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scans_dailyMost Captain Carrot stories begin by asking you to imagine an alternate reality full of talking cats and dogs and rabbits and such. For this final, ridiculously overlong Captain Carrot piece, I'd like to imagine an alternate reality full of Captain Carrot.
Captain Carrot ended its monthly run with #20, reworking its #21-26 into a miniseries. But WHAT IF...it was still running today??? (Sketch by Kevin Maguire.)
It's a crazy idea, but not quite as crazy as it sounds. Not so much a one-in-a-trillion shot as one in a THOUSAND. The most likely scenario goes like this:
CBS decides to greenlight the Saturday-morning cartoon series Wonder Woman and the Zoo Crew. Alley-Kat-Abra, absent from the initial TV proposal but not the second, doesn't make it into the final version.
It only lasts two seasons, and those by the skin of its teeth--cartoon violence was a controversial topic in those days, and its more subversive elements--like references to grown-up movies and TV shows--could sit awkwardly when redone for a kiddie audience.
But a certain subset of viewers love it love it love it, and from their ranks, a fanbase is born. As the decades roll on, variant TV shows appear with varying tones: one aims for a Simpsons/Family Guy vibe with little action, another runs closer to an action series with just a light coating of humor. The most successful finds the balance.
In the 2010s, there are three movies. The comics series, therefore, never stops. But it does change, just as the nature of superhero fiction, and DC Comics specifically, evolves with each passing decade.
Here are ten notable storylines from its now lengthy run. Like in its first twenty issues, it tends to focus on straightforward action plots that follow the model of its human-focused contemporaries, but with a coating of superficial silliness that makes it go down smoother. That does mean some rough times for the Crew, though, especially in the hard-edged Eighties and Nineties.
(P.S.: When I include clips from other works in here, I don't mean imitating or parodying those comics directly--it's more about channeling vibes.)
1. "Last Saturday," 1985, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #43-45 (special CRISIS crossover)
So hey, if the Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed every alternate Earth but five, the Zoo Crew probably met the same fate as Lady Quark's family, right?
Actually no! In our world, Len Wein's Who's Who letter pages did a merciful reclassification:
But if Captain Carrot was actually being published at the time, this shift in status--from parallel Earth to dimension--would've been something the Zoo Crewers had to fight for, just as the actual Crisis involved a little more life-and-death drama than a one-line memo that read, "We've decided multiple Earths are dumb and lame; all our characters are on one Earth now, except the crotchety old duplicates we're mostly forgetting about."
In "Last Saturday," the Crewers get an early warning that the antimatter wall of the Crisis is on its way--from a few of the Just'a Lotta Animals, now Earth-C-Minus' last survivors and barely less traumatized than Lady Quark was. While half the heroes pursue several desperate avenues to save Earth-C, the rest just try to have a good day, knowing that it might well be their last. Two of their three last-ditch plans fail, but the last succeeds. The Zoo Crew, you might remember, did encounter one being who might have the power to relocate their solar system to another dimension. Once they reach him, he's willing to do it...for the proper (heh-heh)...compensation...
When all other strategies are exhausted, Abra makes the sacrifice, granting the Time-Keeper the consent she never imagined she could. As a result, Earth-C is saved (its history slightly altered), and Abra disappears from the group for a few years. The refugee Wonder Wabbit joins the team--leaving the group with a lineup that follows the template of the cartoon, something editors will care about for a little while. (WW will stay on for a few years--long enough for Rodney and Diana to realize that their mutual fantasies of a relationship don't measure up at all to the reality.)
Somewhat grim developments, perhaps, and especially hard on the heroines--but it is the Eighties. Abra will outwit the Time-Keeper and come back to the group stronger and unscarred--but not until shortly after the second story on this list.
Funnier Subplot: Rubberduck impersonates President Mallard Fillmore to pardon Dr. Hoot so they can use his expertise in interdimensional travel. Byrd is...not as good an actor as he thinks.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
CAPTAIN CARROT: "Uh, when you say 'the late Super-Squirrel'...do you mean 'late' like the White Rabbit worries about being late, or...?"
GREEN LAMBKIN: "This antimatter wall is less 'White Rabbit' and more just...WHITE, Rabbit."
2. "The Juicy Contract," 1988, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #60-63 (begins with MILLENNIUM tie-in)
In 1986, Rona Barrett lost her gig as senior correspondent for Entertainment Tonight. Her prestige as "interviewer to the stars," already on the decline, never recovered. (Some years later, she'd have a second act as an advocate for seniors, a hero-in-real-life role she still occupies today.) The Oz-Wonderland War included a couple of bits that implied Rona's funny-animal mirror image, Rova Barkitt, had had a similar reversal of fortune.
In early 1988, DC had Manhunter mania--every ongoing comic it published had a sleeper agent who served these alien robot overlords. Superman was getting pantsed by his childhood friend and the master manipulator behind the Justice League was getting shot by his own secretary.
(Again, Justice League International was the "funny" series of the late 1980s! And I cut OUT the most jarring part of this scene! Anyway...)
No better time for Captain Carrot to do the betrayal storyline it had been setting up from the start!
The Zoo Crew is blindsided by the release of Hero, Bitch! by Rova Barkitt, a crisp tell-all that reveals all their identities and other juicy tidbits. Rova admits she started writing the book three weeks after joining the team, but claims she wasn't the one who released it--that she'd decided to hold onto it until the Zoo Crew went public on their own. But the others--even Byrd--aren't buying it. It's just so easy to believe betrayal from someone who's always been transparently self-interested, right?
As a result, no one is looking into Notta Spy Dern, the spying spider on the Z-Building's support staff who hacked their computers ages ago. Nor are they ready for Dern's masters, the Ram Hunters, robot rams with the Manhunters' color scheme and Elmer Fudd's face and speech pattern. I don't have the art skills to render these guys, so just look at the images below and let your mind drift a bit.
Funnier Subplot: Getting outed as heroes throws most Crewers' lives into chaos--Fastback's family is targeted, Rubberduck loses all his roles, Little Cheese is suspended from school for his classmates' safety, and even Pig-Iron is affected when his ol' buddy Wolfie is made a pariah, outed as a former wuz-wolf.
But for Rodney? Getting unmasked is the best thing that's ever happened to him. He'd lost his creative spark with JLA and was almost unemployed as a freelancer, but now Marsupial Comics is offering him a dream contract. Wonder Wabbit has moved on and Abra is still MIA, so Rodney's now a two-time victim of no-fault heartbreak, meaning he comes off very sympathetic in Rova's book. People are cheering him in the streets. Winona Redpanda wants a date.
So in addition to dealing with the possibility that Rova's sold them out, plus the whole ALIEN INVASION thing, Rodney's trying to divert his teammates' attention away from how well he's doing while all their lives suck. Spoiler: it doesn't work.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
RAM HUNTERS: "No one escapes the Wham Huntehs! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
CREW: "The WHAT??"
3. "The Death of Captain Carrot," 1994, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #146-150
Burt Reynolds, like Rona Barrett, was in his mid-forties and at his career peak when Captain Carrot launched in early 1982. It was all downhill from there. A has-been actor can still be a sympathetic hero, but by the mid-Nineties, Reynolds was becoming better known for his ugly divorce than even his has-been status. (Even if you didn't buy Loni Anderson's account of the marriage...and I do...Reynolds hardly came out looking like a guy you'd want to cheer for.)
Uncomfortable with questions about just how much of Reynolds was mirrored in Byrd Rentals, and knowing Captain Carrot needs a shot in the arm, the creative team elects to kill two birds with one stone, and also to literally kill a bird.
