The Animal Army Explained (& How They’re Different In Comics)
Noah Mitchell
Updated on October 05, 2026
Sweet Tooth's Animal Army serve an important purpose for the plot of the show - but have changed massively from their bloodthirsty comic counterparts.
The Animal Army Netflix's adaptation of Sweet Tooth introduces to the audiences is a decidedly whimsical one - but what were they like in the comics? Sweet Tooth has been praised by viewers for its beautiful visuals and storytelling, with much acclaim also being directed towards the series protagonist, who comes in the form of a wide-eyed and optimistic human-deer hybrid named Gus. Armed with a mission to find his mother and all the kindness and hope a child can possess, Gus' journey is one filled with as many friends as it is inevitable enemies - balancing the sometimes painfully real pandemic the story is based in with far lighter moments.
However, these cheerful moments do somewhat distance the show from the original source material, as the Sweet Tooth comic was far less optimistic than its Netflix offspring, with far more violence and far grittier characters. This is true for almost the entire cast, whose backstories, motivations, and general demeanor were altered in small ways so as to make the overall experience somewhat more hopeful. Said alterations include changing Gus' father to be more a caring paternal figure than a traumatized zealot, changing Gus himself to be far more carefree, and - perhaps most interestingly - changing the Animal Army introduced in Sweet Tooth episode 4 almost entirely.
The show introduces the Animal Army as a Hook style collection of animal-costumed tech-savvy teens, who were brought together by their leader Bear, and who help Gus on his journey to find his mother by providing him her last known address. Though the group go to kill Jeppard via means of releasing an actual tiger to kill him, they appear largely a peaceful organization - one more built to have a sense of community and protection, instead of to wage war on the rest of the post-apocalyptic world. The comic has a very different version of this group, as they are instead a collection of bloodthirsty animal-masked cultists who appear to revere hybrids. Instead of being led by the practical yet well-intentioned Bear (who eventually joins the protagonists), the faction's leader is instead a man named Glebhelm, who possesses one of the more sinister backstories in the entirety of the series. After his wife gave birth to a pack of dog hybrids, Glebhelm allowed them to kill her for sustenance, training his feral children to become his greatest weapon. All this in mind, it is entirely understandable why the Netflix version of Sweet Tooth ultimately changes this figurehead and the group itself - as not only does this remove a substantial portion of the violence and bloodshed in the series, but it also allows Gus to receive a vital clue from the group and continue his story.
Though this decision does ultimately alter a large chunk of the plot, it's one that is absolutely vital for the overall tone the series appears to have been trying to cultivate. The Sweet Tooth show isn't naively cheery, but it also doesn't pull its punches, saving moments of darkness for when they will have the biggest payoff. Had the Animal Army of the comics been in the show, it would have seemed absolutely impossible for them to interact with a character like Gus without entirely destroying his optimistic outlook on the world. It's also worth mentioning that their appearances in the comics tended to involve the child hybrids of the story obtaining serious injuries or even dying, which would likely have tampered with the show's twelve-plus age rating, thus losing a potential cornerstone audience.
The changes made for the Animal Army are reflective of a lot of fine-tuning that Sweet Tooth ultimately pulled off in order to create a very different narrative that still contains most of the same tenents and elements of the original. While this may have come as a surprise to readers of the comic, it's one that isn't negative, as these decisions streamline the story in a way that arguably fits better for television. With the entire first season containing a relatively small amount of the overall plot, it makes sense to remove a minor villain such as Glebhelm so that focus can be placed on the series' major antagonist Abbott - both making him more imposing, and allowing Sweet Tooth to have one further friendly face via adding Bear to the mix.
