A Fractal of Foxes: CCAHAZC #14
Jul. 8th, 2024 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyThe word "Crisis," in DC Comics published after 1984, has meant an epic threat to the entire multiverse, all of existence everywhere, or at least all known planes of existence.
Before then, though, an inter-universe "crisis" was a more modest kind of adventure. More charming.
Justice League of America featured many stories with interdimensional crossovers--and, wherever possible, titled them "Crisis on Earth-[something]!"
That's why the 1985 miniseries was called Crisis on Infinite Earths--to connect itself to those earlier stories even as it ramped up the scale.
CoIE was in development by 1983, and the pros at DC knew it'd mean an end to these smaller-scale interdimensional reunions. Still, they were a much-loved fixture at the company, and they weren't gone yet.
So-o-o...
Captain Carrot (Rodney Rabbit) and the Zoo Crew run into their old enemy Armordillo, who vanishes in mid-fight. They then engage another villain, Amazoo, who likewise vanishes, but this one rattles Rodney more...because he comes right from the pages of the comic Rodney draws.
Shaken, he returns to his studio at the Z-Building, but he doesn't get much work done before...
Trapped on a world where they're only known as fictional characters (and the comics-to-film pipeline hasn't really taken off), the Just'a Lotta Animals have been trying to find either the cartoonist who draws their comic or this world's own superheroes. Rodney reveals they've found both.
Gardner Fox, whose name needed no modification to appear in this story, was the creator of the Justice League and Justice Society of America, the instigator of the "Crisis on Earth-" tradition, and the person who introduced the whole multiple-Earths concept in "Flash of Two Worlds," alluding to an other-dimensional version of himself:
The Zoo Crew and Just'a Lotta Animals team up--after a quick misunderstanding and fight, of course, I mean DUHHH--to address four different emergencies.
Each sub-team gets a chapter in the classic JLA style: one investigates some earthquakes and find Digger O' Doom's the cause; another looks into some forest destruction and finds Shaggy Dawg, the Earth-C-Minus version of Shaggy Man.
Both villains vanish upon their defeat. As for the others...
The ZC and JLA realize these fights are just Hoot and Faust running interference, and the heroes need to get to Earth-C-Minus before the villains conquer it. None of these heroes have attempted traveling to a different Earth before this, but the turtles can do a lot with vibrational frequencies, Alley-Kat-Abra has magic, and Green Lambkin's power ring is the next best thing, so how hard could it be?
The Just'a Lotta Animals here were actually a rough draft for the Zoo Crew. Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, and Scott Shaw! proposed them as a series before going back to the drawing board and designing a more original team. Licensing issues were the reason for that rejection: DC couldn't license Super-Squirrel for a cartoon because they'd already signed licensing deals for Superman, and those deals covered every version of Superman, including a squirrel one. I feel like it's a happy accident that it didn't work out: this JLA is fun as a change of pace, but the Zoo Crew benefit from the greater creative freedom of not being straight-up parodies.
Next issue: Cap's fictophilia gets way, way out of hand.
Before then, though, an inter-universe "crisis" was a more modest kind of adventure. More charming.
Justice League of America featured many stories with interdimensional crossovers--and, wherever possible, titled them "Crisis on Earth-[something]!"
That's why the 1985 miniseries was called Crisis on Infinite Earths--to connect itself to those earlier stories even as it ramped up the scale.
CoIE was in development by 1983, and the pros at DC knew it'd mean an end to these smaller-scale interdimensional reunions. Still, they were a much-loved fixture at the company, and they weren't gone yet.
So-o-o...
Captain Carrot (Rodney Rabbit) and the Zoo Crew run into their old enemy Armordillo, who vanishes in mid-fight. They then engage another villain, Amazoo, who likewise vanishes, but this one rattles Rodney more...because he comes right from the pages of the comic Rodney draws.
Shaken, he returns to his studio at the Z-Building, but he doesn't get much work done before...
Trapped on a world where they're only known as fictional characters (and the comics-to-film pipeline hasn't really taken off), the Just'a Lotta Animals have been trying to find either the cartoonist who draws their comic or this world's own superheroes. Rodney reveals they've found both.
Gardner Fox, whose name needed no modification to appear in this story, was the creator of the Justice League and Justice Society of America, the instigator of the "Crisis on Earth-" tradition, and the person who introduced the whole multiple-Earths concept in "Flash of Two Worlds," alluding to an other-dimensional version of himself:
The Zoo Crew and Just'a Lotta Animals team up--after a quick misunderstanding and fight, of course, I mean DUHHH--to address four different emergencies.
Each sub-team gets a chapter in the classic JLA style: one investigates some earthquakes and find Digger O' Doom's the cause; another looks into some forest destruction and finds Shaggy Dawg, the Earth-C-Minus version of Shaggy Man.
Both villains vanish upon their defeat. As for the others...
The ZC and JLA realize these fights are just Hoot and Faust running interference, and the heroes need to get to Earth-C-Minus before the villains conquer it. None of these heroes have attempted traveling to a different Earth before this, but the turtles can do a lot with vibrational frequencies, Alley-Kat-Abra has magic, and Green Lambkin's power ring is the next best thing, so how hard could it be?
The Just'a Lotta Animals here were actually a rough draft for the Zoo Crew. Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, and Scott Shaw! proposed them as a series before going back to the drawing board and designing a more original team. Licensing issues were the reason for that rejection: DC couldn't license Super-Squirrel for a cartoon because they'd already signed licensing deals for Superman, and those deals covered every version of Superman, including a squirrel one. I feel like it's a happy accident that it didn't work out: this JLA is fun as a change of pace, but the Zoo Crew benefit from the greater creative freedom of not being straight-up parodies.
Next issue: Cap's fictophilia gets way, way out of hand.
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Date: 2024-07-09 08:13 pm (UTC)Some of the parallels don't hold up too well: Rodney claims he's drawn the JLA feature from the start, but if the feature started in 1959 and it's 1983 now...getting a little long in the tooth to keep running a superhero team, there, Rod? But even if he has drawn it that long (or if it's had a shorter run), he's gonna have to hand those reins off to someone else sooner or later, and yeah, that does raise questions about whether Earth-C-Minus will change its look then. (Plus, are there other artists working on independent books for these characters, and how does that affect things?) I love to explore these kinds of implications, but you do have to know when to walk away.