DC Histories: Captain Carrot (Captain K’Rot)

Here at DC Histories, we try to make sense of the continuity that perplexes, befuddles, and intimidates. We discuss what worked and what didn’t. This week, we’re talking about the hero of Earth-C, Captain Carrot.

Created by Roy Thomas, Scott Shaw!, and Gerry Conway, Captain Carrot first jumped onto the scene in a special preview located in the pages of the blockbuster New Teen Titans series.  In that preview, Superman found himself flung into a parallel universe after coming in contact with a meteor. This new Earth was populated by giant, intelligent animals who lived and worked in a way very similar to the way that humans did on Earth-One. Natural predators on Superman’s Earth, like cats and mice, co-existed happily in this world. It was in the middle of all of this that Superman stumbled upon Roger Rabbit.

Roger was a comic book illustrator working in Gnu York City. If that pun makes you groan, get ready, since Earth-C is stuffed to the brim with more animal name puns than can be imagined. After eating a carrot which had grown near one of the meteors that had brought Superman to his world, Roger found that his muscles grew and his hopping power was exponentially upgraded. Roger’s powers faded after 24 hours, but another bite on a cosmic carrot brought them back. After a quick costume change, Captain Carrot was born. Though he was disgusted by Superman’s weird naked ape appearance and four fingers, he allowed the Man of Steel to tag along.

At the same time that Roger gained his abilities, other animals in the United Species of America developed powers as well. The stretchy Rubberduck, the magical Alley-Kat-Abra, the patriotic Yankee Poodle, the quick Fastback, and the behemoth Pig-Iron joined Captain Carrot in an effort to battle whoever was behind an evolutionary regressive streak that was hitting the planet’s population. At the end of the first official issue of Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew!, it was revealed that Starro was behind it. This was fitting as Starro was the first villain that the Justice League of America fought way back in 1960.

After defeating their first major villain, the Zoo Crew stuck together. Soon, the members of the Zoo Crew were battling enemies all together, alone, and in pairs.

Roy Thomas, along with later writers E. Nelson Bridwell and Scott Shaw!, introduced old funny animal comics characters into the world of Earth-C. For instance, in the series’ third issue, a giant named Frogzilla began threatening a cruise ship on which Pig-Iron and Rubberduck were vacationing. After defeating Frogzilla, it was revealed that he was actually Fennimore Frog. He and Dunbar Dodo, the cruise ship’s captain, were the stars of a long running series of  DC stories titled “Dodo and the Frog.” Though they hadn’t appeared since the mid-1950s, they were alive and well in the pages of Captain Carrot’s book.

My favorite villain from this series was a character named Wuz-Wolf. Another repurposed funny animal character from the Golden Age, A. Wolf had been trying to get over his cannibalistic desire to eat pigs. However, when he was cursed by turning into a half-man, a mythical beast, he began to call himself the Wuz-Wolf and now had an excuse to eat his neighbors.

Around this time, it appears to come to DC’s attention that the name ‘Roger Rabbit’ was already used elsewhere. The book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary Wolf was released in 1981. As this was years before the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the fact that this earlier work was missed seems understandable. In order to work around this name problem, the series quickly began using Roger’s newly created full name of Roger Rodney Rabbit. Shortly afterward, he became R. Rodney Rabbit. Finally, he was simply called Rodney Rabbit.

A little over a year after Captain Carrot first debuted, he and his cohorts had their very own Crisis. Rodney Rabbit’s day job consisted of his penciling a series of adventures for the fictional superhero group Just’a Lotta Animals or the JLA for short. When a portal opened between Earth-C and the world on which those adventures took place, dubbed Earth-C Minus by Roger, the members of that group came into contact with the Zoo Crew. Replete with adorable names like Super Squirrel, Wonder Wabbit, and Green Lambkin, the JLA was a formidable group. Their extended roster had an even more colorful cast of characters.

Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew! wrapped up after 20 issues. According to Roy Thomas, the series had begun strong but sales had declined. However, even with the series cancelled, plans were already in the works for Captain Carrot and his crew’s next appearance.

Originally, a six issue miniseries was planned in which the Zoo Crew were going to help squash a battle between L. Frank Baum’s Oz and Lewis Caroll’s Wonderland.  The series was delayed for over a year as the writing chores got shuffled around and time was given to artist Carol Lay to get the series mostly done before the first issue was released. When the miniseries finally hit store shelves in 1986, it was only three double-sized issues instead of six regular-sized issues.

