Bumblebee

## Karen Beecher

* Karen Beecher
* Bumblebee

**Karen Beecher**, also known as **Bumblebee**, is one of the main characters of the series *DC Super Hero Girls*. She is part of the Super Hero Girls team of superheroes.

## Development

Bumblebee's prototype suit was designed by Izzy Abreu, with input from storyboard artists, Lauren Faust, and David Perez. Show creator Lauren Faust wrote on Twitter that Karen is 14.

* Gallery

Presentation slide about the development of Bumblebee, shown at the *DC Super Hero Girls* panel at San Diego Comic Con 2018

Presentation slide about the development of Bumblebee, shown at the *DC Super Hero Girls* panel at San Diego Comic Con 2018

## Depiction

### Assertiveness

Karen first appears in the episode *Sweet Justice*. In her first scene, she trips and drops tools for metalworking and electronics while walking off the school bus. This shows that she was rather clumsy. Babs approaches to help her, and finds the glove of her Bumblebee suit in her satchel. When Babs introduce herself, Karen speaks so squeakily and quietly that she's barely heard. Later when the team is in detention, Karen attempts to flee the transpiring fight between Kara and Diana.

Karen is a hall monitor in the short *Buzzkill*. At first she has trouble asserting herself to Hal who wanders the halls despite not having a hall pass, but she manages to scare him into returning to class by pretending to be a ghost. Her clumsiness is shown again when she lean on a water fountain and gets splashed with water, much to her embarrassment.

The theme of Karen's assertiveness is explored again in the episode *Beeline*. She misses the last ferry home after not trying to jump on it while it leaves. Later, she fails to confront a team of supervillains led by Harley Quinn in a plot to blow up the bridge. All through the episode she fails to make herself understood to the team when she tries to tell them about the plot, until finally she asserts herself to Zee, who still dismisses Karen while she searches for her cape. Eventually Karen decides to take matters into her own hands, puts on her Bumblebee suit, and manages to stop Harley from detonating the explosives strapped to the bridge. After she foils the bombing, the rest of the team joins her to fight the villains.

Bumblebee manages to quickly and effectively communicate urgent information to Supergirl in the episode *Super Who?*. Despite initially being shrugged off, she quickly gets Supergirl to listen to her and give her the information she needs to prevent Metropolis from being destroyed.

### Bumblebee suit

   Karen develops her Bumblebee suit during the course of the series. Her suit first appears in *Sweet Justice*, with the torso and gloves shaped very cylindrically, her boots appearing like oversized yellow rubber boots, her visor held by a strap around her helmet, her antennas are bulky and crooked, and parts of her suit like the wings and wrist controls are held together with tape. Later when Diana is assessing the team's capabilities, Karen loops another ribbon of electrical tape around the torso of her suit. The suit's next appearance is in the episode *Meet the Cheetah*, where it's much sleeker and form-fitting, with the boots and gloves shaped more aerodynamically, the antennas slimmer, the helmet without a strap holding the visor to it, and the wings and wrist controls without tape.

    Karen mentions upgrading her suit in the short *Plight of the Bumblebee*. She is worried about her perfect school attendance record, trying to arrive before the bell rings after sleeping in. She can't get out of her malfunctioning Bumblebee suit, angrily telling the "stupid upgrades" to work. She calls Babs on her wrist communicator for assistance, but she only arrives after Kara punches Karen into a locker, not knowing it's Karen and not a bug. Babs tells Kara she punched Karen, and when they open the locker the Bumblebee suit falls off of her. Her clumsiness is shown when she falls down and bumps into a tree.

## References

1. ↑ Izzy Abreu (March 27, 2019). some work i did for #dcsuperherogirls. Twitter.
2. ↑ Lauren Faust (March 13, 2020) I never thought about specifically, but most of the characters are 16. Bumblebee is 14, and Wonder Woman is 317. Twitter