Crossover Month: Heroic Hares

Inspired by the golden age funny animal stelwart Marvel Bunny, the 1980's spawned DC Comics' Captain Carrot and the soon-to-be Archie Comics' Thunder Bunny. One an anthromorphic bunny on a parallel world occupied by talking animals, the other a human merging with the body of an anthromorpic alien world. While Rodney Roger Rabbit was dependent on ingesting super-charged carrots to regain his powers, Bobby Caswell found his super-hare body hard to get rid of when trying to regain his human form. The teen had to visualize his human form to regain it, Rodney's reverted to normal much to his dismay.

Cap C was a team player with his Amazing Crew while T-Bunny had a tenative at best relationship with his world's Mighty Crusaders. Nevertheless, each took what would seem to be a ridiculous appearance and comical adventures to show that a hero is measured, not by their exterior, but by their heart.

Sideline Sundays: Non-Legionaire Kids and Lads

Sidekicks have since the very beginning of comics been a mainstay. And the stronger the sidekick, the more apt they are to pull their own weight. Such was the case with an intentional sidekick, and a lad who would later be reintroduced as one. We present Kid Muscles and Golden Lad!

Kip Muscles changed his first name, and THAT was his origin along with training next to a master bodybuilder.

Tommy Preston's origin was  bit more complicated, but not by much. He found a golden heart made from the Aztecs and stolen by a Spaniard. And somehow from that gold ornament he gained great strength and flight!

While Kid Muscles was a continual partner of Mister Muscles, appearing in his two tales from the mid 1950's, Golden Lad operated solo for 5 issues in the mid 1940's before being brought back in Charlton Bullseye #10 wherein he met Thunder Bunny. He teamed up with the latter twice, assisting him in tracking down the Hermit... a villain that kept heroes like the Lad in stasis for decades to keep them out of criminals' hair.

Hump-Day Hoppy-ness: Thunderbunny(s)

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.

Team-up Tuesdays: Steeler Sundays Crossover!

During our last installment, we witnessed the dramatic confrontation between a mind-controlled Sarge Steel attempting to arrest the Sensational Sentinels, and of  singled-minded Steel Sterling's desperate attempt to join the Mighty Crusaders! Let's pick up where we left off, in the next issues of Thunderbolt #58 and Mighty Crusaders #5, respectively:

Steel Sterling allies himself with two other Crusader rejects to form the Terrific Three, and then immediately awakens the ire of the always cantankerous Jaguar over his flippant sense of humour. As the story progresses, they kiss and make up, with Mister Justice primarily focused on the task at hand...fly to the aid of the Crusaders and a 2nd group of  Crusader rejects, the Web, Fox and Captain Flag (that make up the Ultra-Men...you would think that a team of MJ, Jag and Steel would be THE Ultra-Men! Oh well.)

Sarge found himself on the wrong side of the Sentinels, as his  verbal attempt at apprehending the aspiring heroic team was thwarted by the vast mind might of Mentalia. This quickly led to his departure from the strip, as rapidly as he had  just appeared. Yep, no fuss, no muss. Apparently the master villian that sent him, Mind-Bender, knew the Sarge had the stuff necessary to defeat this terrific trio of Charltonians.

Neither Sarge nor Sterling appeared alongside heroic teams following these adventures, at least during the silver age. Apparently they operated best as solo stallions of steel  (sorry) Sarge's appearance served to tie the Sensational Sentinels into the main Charlton universe. Meanwhile, picking up on a thread from last week relating to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, they had an unpublished meeting with the Mighty Crusaders tying them into their universe. Later, the Agents met another heroic Thunder , a Bunny!

But that is another story for another time. Next week, we revisit the original five Crusaders and, well, the strangest assemblage of five costumed crusaders Charlton ever produced...against a stranger foe!