Facing a cabal of old and new enemies, the Zoo Crew hold the line against incredible odds, but it's a war of attrition. The field of villains narrows to four badasses, the field of conscious heroes to two--Captain Carrot and Rubberduck. Then Rodney runs out of cosmic-carrot charge at just the wrong moment, already deprived of his backups. Making a slingshot of his arm, Rubberduck ejects Cap from the battlefield and pulls a one-time-only trick, splitting himself into multiple Rubberducks to bring the odds close to even.
The four Rubberducks eke out a win, but there's a reason Byrd hasn't pulled this trick before. They can't reintegrate or last long separately. His/their minutes are thus numbered, but he manages to go out with grace. In a parody of an Oscar speech, he says a few last things that need saying, to his fans, his teammates, his loved ones, and especially Rova.
Cap might take the loss even harder than Rova does. After he stressed himself out for years riding herd on the Zoo Crew, having a hero die on his watch is the last straw. He hangs up his carrots and cape, and thus the "Captain Carrot" identity is now officially dead. Whoof!
Funnier Subplot: Rova does get one distinct pleasure in the aftermath of Byrd's demise. Every film studio he ever worked with puts out a PSA to mark his passing, a sort of "Our Family Is Grieving" thing, and Rova delights in exposing how they actually treated Byrd for the last few years of his career.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
RUBBERDUCK 1: "Okay, guys, so you beat the Z-listers, but now you're up against my REAL favorite team! It's limited only by my ego, which, as we all know, HAS no limits!"
SOLAR BEAR: "Four or four HUNDRED, I'll roast you ALL, you--"
RUBBERDUCK 2: "Talking here. And dodging, and punching, but mostly talking. Anyway, I'm Duck, HE'S Duck--"
JURASSIC LARK: "RAAAR HOLD STILL--"
X-VERMINATOR: "ERROR·ERROR·ERROR·DETECTING·MULTIPLE·TARGETS"
RUBBERDUCK 3: "--I'M Duck, and this is our co-pilot, Goose!"
COCKIN' BULL: "How did--What--WHY IS HE 'GOOSE'?"
RUBBERDUCK 4/GOOSE: [gooses Cockin' Bull]
4. "The Bleating Edge!!!," 1994, Z-Force #1
The Zoo Crew is no more. In its place rises Z-Force, and they're kenneling no prisoners.
Fastback and Little Cheese don't care for this rougher approach and opt out, but the new lineup includes a few familiar faces. Pig Iron fits right in with this Lee-Liefeld-influenced era...
Alley-Kat-Abra and Yankee Poodle both vie for leadership early on, which goes about as well as you'd expect...
And a few new members join: Klawz, a creature of unbelievable violence whose speech balloons contain mostly single-word statements rendered as a cut-up collage...
Foxxfire, whose main interests seem to be setting stuff on fire, making innuendos, and posing (Okay, there's a LITTLE more going on inside both her and Klawz's heads, but the series won't be in any hurry to reveal any depths to them)...
Whirlibird, who becomes the team's sole source of optimism and positivity at this point (Her costume, name, and power to create tornadoes were part of Scott Shaw!'s early sketches, and by 1994, she's already teamed with the Zoo Crew a few times)...
And Captain Carrot. But not THAT Captain Carrot.
In this era of replacement heroes and legacy heroes, Rodney has, after some coaxing, handed his supply of cosmic carrots to ex-military "Gruff" Billy Goater, who develops strength, endurance, super-climbing, and super-ramming ability like the "blasting" of Cannonball from the New Mutants. Billy becomes the new Captain Carrot, and his approach to discipline allows Z-Force to split the difference between the Zoo Crew's old way of doing things--and total anarchy.
Facing sorta-barely-sketched-out villains with names like Broot and Beef, Z-Force will respond by taking funny-animal superherodom...TO THE EXXXTREEEEEMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!
Funnier Subplot: This is all pretty ridiculous--that's coming across, right? Trying to parody the Nineties means you run into Poe's Law...
But anyway, you know how comic strips love to endanger a mailman by having a dog try to maul him or someone like Dagwood Bumstead collide with him on his way to work? Z-Force has Pika Johns, a pizza-delivery guy who keeps narrowly escaping Klawz (who attacks him at random) and Foxxfire (who tries to seduce him at random) with his life and some shred of his dignity. (Foxxfire: "More pizza? Oh, but...how will we ever PAY for it?" Pika: "With...money? We take PastureCard, Hammerican Express, and Squeezer...")
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
SCOTTIE MCCLOUD: "Come on out, everyone! It's time to give this battle some CLOSURE!"
CAPTAIN CARROT (Billy): "Here's what we know. Scottie McCloud is out there 'deconstructing' us, getting us to question the very nature of our reality. Yankee Poodle won't stop babbling about vexillology and Foxxfire's going on about the...'male gays,' I think? But that's the point, there's no TIME to think when he turns thought itself against you! Just charge out, hit him fast, and hit him HARD!"
PIG-IRON: "Don't gotta tell me twice, soldier boy. 'Course, you don't gotta tell me once, either. But I'm sure there's SOME reason yer here."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "You stubborn goat--That's just a word-specific FRACTION of what he can do! He has a three-point perspective on our reality we can NEVER share, not if we want to stay sane!"
CAPTAIN CARROT (Billy): "Abra, I know you resent me and I know why, but--"
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "He doesn't just make us think! He makes us 'th'ink on paper'!"
KLAWZ: "Claws. CUT paper. Like scissors. I rock."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "This isn't a battle plan! This is INSANITY, Klawz!"
KLAWZ: "SANTA CLAUS?? WHERE???"
5. "He's 'Back," 1996-1997, Fastback #1-6
After barely two years of Z-Force, the fan base is clamoring for the return of the original team's lineup or something close to it--how about that, it's almost as if the creators planned it that way--and this miniseries serves as a lead-in to that return, featuring the most-missed of the original Zoo Crewers. Fastback never left the superhero life when he left the team: he just moved his operations out of Califurnia, with a focus on the good ol' South.
The 1990s were a good time to be a speedster thanks to Mark Waid's fruitful run on Flash, and this mini shows Fastback finding his own way to some of Wally West's tricks, the same way he found his way to Barry Allen's--with more comical trial and error, since he has even less patience than Wally for fancy book-learnin'.
Fastback's principal enemy during this period is a charismatic reality-warper called the Grey-Coated Retriever. As long as enough people believe in his power, GCR can restore the Hammerican South's imagined past--and though he brings back the nice parts first--the parts that get good ol' boys nostalgic--he means to bring back the whole Antebellum South and the evil system that underlaid it. Fastback has his own deep love of the South, but he can't let that blind him to injustice.
(Not to put too fine a point on it, but characters like Rogue and Gambit in the racially-themed X-Men never quite seemed to get around to that issue, even when visualizing the "fantasy South" as below...)
Funnier Subplot: Contrasting with the Southern-fried scenes, throwing them into sharper relief, are a few scenes in an office. ("Dilbird" courtesy of an X user avatar.)
Timmy Joe runs into his old pal Dilbird (this is the Nineties, before Dilbert got embarrassing) who has a temporary solution to Timmy Joe's perpetual joblessness...Timmy Joe can pose as Dilbird at the office. Dilbird just can't take the boredom any more, but his office's slow pace seems perfect for T.J. "Just wear my clothes and this wig and believe me...nobody will notice," Dilbird says. "But whut d'y'all DO?" asks Timmy Joe. Dilbird replies, "I don't even know."
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
FASTBACK: "Awright, Retriever! Y'all shouldn'ta oughtn'ta done what y'done, an' I'ma knock you back to last Tuesday so you won't'na haven'ta DONE it!"
RETRIEVER: "I'm truly dazzled by your grammar, my dear sir. But you know, nostalgia is very like grammar. It finds the present tense...and the past perfect."
