Thursday, May 14, 2015

TRULY GONE & FORGOTTEN : THE JUST'A LOTTA ANIMALS

This cover always made me hate that my name was super-ordinary and had no good animal puns associated with it.
Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew have received more attention in the last few years than they had during the full two decades following their cancellation. Not necessarily following the Captain and his Crew into the spotlight again are most of their villains - Armordillo, Frogzilla, Bow-Zar the Barkbarian, Cold Turkey, to name only a pun-ful few - and, except for a brief cameo I'll mention below, the superheroes of the Just'a Lotta Animals!

Riffing on the classic crossovers between the Justice League of Earth-1 and the Justice Society of Earth-2, the Zoo Crew met with a fuzzy-tailed version of the JLA to foil a crisis of interdimensional proportions. Further exploiting the old crossover gimmick, in fact, the adventures of the Just'a Lotta Animals tuned out to be drawn by the Captain's alter-ego Rodney Rabbit, just as the comic book adventures of DC heroes are meant to be real, illustrated by psychically connected creators here on Earth-Prime,

So, a neat idea, complete with headshots featuring the assorted players and even some of the creators of the book, turned animal-esque. The otherworldly JLA, though, sometimes scrimped on the funny animal versions, seemingly assigning random animals to some of the characters. In order of best puns to worst, here's the whole lineup:


  • Elongator, the alligator Elongated Man, five stars, nice pun with a twist
  • The Martian Anteater, alternate version of the Martian Manhunter, well played
  • Firestork, superb, excellent execution
  • Zappanda, panda version of Zatanna, pretty good, nothing to write home about
  • Green Sparrow, has nothing to do with arrows but a good joke
  • Rat Tornado, enh
  • Green Lambkin, okay, I get it, but does that mean every member of the Green Lambkin Corps is a lambkin? Also, isn't a lambkin a little lamb, and a lamb is a baby ram anyway? I have questions.
  • Super Squirrel, feels dashed off, why not Super Pup, like the failed TV show pilot? DC Comics of thirty years ago, call me, I got good ideas
  • The BatMouse, enh
  • Hawkmoose, but why?
  • Wonder Wabbit, they just made her a rabbit to have a sexy rabbit to grind up on Captain Carrot, 'coz I guess it'd be unusual if he were attracted to a non-rabbit, which makes it seem like the animals of Earth-C are kind of racist
  • Aquaduck, let's not repeat animals from one team to another, that's should've been agreed upon, no extra ducks, and moreso 
  • The Crash, a speedster turtle, which is also what Fastback was, and the name is awful
  • The Item, which is not an animal pun, although it's pretty rewarding that he's an elephant
  • and lastly, Stacked Canary, which is actually a little insulting.

This JLA hasn't had a lot of airtime since their single crossover, although they did recently make an appearance in the pages of the Multiverse-spanning Multiversity, battling the Zoo Crew on their recently reinvigorated Earth. It's worth keeping in mind, tho, that one of the principles of Multiversity is that many Earths have evil opposite Earths, and that apparently the Just'a Lotta Animals are the evil alternate earth to Captain Carrot's reality. Gosh, what are they, Nazi gangster cannibal super-animals? Let's see that book.

After this, they were replaced by Just'a Lotta Detroit: Hipsy (a hippo), Flybe (a fly), Steelhead (a trout) and just Vixen I guess. 

Okay, I take it back, this is hard.

2 comments:

  1. "Batmouse, eh? Are you a bat or a mouse?"
    "I don't discuss my secret identity."
    Still makes me laugh after 30 years!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "This cover always made me hate that my name was super-ordinary and had no good animal puns associated with it."

    What about John Moo-rris?

    Oh, GOOD animal puns. Sorry, my mistake.

    ReplyDelete