In my day, grandpa might say, things were different. We knew what we were about. Good was good, bad was bad.

Okay, Gramps, you salty old bastard, but it’s not like it was all black and white, nazis and nuns. Things are always simpler when they’ve already happened, when they’re history.

But Gramps might not relent–he might only heighten his jabbering. You used to look at a thing and know what that thing stood for. Stand for something! The old days: with none of this antihero BS where you’re supposed to like the guy that kills people and hates children. You knew who was who.

At this point in the conversation, you’d be forgiven for pointing out to Gramps that making things predictable doesn’t make them better. And, though a lot of what comes across our plates today–movies, music, comics–is awfully tired, it’s nice to remember that we’ve gotten smarter as viewers and readers and listeners, simply for the number of choices we have to sort and make. There was a time, Gramps, when all the superheroes had pets.

Seriously: all of them. We’re not talking, like, Aquaman became good friends with a whale that helped him thwart the intergalactic giant squid. It’s more like Oprah walked into the Hall of Justice and started pointing fingers: You get a pet! You get a pet! You get a pet! Everybody gets a pet!!

These were pets of the expected breed, suspiciously granted some limited superpowers, and they got to wear little capes: Supergirl got a pet horse named Comet — secretly, he used to be a human male; then he became a horse with superpowers. Like all of the superpets, Comet wore a cape. Also pictured on the superpet pedestal are:

- Streaky the Supercat, whose super-powers derived from a little piece of a kind of opposite-field Kryptonite, which found its way into a ball of yarn.

- Krypto, Superman’s favorite of all the Superpets.

- Beppo the Supermonkey. (The picture at the top of the post is interesting: note that A) Beppo is wearing a snug blue shirt with the cuffs rolled, and B) his red cape is the same makeshift-looking number worn by Streaky; it’s tiny–more of a kerchief than a proper cape. Beppo got jacked in the costume department.)

Now, on the one hand, who’s going to tell Superman/boy/girl not to adopt that adorable pet, giving it a comfortable home, a place where it can demonstrate the superpowers it just so happens to already have? Not me, not you; not Animal Control. But things just got out of hand, there, for a while. Back in the 60s, every one of Superboy’s foes seemed to have a dog.

I am the Kryptonite Bulldog, ferocious pet of Kryptonite Kid!

I am Destructo, Lex Luthor’s dog! I was infused with superpowers so I could help Lex deviously defeat Superboy and Superdog! Guess how that worked out.

All hail Tail Terrier, Captain of the Space Canine Patrol Agency! This is a team of intergalactic, crimefighting dogs, of which Tail Terrier was the studliest. In addition to a neverending, elastic, prehensile tail, he was telepathic.

Choose your pet: Destructo or Kryptonite Bulldog or Tail Terrier or Krypto the Superdog or Streaky the Supercat or Beppo the Supermonkey or Comet the Superhorse. What’s worse.