FASTBACK: "Well, now, that IS like my Grammar...an' my Granper, too...but that ain't th' POINT!"
6. "Mother Hood," 2003, Captain Carrot #56-60.
Things got pretty close to "back to basics" with the new, shorter-titled series. Rodney rediscovered some of his love of superheroing and took some carrots back from Billy--they're growing separate patches now, and Billy's fighting injustice on his own as Commander Carrot. Klawz and Foxxfire are out of the team, and Fastback and Little Cheese are back in, restoring the "classic seven" except that Whirlybird is now in Rubberduck's old spot. The group's secret identities have also been restored, with Rova's tell-all wiped from existence, as tends to happen when somebody decides they want to write secret identities again (happened to Spider-Man, Superman, Iron Man, Daredevil...).
But though the lineup is classic, the restored Zoo Crew have also leveled up--and they've needed to, since their challenges have leveled up too. Think Grant Morrison's JLA and a little bit of Warren Ellis's Authority.
Mother Hood--who's taken over Brother Hood's mask and A.C.R.O.S.T.I.C. organization, since it's not like HE'S got any more use for them--has a multi-point plan to conquer the United Species, targeting the weak points of both the nation and the heroes who'd defend it. Among her allies are the Squawker, putting out hypersonic signals of aggression through every electronic device in the country; Zeu, the king of the Geek gods, whose support has been bought by Mother Hood's plan to consolidate church and state and build temples in his honor; and the Mouse Trapper, who's invaded the Z-Building with devices designed to take out each Crew member.
Non-Zoo-Crew-aligned heroes like the refugee JLAers and the old members of Z-Force have likewise been prepared for and dealt with. Only Hammerican Eagle, just suiting up for the first time, is a factor that Mother Hood hasn't considered. But it's probably not a big deal. What can one guy with no powers do?
[I see no reason why Geoff Johns wouldn't work his character concepts for the series in somewhere, but I never minded the Eagle on the concept level! I just don't like how inconsistent everything is about him. Here's a good chance to do him right, I'd say...]
Funnier Subplot: Little Cheese is the other x-factor in Mother's plan, since he's not IN the Z-Building when the Mouse Trapper starts working his gadgets. Chester's actually trying to get to college the day all hell breaks loose. Realizing all hands are needed, he has to embark on a road trip to Waspington, D.C., hoping he can get there in time AND make any kind of difference when he arrives. Need I add that his car breaks down almost immediately? It's a somewhat Planes, Trains, and Automobiles kind of adventure for him, but he does find his way to Mother Hood for the climax.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
MOTHER HOOD: "No need to resist, my children. Mother has womb--W-O-M-B--for all of you."
LITTLE CHEESE: "The creepiness of that pun might qualify as your deadliest attack yet."
MOTHER HOOD: "Sorry, dear. Didn't mean to make you go 'Cheez' with my cheesiness."
LITTLE CHEESE: "I AM ACTUALLY SHRINKING FROM CRINGE!"
7. "Trading Species," 2008, Captain Carrot #115-120
Feline Faust magics the Zoo Crew into swapping species: Alley-Kat-Abra is now A-Bird-Kadabra, Captain Carrot is Captain Canine, Fastback is now Hare-Racer, Little Cheese is now Mini-Kit, Pig-Iron is now Mass-Mouse, Whirlibird is now Twisturtle, and Yankee Poodle is now Porcine Patriot. (Image by Ritwells.)
Faust then draws them into combat with the Endangered, a super-group of less well-known species, mostly endangered on our world (tamarin, okapi, animals like that) who haven't had the lucky breaks the Zoo Crew have--more or less the X-Men to their Avengers, except they're not part of a larger mutant population. They tend to stay off the radar, so the Crew don't know them, and they take the transformed Crew for impostors.
The members of the Endangered are: Quaika, a quokka with the power to cause earthquakes and other vibrations; O'Copy, a power-mimicking okapi; Hammerin' Tamarin (Hamtam for short), with fists like piledrivers; Lot'o'Axolotl (Lot'o for short), who can create multiple bodies; Howler, a monkey with a sonic scream; and the leader, Caped Capybara (nicknamed by his initials), whose soothing presence can lower tensions or put people directly to sleep.
At first the transformation feels like a temporary inconvenience, but as the Endangered put the Crew on the retreat and Abra struggles to reverse the spell, the Crewers start to experience symptoms we'd now call dysmorphia. Ironically, this leads Quaika to believe the Zoo Crew are who they say they are--she had similar troubles once. She's still a bit neurotic, but much better than she was when everyone told her she was male. That bridge of understanding allows the two groups to unite and track down Faust.
Minority metaphors can be tricky--even the X-Men don't get or deserve universal praise for how they've handled things. But as trans representation's just getting off the ground, most (progressive) readers view this as a positive step. Pig-Iron gets a little soliloquy about how his sense of self changed--how he felt free to BE himself--only after he became a swine of steel.
Funnier Subplot: The main action plot is a consistent grind with no room for personal side quests, but before and after, Felina is a bridesmaid for an old sorority sister, and the experience gives her a new perspective on the fussing over getting appearances just so. Which also plants a little seed for the next story on the list.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
QUAIKA: "See? 'C'!"
CAPTAIN CANINE/CAPED CAPYBARA: "'C.C.,' what?"
METAL MOUSE: "Naw, naw, she's sayin', 'si, si.'"
QUAIKA: "I"m trying to say they are who they say! Look at his chest emblem! 'C'! See?"
LOT'O: "So?"
A-BIRD-KADABRA: [sigh]
8. "My Bun-Cat Gleek Wedding," 2013, Zoo Crew #13-18
Rodney's retirement from superheroics was hard on his on-again, off-again relationship with Felina. And he's sought out other partners over the years, as has she upon occasion--Wonder Wabbit, Carrie Carrot, Magical Mister Mephistopheles. But the two have been growing closer ever since his return to the costumed life, and the day of their wedding arrives. A talking version of Gleek from Super Friends is the officiant who will wed them, hence the title.
Fortunately, the team's ranks are huge at the moment--incorporating virtually every hero still alive from its 32-year publishing history, including former JLAers, members of the Endangered, and guys I haven't even mentioned. (Even Klawz and Firefoxx are now somewhat matured.) So the mood is celebratory and secure in the Emerald City of Oz, where Cap and Abra plan to have their ceremony.
Who would mess with such an assemblage of heroes in such a secure location? Not Roquat! After trying to take over the Zoo Crew's world in revenge, he's imprisoned in Nome, Alasska.
Unfortunately, Mister Mephistopheles--secretly the Devil Himself, who is a constant in every reality--has transported the Crewers to Hell three days early to taint these nuptials and what they symbolize. I mean, denying heroes wedded bliss, that's his thing! It's not just in Amazing Spider-Man where he pulls that trick! (And sure, he's usually working some additional angle that'll cause even FURTHER pain and misery, but that's because he is GOOD AT HIS JOB and does things EFFICIENTLY, unlike SOME people at the office who just can't do think in the long term, LARRY.)
The funny-animal consciousness isn't equipped to handle memories of Animal Hell--it's just too overwhelming. For those few lucky enough to escape, the experience fades like a dream afterward. So when Mr. M pulls the Zoo Crew there temporarily, hoping to tarnish them before he has to return them to the living world, they're fighting a battle that, one way or another, they won't remember. The story crosscuts between that grand battle and the mundane concerns of the actual wedding day, as both Felina and Rodney get seized by last-minute doubts and uncertainties. Only by following both story threads can we find out whether the wedding has been poisoned or remains pure, whether the marriage will be long and happy or fractious and short.
But c'mon, you really think the creative team's gonna be that sadistic after all this time? Of course not.
