Today I’m going to write about my all-time favorite superhero group. No, not the Justice League of America, or The Avengers, or The X-Men, Fantastic Four, Youngblood, or any other group like that, I’m talking about:
CAPTAIN CARROT AND HIS AMAZING ZOO CREW!
Created by Roy Thomas, Scott Shaw(!), & Gerry Conway, this was originally a six-member team of “funny animals” with superpowers. Fastback, a turtle who could run at super speed. Pig-Iron is a superstrong pig with metal skin. Rubberduck, a duck who could stretch his skin like Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man. Ali-Kat-Abra, a cat with magic powers (mostly, I just remember that she could levitate herself and other objects and teleport with the aid of her magic wand). Yankee Poodle is a dog that can shoot repelling “stars” with one hand and red and blue stripes with the other. Their leader, Captain Carrot, was a rabbit with superstrength and superhearing who could also make super high and far leaps.
Later, during their first series, they acquired a seventh member, Little Cheese, a mouse who could shrink himself. A much later revival added a second patriotic-themed member called American Eagle. But it’s this original lineup that I cherish the most.
The team resided in a parallel universe on a world called Earth-C, inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. A notable feature of Earth-C was the puns used to identify most locations. The characters lived in the U.S.A., the United Species of America, from different places like Califurnia, Piggsburgh, Mew Orleans, and Gnu York (or New Yak, depending on the issue).
As a wee lad, I just assumed that the “C” in Earth-C stood for “creatures,” but thinking about it now, I realized that it was never expressly revealed. Even when I tried to search online, I couldn’t find an official definition. I suppose it’s just as likely that it stands for “carrot,” as I remember that the original Captain Marvel and The Marvel Family used to reside on Earth-S for “Shazam.”
What I loved about this series is that it was just fun. They were simple (mostly single-issue) stories that were easy to read. Occasionally, there were some dramatic moments between various characters, but no heavy soap opera themes; this was just a bunch of good guys trying to use their superpowers for justice, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I would make sure I was back at that 7/11 every month, with my .60 cents, to buy the latest issue, making this the very first comic-book series that I actually collected.
The original series lasted 20 issues. It was announced in the final issue that the title would continue as “a series of miniseries’.” The first such miniseries was to be a six-issue miniseries titled The OZ/Wonderland War, and considering that Oz and Wonderland books were already some of my favorites, putting the Zoo Crew into the mix was perfect for me. That miniseries was later published as 3 double-sized issues, but, alas, there were no further miniseries for over a decade after that, with the Zoo Crew remaining in publishing limbo.
The Zoo would eventually reappear a few times in the 2000s, but it was never the same. I think the problem is that the original series was for kids. It wasn’t even “all ages. ” It was for elementary school-age kids, preteens, like myself. And I believe that is the prime demographic for such a title. But the revivals, even those by the original creators, have been aimed at adults like myself, hoping to be fueled by nostalgia.
Or perhaps I’m wrong? I’m writing this because I plan to start rereading and reviewing the original comics in the coming weeks to see how they look through my old adult eyes.
I’ll begin with the team’s debut in The New Teen Titans #16.
I wasn’t even regularly reading The New Teen Titans at the time, but as I browsed the spinnerrack at 7/11 I noticed that little add in the sidebar on the cover, and I was intrigued.
Written by Roy Thomas
Drawn by Scott Shaw!
Published by DC Comics
This 16-page preview begins on Earth-1, which was then DC Comics’ primary continuity. Clark Kent was working as a TV anchorman at the time and is reported that thousands of human beings worldwide have inexplicably started acting like monkeys as if their brains have reverted to the state of our evolutionary ancestors. This naturally causes quite a bit of chaos in the streets. After the newscast is over, Clark switches to his Superman costume and starts to investigate. While flying over Metropolis he sees in infra-red ray, that humans can’t see, from the sky strike a random man on the street and that man starts acting like a monkey. Superman tracks the ray up to some kind of energy barrier that’s encircling the Earth, which makes him feel weaker as he gets closer to it. Then he sees a big glowing meteor fall through the barrier and, realizing that it can help him get through it, grabs it and tries to fly it back through the barrier.
The meteor explodes into 6 small pieces, scattering down on the planet, and Superman, whose vision is temporarily disoriented, finds himself in what he thinks is the Daily Planet building but is actually on the HQ of Wombat Communications and in the office of comic-book writer and artist Roger Rabbit. Superman is just as surprised to find himself on a planet filled with talking animals as Roger is to find a “giant pink monster” in his office.
Thankfully, being a comic book creator himself (he writes and draws the Justa Lotta Animals, which includes the characters Supersquirrel, Green Lambkin, Aquaduck & Wonder Wabbit, whom we see on posters in the building), Roger pretty quickly adapts to the story Superman tells him of being from a parallel universe and notes that a similar thing has been happening on his world. Random citizens have started acting like what we could call regular animals. We see an example of a dog walking on two legs, wearing a suit and hat, and carrying a briefcase, being hit by an energy ray from the sky and starting to walk on all fours while barking at cars.
Roger grabs a carrot from a little bed of carrots that he keeps on his windowsill and suddenly becomes superstrong. Superman surmises that one of the pieces of the meteor fell into the soil that Roger grows his carrots in, which is why it’s given Roger superpowers. Thankfully, Roger just so happens to have an original superhero costume in his closet (he says it’s from a costume party he attened the previous Halloween), and joins Superman as they head to the U.N. (United Nature) building, where most of the animals who work there have reverted to regular animals.
Teaming up, Superman and Roger, who declares himself to be Captain Carrot now, manage to round up all the animals to keep them from hurting each other or others, and then they see a report on the news about 5 superheroes who have recently appeared, and guess that they must have gotten their powers from that same meteorite. Superman says he’s tracked the source of the energy ray’s origin, the planet Pluto, and he and Captain Carrot have to go there because “the fate of two worlds may be at stake!”
In just 16 pages, Roy Thomas effortlessly packs quite a bit of detail into this story. By the final page, I feel the reader is caught up on everything they need to know about this new world and its inhabitants before the ongoing series begins.
Thomas also acknowledges some of the story’s internal absurdities, such as Roger initially looking the same even after he’s eaten his first carrot and become superstrong, but then when he puts his costume on, he wonders, “Where’d all these muscles come from alluva sudden? Oh well…details, details!” He also has a strange habit of calling Superman other names, like Supersam or Supermax, as if it’s too hard for him to remember the name “Superman” and Superman has to keep correcting him. This also sets up the writing style to expect in forthcoming issues. I believe this preview could hook young readers today as it hooked me all those many moons ago.
Unfortunately, while all 20 issues of the ongoing series have been released digitally on Amazon, when this issue was released digitally, it removed the Captain Carrot preview. So the only way to read it (legally) is to try and find a printed copy.
Edited to Add: Or, as Blake M Petite has told me, find a copy of DC’s Showcase collection of this series, which also included this preview. But as of this writing, that’s sadly out of print, too.
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