The return of Captain Carrot (sort of)!

Today, I went out and bought both the most recent "Uncle Scrooge" comic and a copy of "Teen Titans" #30---solely for the Capt. Carrot appearance in it. (Yeah, I know it came out awhile ago, but the shop was sold out of copies...). While I feel a bit bad about handing DC Comics hard-earned bucks for something semi-related to their current "Infinite Crisis" crap, Capt. Carrot beckoned.

For those not familiar with Capt. Carrot and the Zoo Crew (including info on its members):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_Crew

Long story short: "Capt. Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew" was a short-lived 80's series about a team of funny-animal superheroes who lived on an alternate Earth populated by funny-animals only. The series was amusing (to me anyway), plus had enough animal puns (like "Califurnia" [California] or "Star Warts" [Star Wars]) to stuff a moose.

That out of the way, here's my somewhat (OK, excessively!) anal analysis of the story (yes, SPOILERS):

The plot is apparently about the current whereabouts of the Zoo Crew, who're mostly retired or, as in Capt. Carrot's case, leading a reclusive life. The team's forced out of retirement when former team member Little Cheese is found mysteriously killed before revealing something big.

Page one:
Think "Rubberduck" was supposed to be one word, not two.

"Chester": "Chester Cheese", Little Cheese's real name.

"Rodney": Roger Rodney Rabbit (later renamed just named "Rodney Rabbit", for obvious reasons), aka Capt. Carrot.

Page two:
"Over to you, Fox. Thanks, Crow." A reference presumably to DC's old funny-animal comic book series in the 40's, 50's, and 60's, "The Fox and the Crow."

The president of the Zoo Crew's version of the United States (or in their world, the "United Species of America") is named "Mallard Fillmore" (misspelled here as "Mallord"). No relation to the awful conservative comic strip of the same name.

The "heroes forced to reveal their secret identities" and/or "forced into retirement" bits are pretty well-worn cliches in superhero comics (including the two series that this story partially seems to be a take-off on, "Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen").

"Super-Squirrel" and the "Justa Lotta Animals" are take-offs on Superman and the Justice League of America, for whose comics Rodney was the main writer and artist on in the original series. Here, it seems he hasn't worked in some time, and has been fired. The Zoo Crew once met the Justa Lotta Animals (who were revealed to be living on another Earth, "Earth-C-Minus").

"D.D.": presumably the initials of Earth-C's version of Dan DiDio, the current editor-in-chief at DC Comics.

"Call Roy!": presumably Roy Thomas, one of the co-creators of the Zoo Crew.

"Stan Goldbug": apparently the Earth-C version of Stan Goldburg (sp?), one of the artists on the Zoo Crew's series back in their original run.

Armordillo: an armadillo enemy of the Zoo Crew, who hailed from "Taxes," the "Lone Stork State" (yes, I know, "groan". :-) ).

Frogzilla: the Godzilla-sized villainous form of one of the stars of DC's old 1940's through 1960's funny-animal comic series, "The Dodo and the Frog."

Page three:
"Kornas City": a pun on "Kansas City." The original comics spelled it as "Kornsas City".

"Byrd Rentals": a pun on "Burt Reynolds," Byrd Rentals is the name of Rubberduck's secret identity. The remark the assistant cat makes here seems to be, um, commenting on Burt Reynold's less-than-stellar career of late...

Nitpick: Given the Crew are holding the deceased Chester in this scene, wonder how the newscast Rodney's watching found out he was dead, yet didn't mention the appearance of (wanted) Pig-Iron and Rubberduck.

"Peter": Pig Iron's real identity, old DC Comics funny-animal star Peter Porkchops (who had his own comic in the 50's).

"Rova": Yankee Poodle's secret identity, gossip columnist (or here, ex-gossip columnist) Rova Barkitt (a pun on some old gossip columnist named Rena Barett(sp?)).

Page four:
"Doghunt"... "possibly rabid." Heh.

Rodney's main catch phrase in the original series was "leapin' lettuce!" The swearing seems a bit out of character, though (guess it's to show, along with the shot glass and cigarette butts, how "hard core" he's gotten now ;-) ).

And...to be continued in the next issue, which should be out, uh...tomorrow. Least I won't have long to wait to see how it all ends...

All in all, nice to see the Zoo Crew again, even if they're cast in a somewhat darker tone than they used to be. Might've worked better if their pages in this comic were collected together, instead of just being strewn randomly about the rather-thin-plotwise Titans story in the issue.