Animal Motifs / Comic Books

• Arawn: Arawn and Engus resemble wolves; Math and Kern resemble lions.
• Batman decided to take up bat-themed crimefighting after a bat crashed through his window, which he interpreted as an omen. He strikes from the shadows, wears a costume that makes him look like a giant bat, and has a variety of occasionally-used gadgets that can simulate things like sonar. The similarities pretty much end there, since bats don't punch things very often.
  • Selina Kyle is a Classy Cat-Burglar, and dresses the part too. She's clever, elusive, pulls off heists wearing a mask that resembles cat ears, and is associated with black cats in particular. She also literally keeps cats around her apartment like a old lady.
  • Dick Grayson and every other character whose taken up the mantle of Robin is generally associated with birds.
  • The Scott Snyder run on the comics attempted to give the Joker a motif of his own; Flies.
• Cottontail from Burlap wears a bunny mask that covers his whole head.
• Psychic operatives in Matt Fraction's Casanova all seem to have differing animal totems that manifest when they use their powers. The protagonist had spiders then upgraded to crows and his villainous sister had snakes.
• Cuori Grassi: Rocco is frequently associated with pigs due to his gluttony. For example, he has pig prints on his boxers. His personal Grim Reaper has a noticeable pig snout poking out from its hood. Heck, one cover elevates it to irony as a widowed pig mother and her piglets mourn the father pig in front of Rocco, who is eating a ham sandwich.
• Salvador Dalí's Giraffes On Horseback Salad uses animals to represent the two main characters throughout the story:
  • Jimmy is symbolized by butterflies. Love is compared to a butterfly, trapped in a cocoon as it transforms into something beautiful, yet it must be protected even when it's ugly. Butterflies are also allowed to fly freely because of their beauty, even if the chaos they spread isn't always welcome. Finally, the butterfly reflects Jimmy's metamorphosis when he fully embraces surrealism.
  • The Surrealist Woman (and surrealism as a whole) is represented by flaming giraffes, because.
• Judge Dredd: Judges' uniforms have a distinctive eagle motif to them, in keeping with the Big Meg's Eagleland origins. Other cities have this too, usually referencing the locale. For example, Brit Cit has a lion motif to its judge uniforms, and the judges in Africa has a lion and a gazelle. Some of the Dark Judges have extinct pterodactyls on their right shoulders as a hint to what their job is. Averted by East Meg judges, who wear shoulder pads decorated with red stars.
• Loki developed certain associations with magpies in some stories, maybe not surprisingly for someone who is generally trouble and bad news, not to mention a thief and conman.
  • Marvel 1602: Spiders appear as a motif, usually around Peter Parquagh. Given who his modern counterpart is, spiders seem to be a symbol for destiny (perhaps a reference to the web of Fate).
• The Punisher: In one story, Frank partners with a High-Class Call Girl to infiltrate a criminal's party (well, not so much partners as blackmail her into it by taking the notebook where she writes down her connections). The story is told from her perspective, and she recalls her youth raising dogs from which she learned to fit people into two categories: dogs and wolves. At the end of the story, she puts Frank in the "lions" category.
• Mr. Dig in Sink wears a fox mask.
• Spider-Man: The series is arguably the Trope Codifier since Spidey and a good portion of his rogues gallery are distinctly patterned on animals, to wit: the Vulture, the Chameleon, the Scorpion, the Rhino, the Beetle, the Jackal, Dr. Octopus. Likewise, Kraven the Hunter, while not having animal powers famously wears a jacket made out of lion fur.
