Changeling (DC Comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

As a child, Garfield contracts a rare illness called Sakutia by being bitten by a green monkey, but then is saved by his parents, who use an untested serum on him. This serum has the unintended effect of turning his skin and hair green and granting him the ability to metamorph into any animal of his choice. His parents later died in a boating accident, which, to this day, Garfield believes he could have prevented. After he is saved from two kidnappers that beat him and forced him to use his powers to help them in their crimes, Garfield is left under the care of a court-appointed guardian, the despicable Nicholas Galtry, who calls Gar "Craig". As young Gar enters his teens, Galtry realizes that his embezzlement from the estate would be exposed when the lad reaches maturity and takes control of his inheritance, so he plots to kill the youngster. The various villains he hires to kill young Gar are impeded by the Doom Patrol, whose member Rita and her husband, DP associate Steve Dayton, eventually expose his embezzling to the courts and adopt Garfield themselves. In the interim, he allies himself with the superhero team, wearing one of their uniforms (with the addition of a full-head purple mask, bearing a black—and sometimes yellow swath across the middle of the face, to conceal his true identity) and taking the name Beast Boy. In his days with the Doom Patrol, Garfield has a romantic relationship with a girl from his high school named Jillian Jackson. After he saves her from Galtry (who was using the alias "Arsenal"), the relationship somehow dissolved. Beast Boy is deeply affected by the deaths of the Patrol.

Addressed as nothing but "Beast Boy" (and epithets, as the team is upset at his invasion of their headquarters) upon his debut, in his second appearance (Doom Patrol #100) he is twice called 'Craig' by Galtry (in his own introduction). In the following issue the first name "Gar" is used, and later the last name "Logan" is casually dropped in a caption, each as if they had already been established to the readers. The full "Garfield" is not invoked until The New Teen Titans some fifteen years later.