One of Marvel’s most powerful cosmic beings was reimagined in an anthropomorphic universe in the most hilarious way imaginable
Marvel is an incredibly versatile company, with compelling stories from the Golden through Bronze Ages and massive storyline events, such as “Age of Apocalypse” and “Operation: Galactic Storm.” In the 80s the tent pole series “Secret Wars” upended and redefined a lot of regular continuity. It added She-Hulk to The Fantastic Four, allowed Professor X to walk again, and gave Spider-Man his iconic symbiote costume. The storyline also introduced the Beyonder to the universe, and this reveal directly led to an animal parody of the omnipotent character only a few years later, who was a bee.
The Beyonder was a near-omnipotent entity with limitless power, next to no understanding of humanity, who, as a bodiless force, compelled the most famous heroes and villains of the time to battle one another. A year later Secret Wars II gave the Beyonder form and had him teetering on the line between hero and villain, though he inevitably ended up trying to destroy the universe. The idea of such a character had been repeated many times over, from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Q to DC’s The Presence. But none have captured both the innocence of the character or featured an era-defining look quite like the Beyonder.
The Bee-Yonder Has Popped Up in Spider-Ham’s Comics
Around the same time, Marvel Tails Featuring Peter Porker: The Spectacular Spider-Ham (by Tom Defalco, Mark Armstrong, and Joe Albelo) was released. This parody one-shot featured animal versions of popular Marvel characters. A few years later Spider-Ham would move on to an ongoing series under Marvel’s Star Comics imprint where more characters would get the animal makeover. As the concept of the multiverse grew and the different worlds all became their own realities, Spider-Ham’s world became Earth-8311.
Spider-Ham’s adventures were kid-friendly stories that would occasionally touch upon what was happening in regular comic book continuity with a humorous slant, an early version of Marvel poking fun at themselves. The Bee-Yonder popped up, too, and was actually featured in only four frames. In a humorous nod to the original Secret Wars storyline, he appears, rhymes most of his dialogue, zaps Spider-Ham into a new costume and vanishes again.
Marvel’s Bee-Yonder May Have Another Chance to Shine
The Bee-yonder appeared again a few months later in Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham #17 (by Michael Mellor, Steve Mellor, and Joe Albelo). This time he was dragging the different animal superheroes together, not to battle, but in plans of creating his own television network, W-K-B-Yonder. It was a fun riff on the amount of television programming that the world was experiencing at the time mixed in with the Secret Wars storyline.
Much like his Earth-616 counterpart, he’s been used very sparingly. But unlike the Beyonder who has impacted a universal shift in comic book continuity, the Bee-Yonder has done little more than change his costume and throw some amusing quips out here and there, usually in rhyme. Overall, like characters such as Deerdevil, the Pun-Fisher, and Croak & Badger, the Bee-Yonder is a funny, anthropomorphic version of one of the most powerful Marvel entities, and, with the return of the original, it will be fun to see if his bee counterpart gets another chance to shine.
