Ok I did a search through the forum and didn't find this question being asked. So first the power:

"LEADER OF THE PET AVENGERS... PLUS CAT: Lockjaw and Hairball can use Leadership. If they succeed, they may use it to remove tokens from characters with the Animal or Pet Avengers keyword regardless of point value."

Second my question:

Does the character you are removing the token from need to be adjecent to Lockjaw and Hairball? It is modifing Leadership which requires them to be adjacent, however that portion is not mentioned if the character has Animal or Pet Avengers as a keyword.

Second question:

Can Lockjaw and Hairball remove an action token from themself?

It doesn't say it's modifying the adjacency requirement, therefore it's not. It's only modifying the point value requirement because that's what the power mentions.

They would need to be adjacent.

No, A character is never adjacent to itself.

...and since the adjacency requirement is still in effect, they can't remove tokens from themselves.

They still have to be adjacent.

If the word 'any' were in there. We would have to get out the magic dart board of "What does 'any' mean this time?" to determine the answer, but it's not in there, so the answer is definitely they still need to be adjacent.