(DANG, Amanda Conner's work is fun.)
The real surprise is how hard Pig-Iron's willing to go on Captain Carrot's behalf, both in Hell and on Earth. Their friendship has had its fireworks, but in the end, PI knows who his buddies are--and how precious it is to live your best life.
Funnier Subplot: Whirlibird is as close to a constant source of positivity as you can get, and the rare occasions when she's really upset are upsetting for everybody. So on this day of celebration, nobody wants to tell her that her almost-girlfriend--her date to the reception--is actually kind of awful.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "The geomancy of the seating arrangements is RUINED! This wedding is CURSED!"
WHIRLIBIRD: "Not cursed. Blessed."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "HOW DO YOU KNOW? And how can you say that so CALMLY?"
WHIRLBIRD: "You guys are already three-time miracles just by being superheroes in love, Felina. One miracle's the superpowers, another's that you use them selflessly, and a third's that you trust each other after all you've been through. It's your love that matters. The ceremony's just how you SHOW it."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: [slow exhale] "Thank you, Carla Cardinal. I know I can count on you to save this wedding from any Bridezilla moments."
WHIRLIBIRD: "Way ahead of you! I already stopped the Bride of Frogzilla this morning. Giants need a lot of oxygen to keep themselves moving: one tornado down her throat and she was all 'oh no.' Or rather, 'O2...? No-o-o!'"
9. "Trapped in a World They Never Made," 2018-2019, Captain Carrot #1-18 (v.5)
As the cosmos keeps rearranging itself due to various Crises better documented in other comics...
An assortment of Zoo Crew members find themselves stuck in the human-dominated world of the Justice League while the multiverse is unmapped and not easy to transverse. While they work on finding a way home, they do their best to serve justice on a planet that would put them in zoos, on leashes, or on the dinner table. Their stay is full of crossovers with various DC heroes and villains, such as Wonder Woman, Beast Boy, G'Nort, Circe, Cheetah, and Ambush Bug.
Alley-Kat-Abra and Fastback were not among the heroes randomly thrown into this adventure--otherwise their powers could resolve the problem within minutes. Instead, the lineup is Captain Carrot, Yankee Poodle, Little Cheese, Quaika, Hammerican Eagle and...Rubberduck?
Yes, though it's taken ages (long enough for the real-life Burt Reynolds to no longer be a complicating factor), the pliable materials of Rubberduck's body have slowly reconstituted themselves into a living duck...though his memories are patchy, and he now seems much younger. He'll change his name to "Byrd Phoenix" rather than try to keep his old identity. Nevertheless, his return has delighted Rova, who's physically younger herself thanks to an unrelated Time-Keeper adventure.
You know how it goes: in comics, almost no hero dies for good, and almost no hero even ages out. (In 2024, Jay Garrick is chronologically 105 years old AT MINIMUM.)
Beyond the opportunity to have a lot of fun crossovers, this arc features some sharper-edged social satire than is usual for the Zoo Crew...partly as a tribute to the early Howard the Duck, partly as a response to Trump-era anxieties. All the better that the two "American" characters (YP and Hammerican Eagle) and the two most anxious characters (Quaika and Little Cheese) are part of the lineup.
Oh, and by the way? Rodney has TWO cosmic carrots as backups when they get to the humans' Earth. Spend them wisely, Rod...
Funnier Subplot: Quaika has a secondary power on a human world--humans find her debilitatingly cute. At first embarrassed by the attention, she begins to get a bit drunk on it, using her looks to get all kinds of cool stuff like an Instagram influencer. (It's a phase she'll grow past, but she's embracing it while it lasts.)
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
YANKEE POODLE: "It's not like I don't enjoy a good opportunistic binge, sweetie...but when it comes to your 'cute for loot' phase, I don't think all our colleagues are going to GET it."
QUAIKA: "Of course not! I'M the one who's getting stuff!"
RUBBERDUCK: "We should probably look into merch opportunities. Does this world have some version of Quackstarter?"
LITTLE CHEESE: "Someone's at the door. Says she's...'Wonder Whammin'?' Do I have that right?"
HAMMERICAN EAGLE: "She wears Hammerican symbols, but the internet says she's from...overseas? Seems suspicious."
CAPTAIN CARROT: "IT'S NOT HER--I mean, she's not HARE--not HERE--I'M not here!"
10. "Who Put The You In Universe?," 2024, Captain Carrot #489-500 (legacy numbering)
Captain Carrot teams up with three versions of himself to face a fifth--Cartoon Carrot (the cartoonier CC featured in Multiversity), Wonder Rabbit (who wields the tools of Wonder Wabbit in addition to his own), and a cosmic-carrotless Bionic Bunny, versus The Writer-Artist, whose pen now controls universes the way he once tapped into them. Meanwhile, Alley-Kat-Abra fights Black Magicat with the aid of Felina Furr the Mistress of Kat Fu, Robo-Kat-Abra, and Jean-Paul-Valley-Kat-Abra...
The individual Zoo Crew members (we're back to the full classic lineup, seven with Little Cheese) each find themselves in the company of multiversal variants of themselves, each on an adventure on which the fate of all reality seems to depend. In the true reality, Dr. Hoot has them all in simulations, keeping them preoccupied with all the choices they could have made, or who they'd be under other circumstances--all the existences they could have had.
While other superheroes would probably fall for this, since they never seem to question multiverse-spanning adventures revolving around them and only them...
The Zoo Crew are a team. And they have had the humbling experience of focusing on many alternate worlds without doubles of them or of anyone they know. Oz, Wonderland, the Justice League's world, Earth-C-Minus? None of them had a Captain Carrot or Little Cheese in it...nor did the worlds of the Dr. Seuss creatures, or of Spider-Ham, or of Bugs Bunny, which they've also visited.
Sure, it's fun to think about the many different people you could be, but a multiverse that's basically just you...is the loneliest kind of infinity imaginable. That's something a narcissist like Dr. Hoot simply can't understand.
After they break out of the sims and halt Hoot's latest world-conquering scheme, Rodney thinks that lesson over a bit. He's not going to retire from the hero life again, but he might be ready to step back for a bit, hand the reins of leadership over. There's another Zoo Crewer who's showing leadership potential these days--Little Cheese. And Cap and Abra might need some parental leave...
Funnier Subplot: Pig-Iron doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about roads not taken. Most of his multiversal variants are just him with different "hairdos." His villain is a bitter Peter Porkchops who didn't get turned into Pig-Iron, whom the others defeat with ease. Then they throw him into a radioactive smelting pool and turn him into Pig-Iron too, so it's fine.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
YANKEE POODLE: "Give up NOW, Investigative Journalist Rova! We won't let you expose all the--um--secrets of the powerful--"
STRIPED STARLET: "Yes! NO one 'needs to know' whether I used my 'animal magnetism' on any casting directors! Not that I would! Or definitely did! It's the PRINCIPLE!"
HAMMERICAN LAWDOG: "Your freedom impairs OUR freedom to do whatever we want with no consequences!"
YANKEE POODLE: "Starting to suspect I might be on the wrong side here."
NOGGIN-KNOCKIN' NEOCON: "Not to be crude, but WHERE ARE YOU HIDING YOUR OIL RESERVES??"
And that's that. Enough already.
It's been fun to celebrate the comics series that most stoked my young imagination, but it's probably time I did that by imagining some other stuff for a long, long while. But I hope you've had some fun with this--Lord knows I have! Be seeing you.
Captain Carrot ended its monthly run with #20, reworking its #21-26 into a miniseries. But WHAT IF...it was still running today??? (Sketch by Kevin Maguire.)
