic series from the 2000s of the same name, which was a very serious comic about life and prejudice and animal-hybrid people trying to live normal lives. The name is a bit broad, however, because the comic actually features a bunch of different Savannah animal hybrids, like rhinos and zebras and whatnot. The only elephants are Ebenezer “Ebony” Hide and Gabbatha, according to what I’m reading. So at least there were some elephants!

2. Elephant

Elephant is a villain from the Invincible comic book series who is a clear homage to Marvel’s Rhino. He’s a big dude in a big gray suit whose human face sticks out of the middle of an elephant face, just like Rhino. It’s cute. Elephant never amounted to much in the comics, instead just being a background villain. And he’s being used the same way in the cartoon show, so good for him! Not every character on this list has appeared in a TV adaptation. So he’s one up on pretty much everybody else.

1. Mammomax

The most prominent elephant-themed character in comics is another mutant from the world of the X-Men, only this one has made more than a single appearance. Like the others, Mammomax is just a big, strong elephant dude. He started out as muscle for one of the random incarnations of the Brotherhood of Mutants, but gets to keep showing up in big group shots. He was with the 198 after M-Day. He was killed. Then he got to show up on Krakoa with the other resurrected mutants, even getting to join into a fight or two. Good for him! Oh, also, Mammomax can spit corrosive stomach acid, so maybe he’s not just an elephant guy. Can real elephants do that? Does anybody know?

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