Adaptation Species Change in Comic Books.
- Keeping with its Demythification schtick, Age of Bronze changes all demigods (and one centaur) to humans.
- In Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the normally human Betty and Veronica from Archie Comics are shown to be witches. Ms. Grundy is a witch as well.
- Kid Sherlock changed Watson from a human to an anthropomorphic dog.
- DC Comics:
- In pre-Infinite Crisis DC Comics continuity both the Champions of Angor/Justifiers and the Extremists were Human Aliens from Angor: an earth-like planet that also had similar technology and pop-culture. In their re-imaginings as the heroes and villains of Earth-8 in both Countdown to Final Crisis and The Multiversity they are humans from that universe's version of Earth.
- Aquaman:
- In the original Golden Age comics, Aquaman was not an Atlantean, but rather a human who learned to survive underwater thanks to ancient scientific techniques discovered by his father. It wouldn’t be until the Silver Age that he would be Retconned as the son of a human man and an Atlantean woman.
- In the Silver Age comics, Ocean Master was Orm Curry, a full-blooded human and Arthur's half-brother. The post-Crisis continuity reimagined him as the son of an Atlantean wizard who was raised on land by his Inuit mother, before the New 52 reboot solidified Orm as a full-blooded Atlantean and the son of the same queen who gave birth to Aquaman.
- The New 52 Justice League storyline "Darkseid War" introduces a version of Ardora, Luthor's love interest from the planet Lexor. Only in this universe, she's Apokaliptian.
- Wonder Woman:
- In Wondy’s original origin in Wonder Woman (1942) she’s an Amazon woman who was made out of clay by Hippolyta and brought to life after she prayed to it. This version of Diana’s backstory remained the status quo for decades, until Wonder Woman (2011) changed it forever, turning Diana into an actual Demigod as the daughter of Zeus. Hippolyta reveals she made up the story that Diana was born from clay to protect her from the truth and Hera's wrath.
- In her original appearance, Giganta was a female ape that became human due to an experiment (in a later retcon, Wonder Woman's foe Dr. Psycho was the experimenter). Post-Crisis, she was retooled as a human scientist who conducted the experiment herself, accidentally transferring her mind to a gorilla, and from there to a size-changing strongwoman. (Super Friends had also previously portrayed her as a size-changing human, sharing Apache Chief's origin.) There's also a bit of Composite Character here: in the original story the scientist who created Giganta was named Dr. Zool, in the post-Crisis version, the scientist who became Giganta was Dr. Doris Zuel.
- In The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) the Duke of Deception is a human granted a magical artifact and powers by Ares, while the original Duke was one of Mars' non-human ethereal lieutenants.
- In the original Teen Titans series, the Gargoyle was a human criminal who merely wore a winged costume and mask that made him look like a monster. Post-Crisis, the Gargoyle was reimagined as a human (actually Mister Twister, the first villain the Titans ever faced) who had been transformed into a winged, demonic creature by an Eldritch Abomination called the Antithesis.
- Pre-Crisis, Golden Eagle was simply a young Hawkman fanboy from Midway City named Charlie Parker, who lucked out and got his own winged suit from Matter Master. Post-Crisis, this no longer worked, as Golden Eagle had now debuted as a superhero and member of the Teen Titans before Hawkman had even come to Earth. Decades later, this would be settled with the revelation that "Charlie" was actually Ch'al Andar, the son of a Thanagarian Sleeper Agent and his human wife.
- A sort of example with the post-Zero Hour version of the Legion Of Superheroes Princess Projectra, who goes by Sensor. She's still a member of the royal family of the planet Orando, but the Orandans have gone from humanoid aliens to giant snake aliens.
- Shazam!:
- In the Golden Age Marvel Family stories, Tawky Tawny was just an ordinary tiger who could somehow talk and walk on his hind legs. (Even when this got an explanation, it pretty much came down to "some guy in the jungle had a Disposable Superhero Maker potion.") Post-Crisis and in many modern adaptations, he's some kind of magical being, often working for the Wizard. He may also be a shapeshifter, so that he can turn from his usual tiger form into a human. (The other option is to include a normal, non-sapient tiger named Tawny as a Mythology Gag.) In the 2019 Shazam book he's from the Beastlands, one of the Magiclands filled with Funny Animals.
