10 Weird DC Heroes You Won't Believe Exist
1. B'wana Beast
A popular inspiration for quite a few early comics was Tarzan. These stories would often involve an adventurer stumbling across some kind of African artefact that would give him powers related to animals. B'wana Beast is no exception.
Michael Maxwell was a game warden in Africa who found himself trapped in a cave with a talking red ape. Maxwell drank some irradiated rain water which gave him the strength and speed to defeat the ape (instead of a bad case of the runs) and in return it gave him a magic helmet and elixir that let him talk to animals.
Teaming up with the gorilla, whose name was Djuba, Maxwell became B'wana Beast, the protector of all Africa.
That's a pretty weird origin, but what really makes B'wana an oddball is his powers. In addition to talking to them, he could also merge two animals together into one abomination like a landshark or a spiderbear.
B'wana eventually retired and passed his helmet and powers on to a South African activist named Dominic Mndawe, who took up the name Freedom Beast.
He didn't enjoy retirement for long though as he was possessed by the evil entity Antagon and transformed into the villainous Shining Man. He was then killed while battling against Animal Man.