Good stuff as always, Julian. It's great to be able to relate to someone in regards to these things.
I told you you'd like it here!
Incidentally, Mr. X, welcome to the forums.
Hell, Streaky's last appearance was, what, 1970 I believe? I'm glad we've at least gotten some fleeting Post Crisis moments with him.
We also haven't seen much of Whizzy, either, who was Super-Cat's descendant in the 30th Century (meaning Supergirl never gave that darn cat some "Super Surgery").
While I understand why Julie Schwartz and the Schwartz writers wouldn't want to use Comet or the other super-pets - after all, they wanted to tell the sort of science fiction and space opera type stories that John Broome and Gardner Fox told with the Flash and Green Lantern, this does not mean there is no place for the superpets.
All you have to do is give the pets a personality. This is why Krypto was used so often: of all of them, his single-minded loyalty and Rin-Tin-Tin style heroism made him the best developed (that, and I suspect Julie was a dog person).
Since you brought up Streaky, for example, he seemed like another pet that had a personality, too. He was very, very vain and solitary. In "Revolt of the Super-Pets," where the aformentioned "GREAT PEGASUS! Crime Machines!" quote came from, for instance, Streaky was thrilled that the Thanlians lionize animal heroes, and was disappointed when they didn't get their clubhouse. Krypto, Comet, and Proty had problems leaving their respective masters of Superboy, Supergirl, and Chameleon Boy, but Streaky was just fine with it. There were moments in the Schaffenberger art where you could see Streaky looking at the others with a face that said, "hey,
I'm dealing with it, why can't you?"
A tribute to Jimmy Shooter's gift for very, very subtle characterization.
Morrison's Animal Man, for instance, and the Krypto TV show.
Gosh, I love the Krypto show! When I heard it was not going to be about Superman's dog, I was nervous, as was the fact it was going to be churned out by the Cartoon Network crap factory (incidentally, Boomerang, when did TWO STUPID DOGS become a "classic" cartoon? This is sort of like when AMC showed DUDLEY DO RIGHT, which was made in like,
1998). But all my doubts evaporated the instant they worked this into the scripts:
"Dog star! Dog star! Bow wow wow!
We'll fight evil now now now!"[/list]