I positively loved DC's old
Showcase Presents reprint series. I gobbled them up almost as quickly as they came out. What I most love about comics is the story, and despite what many would deem cheap production values these telephone book-like tomes gathered together broad sweeps of comics from often distant periods and all for relatively little tiny money. Certainly for example the earliest issues of
Superman and
Action Comics gathered in those volumes are well outside my price interest for comics of that vintage and type, but as a low-cost
Showcase Presents volume they are delightful reading. But as the hoard of Showcase volumes gathered I fell desperately behind in my reading of them and finally just gave up trying to keep up. Now I've waited long enough and I need to just up and read the dang things. So to spur me on in that endeavor I present to you the second (see last month's look at Amethyst) of what I hope will be many "Showcase Corner" posts focusing on any particular Showcase Presents volume. These can occur at any time, so keep an a careful lookout. One of the most fun of the later Showcase volumes was
Showcase Presents Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.
Captain Carrot debuted in an issue of Teen Titans, a practice which was common at DC at the time to give readers a preview of a new series in the pages of an already popular one. Not a bad idea at all.
We meet Roger Rabbit (later called "Rodney" when a certain movie became famous) and the world dubbed Earth-C. Superman ends up there when a meteor with radioactive properties divides and crashes to Earth giving superpowers to a host of funny animals.
The Zoo Crew is comprised of Captain Carrot, the powerhouse porker named Pig-Iron (actually Peter Porkchops a longtime DC funny animal character), Ally-Kat-Abra a magical pussy, Rubberduck a movie star and stretchable hero, Yankee Poodle a gossip columnist with magnetic powers, Fastback a fast moving hard shelled hero in the tradition of the classic Terrific Whatsit. (In later issues the team will be joined by Little Cheese a small but powerful rodent.) The Zoo Crew is weirded out by Superman but work with him to defeat Starro the Conqueror.
Later the Crew faces the first of many home-grown menaces i the shape of Armordillo. Created by Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw the Zoo Crew evoke the Golden Age super funny animals like Super Rabbit from Timely and Marvel Bunny from Fawcett.
There are a number of shout outs to classic DC funny animal comics such as the already aforementioned use of Peter Porkchops. Frogzilla in the third issue is actually a transformed Fenimore Frog from
The Dodo and the Frog comics. Dunbar Dodo makes an appearance as well.
In the earliest issues the Zoo Crew are battling A.C.R.O.S.T.I.C. (A Cabal Recently Organized Soley To Instigate Crimes). They also battle critters like Mudd as seen above.
Being an 80's comic book there are a host of pop culture references in the comic such as this allusion to
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Truth told I'm not as keen on these as they become clearly dated and make the comics appear musty at times. But it's hard to topical and not do it.
Thomas and Shaw get a lot of help on this series as it rolls along. Most importantly is the writing of E. Nelson Bridwell who pretty much takes over from Roy "The Boy" after the first several issues, though Thomas will pop up again and again.
Artists such as Rick Hoberg, Mike Sekowsky, Dan DeCarlo and others help Shaw on the visuals which are at once energetic and filled with visual gags and gimmicks.
The Zoo Crew have a fractious relationship but never break up in their brief run. They hit a lot of the classic superhero tropes such as time travel, alien invasion, and even some supernatural enemies.
Stories seems to more and more become two-part affairs as the series rolls along, and that doesn't always benefit the pace of the book
The addition of Little Cheese was a fun event and if the series had run longer I'm sure we'd have seen more of these kinds of additions. Little Cheese formally becomes a member in the last issue of the original run.
One of the wackiest stories is a two-parter which evokes the classic JLA-JSA team-ups. Rodney Rabbit is a cartoonist and he draws a strip called Just'a Lotta Animals and he's startled when he discovers these heroic creatures are more real that he imagine on their home planet which is dubbed "Earth-C Minus".
Guest talent steps in to offers up a host of individual adventures for the Crew in issues seventeen and eighteen. Sadly one can feel the energy draining out othe concept a bit by this point.
The series concludes with the twentieth issue when Earth-1 citizen and Teen Titan the Changeling shows up to see what he can see. Already one of the weirdest heroes in the DCU, he is on his back foot through most of this adventure with the funny animals at his side battling Gorilla Grodd.
Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew have popped up in the post-Crisis DCU several times. But their first revival was a truly strange offereing in which the Zoo Crew finds itself embroiled in a war between the Land of OZ and Wonderland. More on that in a few days.
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