- The 2019 book is all over this, tying all of the Monster Society of Evil to the Magiclands. Mr Mind and the Crocodile Men have gone from aliens to Beastlanders; Mr Atom has gone from a human-built robot to a creation of the Gamelands; Jeepers has gone from the last survivor of a race of Earth bat-people to a creature of the Darklands; Goat-Man has gone from one of Mr Mind's artificial bodies to another Beastlander (and had an Adaptation Name Change to Scapegoat); and Evil Eye has gone from another alien to a denizen of the Monsterlands (and has also changed in appearance from a humanoid green giant to an Eldritch Abomination).
- The Jackson Hyde/Kaldur'ahm version of Aqualad initially had his origin told in Brightest Day, where it was shown that his biological parents were Black Manta and an unnamed human woman. Since he was born a natural human, his powers were said to be the result of Xebelian scientists having experimented on him when he was a baby. Aqualad's rebooted origin in DC Rebirth instead depicts him as the son of Black Manta and a Xebelian named Lucia, with his powers having been naturally inherited from his mother. Note that both backstories differ from his origin in the Young Justice (2010) cartoon he was created for, where he was the son of Black Manta and an Atlantean woman named Sha'lain'a.
- Ultraman, Superman's evil Mirror Universe counterpart on the Crime Syndicate of America, was originally a Kryptonian who was sent to Earth as a baby, just like his heroic opposite. However, Grant Morrison's post-Crisis reboot of Ultraman instead depicted him as a human astronaut whose body was rebuilt and heavily augmented by unidentified extraterrestrial beings after he nearly died in a hyperspace accident. Ultraman's New 52 backstory from Forever Evil (2013) restored the original pre-Crisis idea of him being a Kryptonian raised by Earthlings.
- Teen Titans: Earth One:
- Raven is usually half-demon in most continuities, but here she appears to be entirely human, albeit not a normal one.
- Garth/Tempest is normally an Atlantean. Here, like most of the Titans, he is a human genetically enhanced with Tamaranian DNA.
- Starfire's DC You series Starfire (2015) imported Silkie, her pet from Teen Titans (2003) and Teen Titans Go!. In the cartoons, he was a genetically engineered creation of villain Killer Moth; the comic version is an alien creature from her home planet renamed "Syl'Khee".
- In his original pre-Crisis appearance, Ultraa is from an unknown planet, and was raised in Australia on Earth-Prime. In post-Crisis continuity he's from Almerac, the same planet as Maxima, and is actually her betrothed. His appearence in Wonder Woman (Rebirth) follows the second portrayal.
- Superman:
- Supergirl Adventures Girl Of Steel: In this continuity, both Kara and Zod are from planet Argo instead of Krypton due to the then-standing ban on multiple Kryptonian characters (once the ban was lifted, Kara was quietly retconned back into being Superman's Kryptonian blood cousin).
- In the 80's comics, Kristen Wells is a human from the future (in fact, Jimmy Olsen's descendant) who uses 29th century technology to become Superwoman. In post-Crisis continuity, she's the title character of the storyline "The Third Kryptonian", real name Karsta Wor-Ul.
- In the Smallville Season 11 comics, Mr Majestic is a Kryptonian, in fact an alternate version of Clark himself, rather than a Kherubim.
- Superman: The Animated Series had Mercy Graves as a normal human woman Lex Luthor took in to act as his muscle. When she became a Canon Immigrant and was bought into the comics during Batman: No Man's Land, she was reimagined as an Amazon.
- Angel and the Ape: Sam Simeon appears in Forever Evil (2013). Rather than a Gorilla City native (or, as he was pre-Phil Foglio, just an inexplicably intelligent gorilla), he's a human who was experimenting on Gorilla City DNA and suffered a Freak Lab Accident that turned him into an ape in an expensive suit.