It's a crazy idea, but not quite as crazy as it sounds. Not so much a one-in-a-trillion shot as one in a THOUSAND. The most likely scenario goes like this:
CBS decides to greenlight the Saturday-morning cartoon series Wonder Woman and the Zoo Crew. Alley-Kat-Abra, absent from the initial TV proposal but not the second, doesn't make it into the final version.
It only lasts two seasons, and those by the skin of its teeth--cartoon violence was a controversial topic in those days, and its more subversive elements--like references to grown-up movies and TV shows--could sit awkwardly when redone for a kiddie audience.
But a certain subset of viewers love it love it love it, and from their ranks, a fanbase is born. As the decades roll on, variant TV shows appear with varying tones: one aims for a Simpsons/Family Guy vibe with little action, another runs closer to an action series with just a light coating of humor. The most successful finds the balance.
In the 2010s, there are three movies. The comics series, therefore, never stops. But it does change, just as the nature of superhero fiction, and DC Comics specifically, evolves with each passing decade.
Here are ten notable storylines from its now lengthy run. Like in its first twenty issues, it tends to focus on straightforward action plots that follow the model of its human-focused contemporaries, but with a coating of superficial silliness that makes it go down smoother. That does mean some rough times for the Crew, though, especially in the hard-edged Eighties and Nineties.
(P.S.: When I include clips from other works in here, I don't mean imitating or parodying those comics directly--it's more about channeling vibes.)
1. "Last Saturday," 1985, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #43-45 (special CRISIS crossover)
So hey, if the Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed every alternate Earth but five, the Zoo Crew probably met the same fate as Lady Quark's family, right?
Actually no! In our world, Len Wein's Who's Who letter pages did a merciful reclassification:
But if Captain Carrot was actually being published at the time, this shift in status--from parallel Earth to dimension--would've been something the Zoo Crewers had to fight for, just as the actual Crisis involved a little more life-and-death drama than a one-line memo that read, "We've decided multiple Earths are dumb and lame; all our characters are on one Earth now, except the crotchety old duplicates we're mostly forgetting about."
In "Last Saturday," the Crewers get an early warning that the antimatter wall of the Crisis is on its way--from a few of the Just'a Lotta Animals, now Earth-C-Minus' last survivors and barely less traumatized than Lady Quark was. While half the heroes pursue several desperate avenues to save Earth-C, the rest just try to have a good day, knowing that it might well be their last. Two of their three last-ditch plans fail, but the last succeeds. The Zoo Crew, you might remember, did encounter one being who might have the power to relocate their solar system to another dimension. Once they reach him, he's willing to do it...for the proper (heh-heh)...compensation...
When all other strategies are exhausted, Abra makes the sacrifice, granting the Time-Keeper the consent she never imagined she could. As a result, Earth-C is saved (its history slightly altered), and Abra disappears from the group for a few years. The refugee Wonder Wabbit joins the team--leaving the group with a lineup that follows the template of the cartoon, something editors will care about for a little while. (WW will stay on for a few years--long enough for Rodney and Diana to realize that their mutual fantasies of a relationship don't measure up at all to the reality.)
Somewhat grim developments, perhaps, and especially hard on the heroines--but it is the Eighties. Abra will outwit the Time-Keeper and come back to the group stronger and unscarred--but not until shortly after the second story on this list.
Funnier Subplot: Rubberduck impersonates President Mallard Fillmore to pardon Dr. Hoot so they can use his expertise in interdimensional travel. Byrd is...not as good an actor as he thinks.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
CAPTAIN CARROT: "Uh, when you say 'the late Super-Squirrel'...do you mean 'late' like the White Rabbit worries about being late, or...?"
GREEN LAMBKIN: "This antimatter wall is less 'White Rabbit' and more just...WHITE, Rabbit."
2. "The Juicy Contract," 1988, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #60-63 (begins with MILLENNIUM tie-in)
In 1986, Rona Barrett lost her gig as senior correspondent for Entertainment Tonight. Her prestige as "interviewer to the stars," already on the decline, never recovered. (Some years later, she'd have a second act as an advocate for seniors, a hero-in-real-life role she still occupies today.) The Oz-Wonderland War included a couple of bits that implied Rona's funny-animal mirror image, Rova Barkitt, had had a similar reversal of fortune.
In early 1988, DC had Manhunter mania--every ongoing comic it published had a sleeper agent who served these alien robot overlords. Superman was getting pantsed by his childhood friend and the master manipulator behind the Justice League was getting shot by his own secretary.
(Again, Justice League International was the "funny" series of the late 1980s! And I cut OUT the most jarring part of this scene! Anyway...)
No better time for Captain Carrot to do the betrayal storyline it had been setting up from the start!
The Zoo Crew is blindsided by the release of Hero, Bitch! by Rova Barkitt, a crisp tell-all that reveals all their identities and other juicy tidbits. Rova admits she started writing the book three weeks after joining the team, but claims she wasn't the one who released it--that she'd decided to hold onto it until the Zoo Crew went public on their own. But the others--even Byrd--aren't buying it. It's just so easy to believe betrayal from someone who's always been transparently self-interested, right?
As a result, no one is looking into Notta Spy Dern, the spying spider on the Z-Building's support staff who hacked their computers ages ago. Nor are they ready for Dern's masters, the Ram Hunters, robot rams with the Manhunters' color scheme and Elmer Fudd's face and speech pattern. I don't have the art skills to render these guys, so just look at the images below and let your mind drift a bit.
Funnier Subplot: Getting outed as heroes throws most Crewers' lives into chaos--Fastback's family is targeted, Rubberduck loses all his roles, Little Cheese is suspended from school for his classmates' safety, and even Pig-Iron is affected when his ol' buddy Wolfie is made a pariah, outed as a former wuz-wolf.
But for Rodney? Getting unmasked is the best thing that's ever happened to him. He'd lost his creative spark with JLA and was almost unemployed as a freelancer, but now Marsupial Comics is offering him a dream contract. Wonder Wabbit has moved on and Abra is still MIA, so Rodney's now a two-time victim of no-fault heartbreak, meaning he comes off very sympathetic in Rova's book. People are cheering him in the streets. Winona Redpanda wants a date.
So in addition to dealing with the possibility that Rova's sold them out, plus the whole ALIEN INVASION thing, Rodney's trying to divert his teammates' attention away from how well he's doing while all their lives suck. Spoiler: it doesn't work.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
RAM HUNTERS: "No one escapes the Wham Huntehs! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
CREW: "The WHAT??"
3. "The Death of Captain Carrot," 1994, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #146-150
Burt Reynolds, like Rona Barrett, was in his mid-forties and at his career peak when Captain Carrot launched in early 1982. It was all downhill from there. A has-been actor can still be a sympathetic hero, but by the mid-Nineties, Reynolds was becoming better known for his ugly divorce than even his has-been status. (Even if you didn't buy Loni Anderson's account of the marriage...and I do...Reynolds hardly came out looking like a guy you'd want to cheer for.)
Uncomfortable with questions about just how much of Reynolds was mirrored in Byrd Rentals, and knowing Captain Carrot needs a shot in the arm, the creative team elects to kill two birds with one stone, and also to literally kill a bird.
Facing a cabal of old and new enemies, the Zoo Crew hold the line against incredible odds, but it's a war of attrition. The field of villains narrows to four badasses, the field of conscious heroes to two--Captain Carrot and Rubberduck. Then Rodney runs out of cosmic-carrot charge at just the wrong moment, already deprived of his backups. Making a slingshot of his arm, Rubberduck ejects Cap from the battlefield and pulls a one-time-only trick, splitting himself into multiple Rubberducks to bring the odds close to even.