  • Deliberately invoked in-universe with Scorpion, who received his powers and codename so he could hunt Spider-Man: in real life, scorpions prey on spiders.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man (J. Michael Straczynski) posited that Spidey is being assaulted by envious pretenders who subconsciously realize that he is a true totemic champion. Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours, a book by Jim Butcher based on this run, introduces the siblings of Morlun, an Implacable Man and Energy Vampire who feeds on this type, and it turns out that every Animal-Themed Superbeing has this connection even if it's not obvious. Black Cat is a Badass Normal; she wasn't bitten by a radioactive cat and given feline powers. Yet, if she wasn't cat enough to be delicious and nutritious to the likes of Morlun, she'd never have chosen the name. That's why Spidey, Cat, and even the Rhino must team up when Mortia, Thanis, and Malos come to town.
  • Hunted, the first story event from The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) Lampshades this when Spider-Man points out that it's "not hard to see the theme here" among the many animal-themed rogues being rounded for Kraven the Hunter's latest evil scheme. Two of the bad guys doing the rounding up, Taskmaster and Black Ant actually discuss in a dark comedic way whether Hammerhead, the mob boss with a metal plate in his skull fits given the shark name but they decide that he hadn't committed, i.e. actually dress up and use gadgets which fit his animal gimmick. When all the rounding up is done, Taskmaster gloats to Black Ant, when he betrays him, that hey an ant is also an animal.
• Wolverine, a short, stocky, violent, foul-smelling Canadian with a talent for surviving tough conditions.
  • Dogs for Dog Logan introduced in Comic Book/Origin|2001}}.
• Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman has an eagle motif. Her insignia is drawn to resemble a hybrid of "W" and an eagle. She also uses a golden eagle-shaped armor, and she's known to be brave and inspirational like the animal. Her
  • The Greek pantheon keeps some of their ties to their sacred animals, usually whittled down to one animal to correlate to each deity, and some gods with no sacred animals in the original mythology gain animal motifs in the comics:
    • Aphrodite wears an oversized shirt with a dove on it in Wonder Woman (Rebirth), and is accompanied by other dove related imagery when she wants to make a big entrance.
    • Apollo's ravens show up with less frequency than many of the other god's related animals but they are there.
    • Ares maintains his tie to both serpents and dogs, mostly visible through his sons Phobos and Deimos who accompany him on the battlefield in the guise of monstrous dogs, and Phobos sometimes manifesting his head as writhing cobras.
    • Artemis will occasionally manifest with slender deer antlers.
    • Athena is almost always seen with her owl, except for that time she was an anthropomorphic owl herself.
    • Dionysus is tied to foxes in The New 52, unusual as his sacred animals in mythology were panthers, bulls and serpents.
    • Hades remains fond of dogs, and is often accompanied by Cerberus.
    • Hera has multiple articles of clothing heavily decorated with peacock feathers, and her diadem has a very simplified peacock centerpiece.
    • Heracles is usually wearing the Nemean Lion skin, and even when he's not his girdle and greaves are engraved with lions.
    • Hermes is still connected to hawks, and even takes on hawk like attributes like talons in some manifestations.
    • Zeus is tied to eagles, best seen in The New 52 with his feathered cape.
    • In the Elseworld Wonder Woman: Warbringer Phobos's helmet is adorned with a relief of Medusa's head with the serpents arched and ready to strike, his chariot also has a snake motif and his teeth are like many thin curved viper fangs. His twin Deimos has a helmet adorned with a relief of a roaring lion, chariot with a lion motif and lion-like teeth and lips.
    • Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons double downs on the trope with the Gods having their signature animals accompany them, wears clothing that evokes them, but also in some cases are part-animal themselves thanks to voluntaty shapeshifting. Demeter has snakes on her person, Athena, naturally, has a giant owl that accompanies her, Artemis is seen with both stags and boars while Hera is accompanied by and wears clothing that evokes peacocks. As for the male gods, Ares is accompanied by vulture and his cape can turn into vulture-like wings, Zeus has ram horns growing out of his head along with a giant pet eagle at his side, Poseidon has the lower body of a Pegasus, and Dionysus rests with panthers by his side.
• Cubi from Fine Print are associated with Butterflies, having massive butterfly wings and often heralded by a kaleidoscope of them.

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