What can get us over the hump of a typical Wednesday? Maybe a little nostalgia as we reflect back to a simpler time to a classic funny animal character originally created by Fawcett Comics and later acquired by Charlton Comics. Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, who would later develop into "Magic Bunny". And then faded into obscurity (barring a couple modern cameo revivals at our two publishers' Distinguished Competition).
Undoubtedly this proved the inspiration for a modern day take on the flying funny bunny, with an anthropomorphic twist. Introducing young Bobby Caldwell, who gains tremendous powers with a strange side effect that inibits his use of this power...being permanently stuck in this body!
Before long, it becomes second nature for Bobby to clap his hands at the sign of any trouble and weigh into battles again some fairly formidable adversaries. Consider this battle with destructive droid Big Cam, who is on a destructive rampage of all "Have It Your Way" Burger joints. Sent by a vengeful scientist because he didn't get it "his way", the unstoppable machine meets the alien hare. After a trading blows and getting nowhere, changes his tactics and uses his brains.
Following his two appearences in Charlton Bullseye (issues 6 and 10), our hero "hopped" over to Archie's Red Circle adventure comics line. After one issue of his own self-titled comic, he next appeared alongside the Mighty Crusaders in Blue Ribbon Comics #13 in an adventure entitled "A is for Aliens, B is for Boston, C is for Crusaders" battling an alien invasion alongside his childhood heroes.
Interestingly, this issue was not T-Bunny's first chronicled connection to the Mighty MLJ universe. Check out the bottom two panels in Charlton Bulllseye #10. John Dickering? Didn't we devote a post to him? And the guy in the last panel undoubtedly Bob's long-lost brother we also considered previously. So then T-Bunny solely a character in that universe with no connections (aside from having two issued published) to Charlton. Well not necessarily. Consider these two interesting points that seem to indicate TWO Thunderbunnies!
Apparently the Bunny's creator Martin Greim had envisioned a future teamup with Captain Atom. The fact that this future tale had virtually the same title as the one found in Blue Ribbon Comics, we can assume that the Bunny existed in the Charlton universe. Further evidence to support this theory is the fact that we've SEEN two different Thunderbunnies! The red and white clad version, and the original blue and white clad version in the original story. Plus the original is much leaner than the muscular version we later see. During his second appearence, the origin retroactively changes his appearence. This can easily be explained by two of the same character having existed.
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