The four Rubberducks eke out a win, but there's a reason Byrd hasn't pulled this trick before. They can't reintegrate or last long separately. His/their minutes are thus numbered, but he manages to go out with grace. In a parody of an Oscar speech, he says a few last things that need saying, to his fans, his teammates, his loved ones, and especially Rova.
Cap might take the loss even harder than Rova does. After he stressed himself out for years riding herd on the Zoo Crew, having a hero die on his watch is the last straw. He hangs up his carrots and cape, and thus the "Captain Carrot" identity is now officially dead. Whoof!
Funnier Subplot: Rova does get one distinct pleasure in the aftermath of Byrd's demise. Every film studio he ever worked with puts out a PSA to mark his passing, a sort of "Our Family Is Grieving" thing, and Rova delights in exposing how they actually treated Byrd for the last few years of his career.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
RUBBERDUCK 1: "Okay, guys, so you beat the Z-listers, but now you're up against my REAL favorite team! It's limited only by my ego, which, as we all know, HAS no limits!"
SOLAR BEAR: "Four or four HUNDRED, I'll roast you ALL, you--"
RUBBERDUCK 2: "Talking here. And dodging, and punching, but mostly talking. Anyway, I'm Duck, HE'S Duck--"
JURASSIC LARK: "RAAAR HOLD STILL--"
X-VERMINATOR: "ERROR·ERROR·ERROR·DETECTING·MULTIPLE·TARGETS"
RUBBERDUCK 3: "--I'M Duck, and this is our co-pilot, Goose!"
COCKIN' BULL: "How did--What--WHY IS HE 'GOOSE'?"
RUBBERDUCK 4/GOOSE: [gooses Cockin' Bull]
4. "The Bleating Edge!!!," 1994, Z-Force #1
The Zoo Crew is no more. In its place rises Z-Force, and they're kenneling no prisoners.
Fastback and Little Cheese don't care for this rougher approach and opt out, but the new lineup includes a few familiar faces. Pig Iron fits right in with this Lee-Liefeld-influenced era...
Alley-Kat-Abra and Yankee Poodle both vie for leadership early on, which goes about as well as you'd expect...
And a few new members join: Klawz, a creature of unbelievable violence whose speech balloons contain mostly single-word statements rendered as a cut-up collage...
Foxxfire, whose main interests seem to be setting stuff on fire, making innuendos, and posing (Okay, there's a LITTLE more going on inside both her and Klawz's heads, but the series won't be in any hurry to reveal any depths to them)...
Whirlibird, who becomes the team's sole source of optimism and positivity at this point (Her costume, name, and power to create tornadoes were part of Scott Shaw!'s early sketches, and by 1994, she's already teamed with the Zoo Crew a few times)...
And Captain Carrot. But not THAT Captain Carrot.
In this era of replacement heroes and legacy heroes, Rodney has, after some coaxing, handed his supply of cosmic carrots to ex-military "Gruff" Billy Goater, who develops strength, endurance, super-climbing, and super-ramming ability like the "blasting" of Cannonball from the New Mutants. Billy becomes the new Captain Carrot, and his approach to discipline allows Z-Force to split the difference between the Zoo Crew's old way of doing things--and total anarchy.
Facing sorta-barely-sketched-out villains with names like Broot and Beef, Z-Force will respond by taking funny-animal superherodom...TO THE EXXXTREEEEEMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!
Funnier Subplot: This is all pretty ridiculous--that's coming across, right? Trying to parody the Nineties means you run into Poe's Law...
But anyway, you know how comic strips love to endanger a mailman by having a dog try to maul him or someone like Dagwood Bumstead collide with him on his way to work? Z-Force has Pika Johns, a pizza-delivery guy who keeps narrowly escaping Klawz (who attacks him at random) and Foxxfire (who tries to seduce him at random) with his life and some shred of his dignity. (Foxxfire: "More pizza? Oh, but...how will we ever PAY for it?" Pika: "With...money? We take PastureCard, Hammerican Express, and Squeezer...")
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
SCOTTIE MCCLOUD: "Come on out, everyone! It's time to give this battle some CLOSURE!"
CAPTAIN CARROT (Billy): "Here's what we know. Scottie McCloud is out there 'deconstructing' us, getting us to question the very nature of our reality. Yankee Poodle won't stop babbling about vexillology and Foxxfire's going on about the...'male gays,' I think? But that's the point, there's no TIME to think when he turns thought itself against you! Just charge out, hit him fast, and hit him HARD!"
PIG-IRON: "Don't gotta tell me twice, soldier boy. 'Course, you don't gotta tell me once, either. But I'm sure there's SOME reason yer here."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "You stubborn goat--That's just a word-specific FRACTION of what he can do! He has a three-point perspective on our reality we can NEVER share, not if we want to stay sane!"
CAPTAIN CARROT (Billy): "Abra, I know you resent me and I know why, but--"
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "He doesn't just make us think! He makes us 'th'ink on paper'!"
KLAWZ: "Claws. CUT paper. Like scissors. I rock."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "This isn't a battle plan! This is INSANITY, Klawz!"
KLAWZ: "SANTA CLAUS?? WHERE???"
5. "He's 'Back," 1996-1997, Fastback #1-6
After barely two years of Z-Force, the fan base is clamoring for the return of the original team's lineup or something close to it--how about that, it's almost as if the creators planned it that way--and this miniseries serves as a lead-in to that return, featuring the most-missed of the original Zoo Crewers. Fastback never left the superhero life when he left the team: he just moved his operations out of Califurnia, with a focus on the good ol' South.
The 1990s were a good time to be a speedster thanks to Mark Waid's fruitful run on Flash, and this mini shows Fastback finding his own way to some of Wally West's tricks, the same way he found his way to Barry Allen's--with more comical trial and error, since he has even less patience than Wally for fancy book-learnin'.
Fastback's principal enemy during this period is a charismatic reality-warper called the Grey-Coated Retriever. As long as enough people believe in his power, GCR can restore the Hammerican South's imagined past--and though he brings back the nice parts first--the parts that get good ol' boys nostalgic--he means to bring back the whole Antebellum South and the evil system that underlaid it. Fastback has his own deep love of the South, but he can't let that blind him to injustice.
(Not to put too fine a point on it, but characters like Rogue and Gambit in the racially-themed X-Men never quite seemed to get around to that issue, even when visualizing the "fantasy South" as below...)
Funnier Subplot: Contrasting with the Southern-fried scenes, throwing them into sharper relief, are a few scenes in an office. ("Dilbird" courtesy of an X user avatar.)
Timmy Joe runs into his old pal Dilbird (this is the Nineties, before Dilbert got embarrassing) who has a temporary solution to Timmy Joe's perpetual joblessness...Timmy Joe can pose as Dilbird at the office. Dilbird just can't take the boredom any more, but his office's slow pace seems perfect for T.J. "Just wear my clothes and this wig and believe me...nobody will notice," Dilbird says. "But whut d'y'all DO?" asks Timmy Joe. Dilbird replies, "I don't even know."
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
FASTBACK: "Awright, Retriever! Y'all shouldn'ta oughtn'ta done what y'done, an' I'ma knock you back to last Tuesday so you won't'na haven'ta DONE it!"
RETRIEVER: "I'm truly dazzled by your grammar, my dear sir. But you know, nostalgia is very like grammar. It finds the present tense...and the past perfect."
FASTBACK: "Well, now, that IS like my Grammar...an' my Granper, too...but that ain't th' POINT!"
6. "Mother Hood," 2003, Captain Carrot #56-60.