The Zoo Crew was pulled into a war begun by Roquat, the Nome King. He had taken control of Oz and imprisoned its leaders, including the Tin Man, Ozma, Glinda, and even the Wizard of Oz himself. Immediately afterwards, Roquat made a move to conquer Wonderland and expand his holdings.

In a desperate attempt to undo the Nome King’s plans, the Cheshire Cat came to Earth-C and enlisted the Zoo Crew’s help. From there, the series followed the Zoo Crew and their allies from both Oz and Wonderland in their attempts to save the two mythical cities from Roquat’s plans.

The series was quite the fun one. As Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew freed more and more of Roquat’s prisoners, he began throwing larger and larger enemies at them. Eventually, the Nome King used his magic to trap all of the rabbits from every nearby dimension into one small space. This caused not only Captain Carrot, Wonder Wabbit, and the White Rabbit to be imprisoned together, but also Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, a mostly forgotten member of the Marvel Family. It was a fun team-up what we’d never see again.

The absolute best part about this miniseries was the work of Carol Lay. She used the original designs from W. W. Denslow’s work on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and John Tenniel’s illustrations from both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass to draw the various denizens of both countries. Included in the mix were what amounted to Saturday morning cartoon characters in the Zoo Crew. The styles of art she had to jump between to illustrate everything had to be tough on her.

For example, take the scene in which Oz‘s Scarecrow goes up against the Looking-Glass‘s Jabberwocky. Everything here is evocative of the work done by the previous illustrators but it still works as a whole piece.

Sadly, after the miniseries wrapped up, Captain Carrot and his Zoo Crew disappeared for decades. It was 20 years before they would again appear in the pages of a DC comic. Their return was a bit bittersweet.

In the pages of Geoff Johns’ Teen Titans reboot in the 2000s, the character of Kid Devil was reading Captain Carrot comics. In a few issues of the series, readers got to see what he was reading. It was a sad, dark update of the characters. Since we last saw them, Yankee Poodle was arrested for attempting to kill the president, the Atom-esque character of Little Cheese was murdered, and Rodney became a drunkard.

This was supposed to be a satire of the grim-and-gritty post-Watchmen years of comics, but it just came off as mean spirited. When Alley-Kat-Abra was revealed to be Little Cheese’s murderer, it seemed more depressing than fun.

The Teen Titans tales introduced American Eagle into the Zoo Crew. He was a right wing non-powered Eagle who was inspired by Captain Carrot to do good in the world. Picture the Muppets’ Sam the Eagle in a costume and you’ve basically nailed the character.

Surprisingly, these dark tales weren’t the end of the Zoo Crew’s time at DC. During the Countdown series, a spin-off miniseries was published titled Captain Carrot and the Final Ark!. Starro returned to again battle the Zoo Crew. His attempts to destroy Earth-C actually succeeded. The Zoo Crew gathered up everyone they could, brought them into an ark, and found a new place to live. That place turned out to the the standard DCU. When they arrived, they appeared just like normal, non-cartoony animals. Zatanna took one look at Rodney and scooped him up.

The other members of the Zoo Crew were never seen again. However, Rodney appeared to fit into Zatanna’s animal collective quite nicely and even mated with another of her rabbits. The pair had offspring. Apparently, each member of his new family was constantly on the lookout for another cosmic carrot which would give them the powers of Captain Carrot.

The very last appearance of Captain Carrot and his amazing Zoo Crew came in the pages of Final Crisis. During the story’s climactic battle, seemingly hundreds of versions of Superman from countless worlds came together to fight Mandrakk, the Dark Monitor. Standing alongside these heroes was Captain Carrot, Pig-Iron, and Yankee Poodle.

Seeing Captain Carrot stand alongside Superman one more time was quite wonderful. If that’s the last time we see him, I’m okay with that.

While Captain Carrot hasn’t shown up in the New 52, someone named Captain K’Rot has. Now devoid of any superhero tropes, Threshold writer Keith Giffen described him in a Robot 6 interview as “a borderline psychotic, booze swilling, whore-mongering rabbit.”

Fans of the original Captain Carrot may have a hard time seeing Rodney’s namesake being subverted in this manner. However, it’s not like Rodney has had much to do since the 1980s. He, along with the rest of the Zoo Crew, will just have to live on in our back issue bins.

 

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Jeff Reid’s favorite character design in the Just’a Lotta Animals is the Martian Anteater. Man, that guy’s creepy. Jeff tries really hard not to be creepy on Twitter.