The Bee

Real Name: Barry Eames

Identity/Class: Mutated human

Occupation: Scientist; now super-villain

Affiliations: His giant bees; later worked for the F.Bee.I

Enemies: The U.S. Army

Known Relatives: None known

Aliases: Bee-Man

Base of Operations: A giant hive in the Caskills.

First Appearance: Double-Dare Adventures #1 (Harvey Comics, December 1966)

Powers/Abilities: Bee-Man is able to fly, and has superhuman strength. In order to maintain his powers he must keep drinking copious amounts of honey. He can mentally control the giant bees. His costume comes equipped with antenna which can daze opponents with a sonic buzz, a stinger which injects enemies with a deadly drug, and honey-vapor grenades that instantaneously knock people out.

History: Barry Eames was a scientist working for the U.S. space program. Feeling his contributions were not properly recognised, he decided to arrange for a little extra for himself - he slightly diverted an unmanned Mars probe on its way back to Earth, so that it would land in an out-of-the-way spot, allowing him a chance to check the strange meteorite that is it's payload first and find out if it might be of value. When it came down in the desert, Barry drove to the site, in time to see the meteorite crack open and discharge giant bees.

Stung repeatedly, Barry was forever altered by the alien venom. Found wandering in the desert, muttering "The bees...save me from the bees!", he is taken to hospital where the doctors discover that his heartbeat has tripled and his blood has somehow changed. Healing swiftly, he sneaks out of the medical facility and returns to the meteorite, which mysteriously seals itself and launches back into space.

Taken to Deimos, one of the moons of Mars, Eames is confronted by the leaders of a race of extra-terrestrials, who explain that the stings have transformed Barry into a bee-alien like them, and give him a special costume. They try to keep him captive, believing he will not be able to maintain the secrecy of their plans of conquest for Earth, but he manages to escape, renames himself the Bee, and begins create havoc, believing "My worthy deeds will force all Earthlings to surrender to my superior world. Many of your great scientists have predicted that one day insects will rule the Earth. You laughed and called them crazy, but I shall prove them right. The day is not far away when insects will indeed rule the himans of the Earth. You will become our slaves and solve many of our problems - one of which is labor. The entire human race, what is left of it, that is, will become slaves to my race."

Later government scientists would synthesise a formula that restored Barry's sanity. Once this happened, he went to work for the F.Bee.I (genuinely)

Comments: In spite of the cover of the comic calling him Bee-Man, the character is only called the Bee in the original story.

Thanks to Nathan Genovese for providing information about the character's return to sanity.

CLARIFICATIONS: None

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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