Karen Beecher first appeared as a supporting character in Teen Titans #45 (December 1976) as the girlfriend of Mal Duncan, a.k.a. the Herald, a member of the Teen Titans. Writer Bob Rozakis and artist Irv Novick created her.
In Teen Titans #48 (June 1977), she adopted the Bumblebee identity for the first time. She secretly made herself a bumblebee-themed super suit and attacked the Teen Titans to help Mal look good in front of the team. She escaped without revealing her true identity.
When she later explained to Mal and the Titans what she had done, they were impressed enough to offer her membership, which she accepted. She and Mal subsequently moved to the new Titans West team, having relocated to San Francisco.
Bumblebee’s suit enabled her to fly, fire sonic force blasts, and unleash electrical ‘stings.’ She also had a genius-level intellect and was a skilled scientist and engineer. She worked for S.T.A.R. Labs, where she designed non-lethal weaponry.
When the Titans team dissolved, Karen and Mal married and ‘retired’ from super-heroics. They returned to crime-fighting occasionally to assist the group, most notably during a short-lived revival of Titans West and the J.L.A./Titans event, which reunited everyone involved with the team.
During the Infinite Crisis storyline, Bumblebee and her husband were among the heroes recruited by Donna Troy to help avert a cosmic crisis threatening the universe’s existence. After a battle in space, most of the heroes were trapped by a Zeta-Beam Ray that Adam Strange hoped to use to teleport the heroes away from the rift in space. Due to the ray’s interactions with the rift, the Zeta-Ray altered Bumblebee’s physiology, transferring her body mass to Hawkgirl. This left Bumblebee approximately six inches tall and Hawkgirl some 25 feet tall.
One Year Later, Bumblebee was shown to have joined the Doom Patrol sometime in the past year along with her husband (now known as Vox) and Beast Boy. She also discovered that she was pregnant with Mal’s child.
Bumblebee has also appeared in other media, such as animated shows (Teen Titans, Young Justice, DC Super Hero Girls), video games (D.C. Universe Online, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham), and live-action shows (Titans).
Some little-known facts about Bumblebee are:
– She is sometimes considered D.C. Comics’ first Black woman superhero character. However, this distinction is also accorded to Nubia, a less traditional costumed crimefighter than Bumblebee, who debuted several years earlier in 1973.
– She has a family history of inventors and scientists. Her grandfather was an inventor who created a device that could manipulate sound waves. Her father was a scientist who worked on Project Cadmus before he died. Her mother was also a scientist who helped Karen develop her suit.
– She has a rivalry with Gizmo, another shrinking villain who often clashes with the Teen Titans. They have competed in several science fairs and inventions contests, with Bumblebee usually winning.
– She has a close friendship with Lilith Clay, another Teen Titans member with psychic powers. They often confide in and support each other through their struggles.
