Peter Porkchops
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Peter Porkchops is the name of a fictional funny animal pig who appeared in stories published by DC Comics. Peter was created by Otto Feuer, and first appeared in Leading Comics #23 in 1947.
Peter's adventures mostly consisted of light-hearted fare, usually involving his neighbor A. Wolf (or "Wolfie" as Peter called him). Peter became one of DC's most successful funny animal characters, gaining his own comic in December 1949. Peter appeared throughout the 1950s, with Leading Comics canceled with its 77th issue in 1955; Peter's own comic was canceled with Peter Porkchops #62 in December 1960. He then ceased to appear (except for a few reprints) for the next several decades.
In 1982, Peter was brought back in the pages of the comic Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew as a steel mill worker in the city of "Piggsburg." While working one day over a vat, an irradiated meteor fragment slammed into Peter, knocking them both into the vat; when he emerged, Peter found himself transformed into a metallic-skinned, super-strong being, and soon became a superhero named Pig Iron (a reference to the word "pig iron", a part of the steel making process).
As Pig Iron, Peter soon joined the Zoo Crew, and embarked on various adventures, including facing off against his former neighbor Wolfie, who had been transformed into a "Wuz-Wolf" (his world's version of a werewolf; in this case, a wolf who turned into a monstrous human). Pig Iron's personality, unlike Peter's, tended to be much more aggressive and abrasive, similar to that of the Fantastic Four's Thing.
With Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew canceled after its 20th issue in 1983, Peter (as either Pig Iron or his normal self) once more fell into disuse, and didn't appear in a DC comic for many years.
In Teen Titans #30-31 (December 2005-January 2006), Peter (as Pig-Iron) and the Zoo Crew made their first return appearance in some time, in stories presented as excerpts from a comic book story, "Whatever Happened To Captain Carrot?", that a character in the "real" DC Comics universe is reading in #30. In these stories, we see that the Zoo Crew has mostly disbanded and live in a somewhat "darker" world than the one of their prior adventures. Little Cheese has been killed, Fastback has disappeared, Captain Carrot is in self-imposed retirement after the death of a former partner, the secret identities of Alley-Kat-Abra and Yankee Poodle are now public knowledge, and Pig-Iron and Rubberduck are operating as costumed heroes in secret. The story is a parody of the "grim and gritty" trend most often identified with late 1980s to 1990s superhero comics, including references to several of DC's own series (such as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, including the "cover" of the Captain Carrot comic bearing a distinct resemblance to the cover of Watchmen #1). In the end, after sending Alley-Kat-Abra to jail for murdering Little Cheese (her motive being that cats hate mice), Captain Carrot and the remaining Zoo Crew return to action with a new member, the last American Eagle, on their way to retrieve Fastback from the future (where Alley-Kat-Abra had banished him).
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