Marvel’s Best Super-Powered Critters: Super-Pets That Decimate The Bad Guys

Monkey Joe may look and act like a typical squirrel, but inside, he’s anything but. This rambunctious rodent was the first squirrel to ever talk to Doreen Green, AKA The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and from that moment on, the two became best friends. Monkey Joe once helped Squirrel Girl defeat Doctor Doom—one of Marvel’s most formidable villains—despite not having any superpowers outside of above-average intelligence… for a squirrel.

Monkey Joe would even become an official member of the Great Lakes Avengers, and while the GLA was something of a joke team, it’s still an honor that no other Marvel pet can claim. Sadly, Monkey Joe met his demise in 2005 at the hands of Leather Boy—an ex-GLA member turned villain. Squirrel Girl often wears an MJ pendant in his memory.

When the Earth-616 Deadpool that everyone knows and loves needed a crew of alternate reality Deadpools to help him with a mission, he made sure to recruit the one and only Dogpool. Dogpool hails from Earth-103173, where he was a test subject for a beauty product known as Mascara X. The product was meant to be self-replenishing but instead warped Dogpool’s DNA, disfiguring him but giving his body regenerative properties at the same time.

Dogpool’s powers and abilities are identical to his human counterpart, making him one of the hardest Marvel pets to kill. Sadly, hardest doesn’t mean impossible, and much like Monkey Joe, the original Dogpool was killed in the line of duty. There have been other Dogpools since, but none as cool as the original.

Starting out as a normal Japanese macaque, Hit-Monkey taught himself martial arts and how to use a gun after his clan took in an ailing assassin. Soon, other men with guns came looking for the near-dead assassin, hoping to finish the job. When they found him living with a clan of monkeys, they decided to murder the primates along with the assassin.

The only survivor was Hit-Monkey, who decided to use his newfound skills to avenge his clan. One of the only animal heroes—or, in this case, antiheroes—in the Marvel universe not to end up as someone’s pet, Hit Monkey’s fighting abilities are so strong he’s stood toe to toe with Bullseye—Earth 616’s most dangerous marksman—and lived to tell about it.

Lockheed is a purple, cat-sized alien dragon who serves as Marvel hero Kitty Pryde’s longtime pet. The young mutant first found Lockheed during her early days in the X-Men during a mission in space. The two have been inseparable since.

While he’s technically extraterrestrial in nature, Lockheed has many of the same characteristics as the Dragons from Earth folklore. Lockheed can fly, breathe fire, and has a tough, impenetrable hide. While usually associated with the X-Men, Lockheed has been a loyal companion to Kitty Pryde, following her wherever she goes, including her time as a member of Excalibur, a team of mutants based in Great Britain.

Devil Dinosaur is, much like his name suggests, a dinosaur. Specifically, a giant red dinosaur that resembles a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Originally paired up with a monkey-boy named Moon-Boy, Devil Dinosaur hails from a place called Dinosaur World on Earth 78411. Devil Dinosaur is easily the biggest Marvel pet on this list and possibly the strongest—at least physically.

Able to go toe-to-toe with Godzilla, Devil Dinosaur is a force to be reckoned with. He and his companion Moon-Boy had many crazy adventures until Moon-Boy was murdered by another monkey-human hybrid named Thorn-Teeth. Nowadays, Devil Dinosaur can be found stomping around Earth-616 with his new companion, Lunella Lafayette, AKA Moon Girl.

Lockjaw is the goodest of boys. A giant, 1,240 lb puppy with an antennae on his head, Lockjaw is a big, slobbery teddy bear most of the time. He can usually be found hanging out with Marvel’s Inhumans in Attilan, their secret city on the moon, where he acts as the loyal pet of the Inhuman royal family.

Lockjaw has the ability to teleport himself and up to a dozen people anywhere in the galaxy. So powerful is Lockjaw’s teleportation ability that he can even teleport to other dimensions. The prodigious pooch was also the founder of Marvel’s Pet Avengers, a team made up of superpowered animals from the Marvel universe—including Lockheed and Devil Dinosaur—that joined together to retrieve the Infinity Gems and keep them safe from Thanos. A good boy indeed.