Bubastis.
Bubastis was a female genetically engineered red and black-striped lynx created by Adrian Veidt as an experiment.
Biography
Bubastis played an important part in Adrian Veidt's life, acting as his sole companion at Karnak.
During a visit from Laurie Juspeczyk and Jon Osterman to Karnak, Veidt remarks that his pet "costs a rather lot to feed."
In 1985, Veidt's marketer wrote to him asking if he could add Bubastis and Adrian's fellow Crimebuster teammates, Nite Owl II and Rorschach (along with Nite Owl's ship "Archie" and former villain Moloch the Mystic), to their Ozymandias Action Figure marketing line. Veidt enthusiastically agrees to Bubastis, but rejected the others. He also requested one of the toys of his cat after they are produced.
Bubastis used to sit with Veidt watching television and follows him around everywhere, which she pays for later in her life; while Dr. Manhattan is following Veidt through Karnak, the latter uses Bubastis to lure Jon into an intrinsic field subtractor. Uttering a regretful apology to Bubastis, Veidt throws a switch that incinerates his loyal pet and Jon. Jon then, to Veidt's utter astonishment (though he admitted that he wasn't sure whether removing Jon's intrinsic field again would work), re-assembles himself from the ashes in less than ten seconds.
Assuming he cared about Bubastis - which seems to be the case - it is probable that his apparent calmness was due to the fact that he didn't care who died in the making of his utopia or that he simply shut it out until later.
Biography/HBO
Legacy
In 1999, Adrian Veidt named a subsidiary of his company that specialized in pet cloning after Bubastis. By 2019, Bubastis had been made into plush toys.
Doomsday Clock
The clone from the original Bubastis appears. In Doomsday Clock #11, Adrian Veidt states that she helped him create a detonation while a little blue spark appear in one of Bubastis's eyes.
Trivia
- The name Bubastis comes from the Egyptian transcription Per-Bast. The Per literally translates to House while Bast is the Egyptian goddess Bast or Bastet. The name literally translates to House of Bast. Bastet is the goddess of cats, sun and moon. Bubastis himself is a feline, and is genetically superior to other felines.
- In addition, Bubastis is the name of a place in Lower Egypt that at one point served as an Egyptian war. As Bubastis seemed to imply to be a sidekick to Ozymandias both in the arctic as well as combat, the name is a full embodiment of Bubastis’ characteristics. This is also an appropriate naming from Veidt because he is well-informed on ancient Egyptian culture and would know the city and god names that best fit a powerful crime-fighting cat beast.