- In Legion of Super-Heroes (2020), Mon-El is a Kryptonian rather than a Daxamite like prior-incarnations of the character.
- The premise of RWBY/Justice League is reimagining the Justice League of America as natives of Remnant. To this end, Batman, a normal human being, and Aquaman, half-human and half-Atlantean, are made into Faunus (based respectively on a bat naturally and a fish).
- The Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe interpretation of Aquaman is a super-powered human rather than a human-Atlantean hybrid.
- In Team 7 (New 52), Mr Majestic is an Earth human who was the guinea pig in an experiment to create a Superman-level government agent.
- In Dell Comics' Comic-Book Adaptation of Mad Monster Party?, the creature "It" is changed from a giant ape into a giant humanoid fish monster. In spite of the character no longer being a King Kong Captain Ersatz, nothing is done about Felix offering the creature a banana or Baron von Frankenstein calling the monster an overgrown chimpanzee.
- Marvel Comics:
- In Marvel 1602, Peter Parquagh and David Banner explicitly become "Witchbreed" (i.e., mutants) after getting exposed to the interdimensional radiation of a Portal Door. While Spidey and Hulk have had radiation permanently alter their genes in the main universe, they distinctly lack homo superior genes and as such are not considered mutants.
- In the sequel, Dr. Octopus is revealed to be a Cthulhumanoid rather than just a regular man with robotic arms.
- In Secret Wars: 1602: Witch Hunter Angela, Angela and Sera are human, not Asgardian and Hevenite. When they meet Gardiner's Men, the 1602 version of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Goodman Root (Groot) and Madame Gomorrah (Gamora) are human, and the Aroughcun (Rocket Raccoon) is an actual raccoon.
- The same comic does this to an actual Real Life historical figure. As it’s discovered that King James instead of being a regular human, was Witchbreed himself and could make claws pop out of his hands.
- Marvel Noir: In X-Men Noir, the X-Men are not mutants, but rather human criminals who thanks to discredited psychiatrist Charles Xavier believe sociopathy is "the next state in human behavioral evolution". In the same universe, Namor is a normal man who cut his ears into the shape of a shark's fins and Thor wasn't a Physical God but a unnamed Norwegian man who ferociously protected a castle he found from the Nazis with a hammer, "as if he were some Norse God on Earth".
- Ultimate FF featured Miles Morhames, a version of Miles Morales from a version of the Spider-Ham universe. He was, like Peter Porker, a pig. All-New, All-Different Avengers Annual #1 had a story in a more conventional version of the Spider-Ham verse in which the Miles counterpart was Spider-Mole (though it's worth mentioning that this is in-universe fan fiction that Ms Marvel is reading). Yet another story introduced Meows Morales
, Spider-Cat. "Miles" or "Morales" don't just lend themselves to puns as well as "Peter Parker". - Captain Marvel: In Carol Danvers’s original origin story she was a normal woman who got accidentally infused with Kree superpowers after getting hit with the Psyche-Magnitron. In Carol’s 2018 comic, it’s retconned that she’s a Half-Human Hybrid and the Kree device only awakened the latent Kree DNA from her mother Mari-Ell aka Marie.
- X-Men: Grand Design:
- The mini-series makes Mimic a mutant instead of a human who got powers from a scientific accident.
- Changeling is not a mutant, but an alien android created by the Mutant Master. This was presumably done to make Professor X's infamous use of Changeling to fake his own death less morally dubious.
- House of X changes Moira MacTaggert into a Mutant, in contrast to the previous decades of comic continuity where she was a human woman.
- Figment: In the original version of Journey into Imagination and interviews related to it, it's implied that Dreamfinder is an Anthropomorphic Personification of creativity. In this series, he is human.
