A Superman (or boy, for that matter) needs a super pet, of course. Krypto the Superdog fit the bill and made his first appearance in March 1955 with Superboy in “Adventure Comics” #210.
Krypto was originally the baby Kal-El’s pet on Krypton. Jor-El used the pooch to test the rocket that would send Kal-El to Earth. But the rocket was knocked off course and Krypto drifted in space for years. Eventually he made it to Earth and was reunited with Kal-El, now the teenage Superboy.
The white canine, which most resembled a Parson Russell Terrier, had the same powers as his master, and even had his own Fortress of Solitude, called the Doghouse of Solitude. The super mutt even had secret identity. While with the Kents, he posed as Skip, a mild-mannered family pet, and to further throw anyone off his scent, he had a brown patch on his back that he’d burn off with his heat vision when he went into action.
In his last pre-Crisis story, Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,” Krypto was killed off when he gave his life to save Superman by biting the Kryptonite Man.
The superdog’s history was then eliminated following the mid-’80s miniseries “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” But he’s made several comebacks in the comics through the intervening years. He has even appeared as a golden retriever on “Smallville,” where he is named Shelby, and he recently starred in his own Cartoon Network show called “Krypto the Superdog,” in which he fights such villains as the Joker’s pet hyenas Bud and Lou and Lex Luthor’s iguana Ignatius.