Things got pretty close to "back to basics" with the new, shorter-titled series. Rodney rediscovered some of his love of superheroing and took some carrots back from Billy--they're growing separate patches now, and Billy's fighting injustice on his own as Commander Carrot. Klawz and Foxxfire are out of the team, and Fastback and Little Cheese are back in, restoring the "classic seven" except that Whirlybird is now in Rubberduck's old spot. The group's secret identities have also been restored, with Rova's tell-all wiped from existence, as tends to happen when somebody decides they want to write secret identities again (happened to Spider-Man, Superman, Iron Man, Daredevil...).
But though the lineup is classic, the restored Zoo Crew have also leveled up--and they've needed to, since their challenges have leveled up too. Think Grant Morrison's JLA and a little bit of Warren Ellis's Authority.
Mother Hood--who's taken over Brother Hood's mask and A.C.R.O.S.T.I.C. organization, since it's not like HE'S got any more use for them--has a multi-point plan to conquer the United Species, targeting the weak points of both the nation and the heroes who'd defend it. Among her allies are the Squawker, putting out hypersonic signals of aggression through every electronic device in the country; Zeu, the king of the Geek gods, whose support has been bought by Mother Hood's plan to consolidate church and state and build temples in his honor; and the Mouse Trapper, who's invaded the Z-Building with devices designed to take out each Crew member.
Non-Zoo-Crew-aligned heroes like the refugee JLAers and the old members of Z-Force have likewise been prepared for and dealt with. Only Hammerican Eagle, just suiting up for the first time, is a factor that Mother Hood hasn't considered. But it's probably not a big deal. What can one guy with no powers do?
[I see no reason why Geoff Johns wouldn't work his character concepts for the series in somewhere, but I never minded the Eagle on the concept level! I just don't like how inconsistent everything is about him. Here's a good chance to do him right, I'd say...]
Funnier Subplot: Little Cheese is the other x-factor in Mother's plan, since he's not IN the Z-Building when the Mouse Trapper starts working his gadgets. Chester's actually trying to get to college the day all hell breaks loose. Realizing all hands are needed, he has to embark on a road trip to Waspington, D.C., hoping he can get there in time AND make any kind of difference when he arrives. Need I add that his car breaks down almost immediately? It's a somewhat Planes, Trains, and Automobiles kind of adventure for him, but he does find his way to Mother Hood for the climax.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
MOTHER HOOD: "No need to resist, my children. Mother has womb--W-O-M-B--for all of you."
LITTLE CHEESE: "The creepiness of that pun might qualify as your deadliest attack yet."
MOTHER HOOD: "Sorry, dear. Didn't mean to make you go 'Cheez' with my cheesiness."
LITTLE CHEESE: "I AM ACTUALLY SHRINKING FROM CRINGE!"
7. "Trading Species," 2008, Captain Carrot #115-120
Feline Faust magics the Zoo Crew into swapping species: Alley-Kat-Abra is now A-Bird-Kadabra, Captain Carrot is Captain Canine, Fastback is now Hare-Racer, Little Cheese is now Mini-Kit, Pig-Iron is now Mass-Mouse, Whirlibird is now Twisturtle, and Yankee Poodle is now Porcine Patriot. (Image by Ritwells.)
Faust then draws them into combat with the Endangered, a super-group of less well-known species, mostly endangered on our world (tamarin, okapi, animals like that) who haven't had the lucky breaks the Zoo Crew have--more or less the X-Men to their Avengers, except they're not part of a larger mutant population. They tend to stay off the radar, so the Crew don't know them, and they take the transformed Crew for impostors.
The members of the Endangered are: Quaika, a quokka with the power to cause earthquakes and other vibrations; O'Copy, a power-mimicking okapi; Hammerin' Tamarin (Hamtam for short), with fists like piledrivers; Lot'o'Axolotl (Lot'o for short), who can create multiple bodies; Howler, a monkey with a sonic scream; and the leader, Caped Capybara (nicknamed by his initials), whose soothing presence can lower tensions or put people directly to sleep.
At first the transformation feels like a temporary inconvenience, but as the Endangered put the Crew on the retreat and Abra struggles to reverse the spell, the Crewers start to experience symptoms we'd now call dysmorphia. Ironically, this leads Quaika to believe the Zoo Crew are who they say they are--she had similar troubles once. She's still a bit neurotic, but much better than she was when everyone told her she was male. That bridge of understanding allows the two groups to unite and track down Faust.
Minority metaphors can be tricky--even the X-Men don't get or deserve universal praise for how they've handled things. But as trans representation's just getting off the ground, most (progressive) readers view this as a positive step. Pig-Iron gets a little soliloquy about how his sense of self changed--how he felt free to BE himself--only after he became a swine of steel.
Funnier Subplot: The main action plot is a consistent grind with no room for personal side quests, but before and after, Felina is a bridesmaid for an old sorority sister, and the experience gives her a new perspective on the fussing over getting appearances just so. Which also plants a little seed for the next story on the list.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
QUAIKA: "See? 'C'!"
CAPTAIN CANINE/CAPED CAPYBARA: "'C.C.,' what?"
METAL MOUSE: "Naw, naw, she's sayin', 'si, si.'"
QUAIKA: "I"m trying to say they are who they say! Look at his chest emblem! 'C'! See?"
LOT'O: "So?"
A-BIRD-KADABRA: [sigh]
8. "My Bun-Cat Gleek Wedding," 2013, Zoo Crew #13-18
Rodney's retirement from superheroics was hard on his on-again, off-again relationship with Felina. And he's sought out other partners over the years, as has she upon occasion--Wonder Wabbit, Carrie Carrot, Magical Mister Mephistopheles. But the two have been growing closer ever since his return to the costumed life, and the day of their wedding arrives. A talking version of Gleek from Super Friends is the officiant who will wed them, hence the title.
Fortunately, the team's ranks are huge at the moment--incorporating virtually every hero still alive from its 32-year publishing history, including former JLAers, members of the Endangered, and guys I haven't even mentioned. (Even Klawz and Firefoxx are now somewhat matured.) So the mood is celebratory and secure in the Emerald City of Oz, where Cap and Abra plan to have their ceremony.
Who would mess with such an assemblage of heroes in such a secure location? Not Roquat! After trying to take over the Zoo Crew's world in revenge, he's imprisoned in Nome, Alasska.
Unfortunately, Mister Mephistopheles--secretly the Devil Himself, who is a constant in every reality--has transported the Crewers to Hell three days early to taint these nuptials and what they symbolize. I mean, denying heroes wedded bliss, that's his thing! It's not just in Amazing Spider-Man where he pulls that trick! (And sure, he's usually working some additional angle that'll cause even FURTHER pain and misery, but that's because he is GOOD AT HIS JOB and does things EFFICIENTLY, unlike SOME people at the office who just can't do think in the long term, LARRY.)
The funny-animal consciousness isn't equipped to handle memories of Animal Hell--it's just too overwhelming. For those few lucky enough to escape, the experience fades like a dream afterward. So when Mr. M pulls the Zoo Crew there temporarily, hoping to tarnish them before he has to return them to the living world, they're fighting a battle that, one way or another, they won't remember. The story crosscuts between that grand battle and the mundane concerns of the actual wedding day, as both Felina and Rodney get seized by last-minute doubts and uncertainties. Only by following both story threads can we find out whether the wedding has been poisoned or remains pure, whether the marriage will be long and happy or fractious and short.
But c'mon, you really think the creative team's gonna be that sadistic after all this time? Of course not.
(DANG, Amanda Conner's work is fun.)
The real surprise is how hard Pig-Iron's willing to go on Captain Carrot's behalf, both in Hell and on Earth. Their friendship has had its fireworks, but in the end, PI knows who his buddies are--and how precious it is to live your best life.
Funnier Subplot: Whirlibird is as close to a constant source of positivity as you can get, and the rare occasions when she's really upset are upsetting for everybody. So on this day of celebration, nobody wants to tell her that her almost-girlfriend--her date to the reception--is actually kind of awful.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "The geomancy of the seating arrangements is RUINED! This wedding is CURSED!"