- In Marvel 1602, Peter Parquagh and David Banner explicitly become "Witchbreed" (i.e., mutants) after getting exposed to the interdimensional radiation of a Portal Door. While Spidey and Hulk have had radiation permanently alter their genes in the main universe, they distinctly lack homo superior genes and as such are not considered mutants.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- In the initial Sega of America Sonic the Hedgehog lore, Sally Acorn was a squirrel (named Ricky in the current lore), however she was radically redesigned and re-imagined for Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) with the cartoon's staff never quite deciding what she was meant to be even after the series had ended (head writer Ben Hurst speculated that her father King Acorn might be a fox and her mother might be a squirrel). The comics decided to make Sally a ground squirrel, before this was retconned so that she was half-squirrel via her father and half-chipmunk via her mother, and this was maintained even after the continuity reboot, with the only change being that post-reboot King Acorn now had a tail similar to Ray the Flying Squirrel's, as opposed to the fox tail he’d had pre-reboot as an artifact from SatAm).
- In the pre-reboot continuity, Doctor Robotnik/Eggman, his nephew Snively from SatAM, his grandfather Gerald Robotnik and cousin Maria from Sonic Adventure 2, were not human, instead they were part of a devolved mutant human subspecies descended from humanity called Overlanders. Despite the Sonic Adventure adaptation adding actual humans to the comic, Ian Flynn confirmed that the G.U.N Commander (named "Abraham Tower") from the games is also an Overlander.
- In SatAM the sorcerer Naugus' species was never identified. In the pre-reboot comics, Ixis Naugus was revealed to be the result of three wizards (a rhino, a lobster and a bat) accidentally merging themselves into one being. In the post-reboot comics this was no longer the case, and Walter Naugus was now a troll.
- Witchcart, the Ambiguously Human witch from Tails' Skypatrol, became the troll Wendy Naugus due to being re-imagined as the sister of Walter Naugus.
- Breezie the Hedgehog was introduced in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as a robot hedgehog. In the comics, she's a real hedgehog.
- In Star Wars Legends, Jedi Master Depa Billaba was Chalactan, a Near-Human species that looked identical to humans on the outside. In new canon, Chalactans have been retconned into another human culture.
- Ultimate Marvel: Has its own page.
- Blubber Bear was a bear in Wacky Races. In Wacky Raceland he's a human man who wears the pelt of a bear that gave him brain damage before the Announcer brought him and Luke into the Race. Similarly, Sawtooth has gone from a Funny Animal beaver to an "androgynous street urchin" with Jaws-from-James Bond style Scary Teeth. Muttley, however, remains a dog.
- In Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter of Terror #1, Paul Cornell's adaptation of "The Black Cat" is retitled "The Black Dog". It also has a Perspective Flip, being narrated by the dog rather than the master.
- IDW Publishing's GoBots miniseries depicts the GoBots as man-made sentient robots, when Challenge of the GoBots established that they are technically cyborgs due to starting out as an organic race before having their brains inserted into robotic bodies.
- Hasbro Comic Universe:
- G.B. Blackrock originated as a human corporate executive in the Marvel Comics Transformers continuity. His counterpart in the 2005 IDW continuity, who made his debut in The Transformers: Robots in Disguise after it was rebranded as The Transformers volume 2, was eventually revealed to be a Cybertronian who was conditioned into believing he was human.
- Rom: Spaceknight established the titular character as hailing from the planet Galador and depicted him as a Human Alien when he wasn't wearing the Space Knight armor. Because Hasbro and IDW were unable to utilize any elements that were created for the Marvel comic, ROM (IDW) makes it so that his home planet is now Elonia and his unarmored self is depicted as a blue-skinned Rubber Forehead Alien.
- G.I. Joe (2016) reveals Doc to actually be a Dire Wraith (the Wraiths being a race of shape-shifting aliens that Rom has made it his mission to hunt down) and his daughter (an interpretation of his female counterpart from G.I. Joe: Reloaded) to be a Half-Human Hybrid.
- Sergeant Savage's archenemy Garrison Kreiger, aka General Blitz, is revealed at the end of First Strike to be a Composite Character with Merklynn, the wizard from Visionaries, which makes him a Prysmosian rather than a human.
- Originally, in Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, Venus was a turtle that was mutated like the other Ninja Turtles. When he was brought into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW), Venus was reimagined as a human named "Bonnie" who was mutated a frog-based mutant and forced to undergo experiments to look more like a turtle.
