Beast Boy - Powers and Abilities

Powers and Abilities

Beast Boy has the transformational ability to morph and transform into any animal that he has seen himself or has seen in an illustration (as is the case when he shapeshifts into an animal such as an extinct dinosaur). These transformations take only a second and Beast Boy has demonstrated that he is capable of rapidly changing his form with little or no effort expended. As a corollary to this power, he can transform back into his default form if an external force like magic transforms him into an animal. His power enables him to completely alter his body mass, being able to take the shape of animals far larger and heavier than himself, such as an elephant, a hippopotamus, or a Tyrannosaurus Rex (though until recent stories, such larger forms would physically exhaust him), or smaller and lighter animals such as mice and insects. As a result of his rapidly changing genetic structure and mass, Beast Boy has an increased healing factor comparable to that of The Creeper and Deathstroke, allowing him to heal from bullet wounds, burns, and broken bones in a matter of seconds, and in some story lines regrow entire limbs. He cannot change or return to a form if the space he occupies is too small and he cannot normally break the confines (as seen when he attempts to transform into a Tyrannosaurus Rex underneath a bridge and hits his head, instantly aborting the transformation). His power also enables him to radically alter his body structure and take forms of animals without limbs, like snakes, or those without skeletons like a jellyfish. In two notable instances, he has even taken the form of multiple individuals simultaneously (once as a swarm of fireflies, and again as a mass of barnacles). He also displayed this ability once in the animated series, becoming an amoeba and multiplying into a swarm before returning to human form as a single individual.

While an animal, he gains all of the physical abilities, attributes, and characteristics of said animal, such as greatly enhanced superhuman strength (a gorilla), superhuman speed (a cheetah), and enhanced durability (a turtle), and abilities such as flight (various birds), and aquatic breathing (various fish). He can even gain the specific poisons and toxins produced by specific snakes. While in animal form, Beast Boy retains his human intellect, memories, and the ability to speak. No matter what form he takes, his skin, hair, and eyes remain green, making most of his animal forms easy to distinguish from real animals of that species. In the early comics, his coloration would change to that appropriate to the animal form he had taken, with only his head remaining green. Beast Boy has also shown the ability more than once to transform into alien animals, including sentient species such as the Gordanians.

When Raven implanted Garfield with an evil seed of her father Trigon, he began to transform into more demon-like creatures. Eventually, he found himself more comfortable in these horrific shapes than as a human, and stayed shifted. After becoming completely corrupted by the evil seed, he was used by Raven and Trigon, but eventually returned to normal. Titans #4 reveals that a small part of that seed still remains within him, which Trigon's sons manipulate, using the demonic energies to open the portal to Trigon's realm.

As of late, he has demonstrated the ability to transform into animals many times larger than their actual forms. Among others, he's been seen transforming into a human-sized tarantula and a giant snake. Whether this is a more advanced progression of his abilities or a new ability altogether is unknown. Like his Kingdom Come incarnation, he also recently gained the ability to transform into mythological creatures, namely a phoenix and a chimera.

He commonly shape-shifts into a rhino, gorilla, Tyrannosaurus, and other animals.