WHIRLIBIRD: "Not cursed. Blessed."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: "HOW DO YOU KNOW? And how can you say that so CALMLY?"
WHIRLBIRD: "You guys are already three-time miracles just by being superheroes in love, Felina. One miracle's the superpowers, another's that you use them selflessly, and a third's that you trust each other after all you've been through. It's your love that matters. The ceremony's just how you SHOW it."
ALLEY-KAT-ABRA: [slow exhale] "Thank you, Carla Cardinal. I know I can count on you to save this wedding from any Bridezilla moments."
WHIRLIBIRD: "Way ahead of you! I already stopped the Bride of Frogzilla this morning. Giants need a lot of oxygen to keep themselves moving: one tornado down her throat and she was all 'oh no.' Or rather, 'O2...? No-o-o!'"
9. "Trapped in a World They Never Made," 2018-2019, Captain Carrot #1-18 (v.5)
As the cosmos keeps rearranging itself due to various Crises better documented in other comics...
An assortment of Zoo Crew members find themselves stuck in the human-dominated world of the Justice League while the multiverse is unmapped and not easy to transverse. While they work on finding a way home, they do their best to serve justice on a planet that would put them in zoos, on leashes, or on the dinner table. Their stay is full of crossovers with various DC heroes and villains, such as Wonder Woman, Beast Boy, G'Nort, Circe, Cheetah, and Ambush Bug.
Alley-Kat-Abra and Fastback were not among the heroes randomly thrown into this adventure--otherwise their powers could resolve the problem within minutes. Instead, the lineup is Captain Carrot, Yankee Poodle, Little Cheese, Quaika, Hammerican Eagle and...Rubberduck?
Yes, though it's taken ages (long enough for the real-life Burt Reynolds to no longer be a complicating factor), the pliable materials of Rubberduck's body have slowly reconstituted themselves into a living duck...though his memories are patchy, and he now seems much younger. He'll change his name to "Byrd Phoenix" rather than try to keep his old identity. Nevertheless, his return has delighted Rova, who's physically younger herself thanks to an unrelated Time-Keeper adventure.
You know how it goes: in comics, almost no hero dies for good, and almost no hero even ages out. (In 2024, Jay Garrick is chronologically 105 years old AT MINIMUM.)
Beyond the opportunity to have a lot of fun crossovers, this arc features some sharper-edged social satire than is usual for the Zoo Crew...partly as a tribute to the early Howard the Duck, partly as a response to Trump-era anxieties. All the better that the two "American" characters (YP and Hammerican Eagle) and the two most anxious characters (Quaika and Little Cheese) are part of the lineup.
Oh, and by the way? Rodney has TWO cosmic carrots as backups when they get to the humans' Earth. Spend them wisely, Rod...
Funnier Subplot: Quaika has a secondary power on a human world--humans find her debilitatingly cute. At first embarrassed by the attention, she begins to get a bit drunk on it, using her looks to get all kinds of cool stuff like an Instagram influencer. (It's a phase she'll grow past, but she's embracing it while it lasts.)
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
YANKEE POODLE: "It's not like I don't enjoy a good opportunistic binge, sweetie...but when it comes to your 'cute for loot' phase, I don't think all our colleagues are going to GET it."
QUAIKA: "Of course not! I'M the one who's getting stuff!"
RUBBERDUCK: "We should probably look into merch opportunities. Does this world have some version of Quackstarter?"
LITTLE CHEESE: "Someone's at the door. Says she's...'Wonder Whammin'?' Do I have that right?"
HAMMERICAN EAGLE: "She wears Hammerican symbols, but the internet says she's from...overseas? Seems suspicious."
CAPTAIN CARROT: "IT'S NOT HER--I mean, she's not HARE--not HERE--I'M not here!"
10. "Who Put The You In Universe?," 2024, Captain Carrot #489-500 (legacy numbering)
Captain Carrot teams up with three versions of himself to face a fifth--Cartoon Carrot (the cartoonier CC featured in Multiversity), Wonder Rabbit (who wields the tools of Wonder Wabbit in addition to his own), and a cosmic-carrotless Bionic Bunny, versus The Writer-Artist, whose pen now controls universes the way he once tapped into them. Meanwhile, Alley-Kat-Abra fights Black Magicat with the aid of Felina Furr the Mistress of Kat Fu, Robo-Kat-Abra, and Jean-Paul-Valley-Kat-Abra...
The individual Zoo Crew members (we're back to the full classic lineup, seven with Little Cheese) each find themselves in the company of multiversal variants of themselves, each on an adventure on which the fate of all reality seems to depend. In the true reality, Dr. Hoot has them all in simulations, keeping them preoccupied with all the choices they could have made, or who they'd be under other circumstances--all the existences they could have had.
While other superheroes would probably fall for this, since they never seem to question multiverse-spanning adventures revolving around them and only them...
The Zoo Crew are a team. And they have had the humbling experience of focusing on many alternate worlds without doubles of them or of anyone they know. Oz, Wonderland, the Justice League's world, Earth-C-Minus? None of them had a Captain Carrot or Little Cheese in it...nor did the worlds of the Dr. Seuss creatures, or of Spider-Ham, or of Bugs Bunny, which they've also visited.
Sure, it's fun to think about the many different people you could be, but a multiverse that's basically just you...is the loneliest kind of infinity imaginable. That's something a narcissist like Dr. Hoot simply can't understand.
After they break out of the sims and halt Hoot's latest world-conquering scheme, Rodney thinks that lesson over a bit. He's not going to retire from the hero life again, but he might be ready to step back for a bit, hand the reins of leadership over. There's another Zoo Crewer who's showing leadership potential these days--Little Cheese. And Cap and Abra might need some parental leave...
Funnier Subplot: Pig-Iron doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about roads not taken. Most of his multiversal variants are just him with different "hairdos." His villain is a bitter Peter Porkchops who didn't get turned into Pig-Iron, whom the others defeat with ease. Then they throw him into a radioactive smelting pool and turn him into Pig-Iron too, so it's fine.
Most Groan-Worthy Exchange:
YANKEE POODLE: "Give up NOW, Investigative Journalist Rova! We won't let you expose all the--um--secrets of the powerful--"
STRIPED STARLET: "Yes! NO one 'needs to know' whether I used my 'animal magnetism' on any casting directors! Not that I would! Or definitely did! It's the PRINCIPLE!"
HAMMERICAN LAWDOG: "Your freedom impairs OUR freedom to do whatever we want with no consequences!"
YANKEE POODLE: "Starting to suspect I might be on the wrong side here."
NOGGIN-KNOCKIN' NEOCON: "Not to be crude, but WHERE ARE YOU HIDING YOUR OIL RESERVES??"
And that's that. Enough already.
It's been fun to celebrate the comics series that most stoked my young imagination, but it's probably time I did that by imagining some other stuff for a long, long while. But I hope you've had some fun with this--Lord knows I have! Be seeing you.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-26 05:14 pm (UTC)This was a fun and educational bunch of scans (well, not the part about the Crew falling into obscurity and grimness, but apart from that-!)
And the explanations for some of Roy Thomas's insanely deep dives were interesting as well.
Thanks for posting them, and for a chance to read about the Crew, in all their weird and mad glory.
It would be nice to see the Crew come back in full, and be allowed to be the main characters rather than guests or cameos in another multiverse story.
But DC gonna DC.
Maybe one day... one day Rova will return to be extremely extra once more... and Whirlibird might get a chance to spread her wings.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-26 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-27 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-27 01:22 pm (UTC)I appreciate your efforts in presenting this parallel universe.