Captain K'Rot and THRESHOLD = CANCELLED!!!!!

This August, the adventures of Captain K'Rot come to an end. That's right, earlier this month DC announced they were pulling the plug on Threshold: The Hunted, as well as a couple of other titles. (I believe the other two are Dial H and Demon Knights. Oh and I guess Legion of Super-Heroes is also going bye-byes in August.)

That's right, folks! K'Rot is porkin' outta here!
The series ends with issue 8. The Larfleeze character, featured in the Threshold back-up story, will be spinning out into his own series (which will also probably only last around 8 issues).

Am I disappointed? Yes. But more because I'm wondering what's going to become of my beloved Blue Beetle than any worry over the future of K'Rot. Plus, I actually really liked the story in this series. But I wasn't expecting it to last past issue 12, so I really wasn't surprised when I heard the news.

Oh well.

THRESHOLD #8
Written by KEITH GIFFEN
Art by TOM RANEY and PHIL WINSLADE
Backup story art by TIMOTHY GREEN II and JOSEPH SILVER
Cover by HOWARD PORTER
On sale AUGUST 14 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • FINAL ISSUE
The game is over for the Hunted! Who lives and who dies is sure to set the universe ablaze. Plus, a major villain emerges from the shadows!
Hopefully, DC will wise up now and bring back the real Captain Carrot, maybe with a Captain Carrot vs Captain K'Rot one-shot. Yeah, I doubt it.

Is Vibe cancelled yet?

Another Captain Carrot appearance! And in another of my favorite rabbit comics!!! BONUS!!

I have been a long-time fan of Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo series, since waaaay back when Fantagraphics put out Usagi Yojimbo Volume 1. I had every single issue of the first series, but kind of lost track of the character when the Samurai rabbit switched publishers and hopped over to Mirage Studios. That being said, I still managed to snag the odd issue here and there. And of course, I saw his appearances on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series (the first one) when they aired. I remember being pissed that Usagi wasn't in the third Nina Turtle movie (I mean, COME ON!!! How was he NOT in that movie???). And yes, I even owned a Usagi action figure or two.

Sometime before Dark Horse Comics started publishing the character, he TOTALLY dropped off my radar. I mean, completely gone. Don't know how it happened, and I wish it hadn't. Needless to say, my secret love affair with that awesome rabbit bodyguard had come to an end.

Then came my Bounty Hunter character, and Dave Ryan's War of the Independents series. For those of you that don't know, WoTI is a huge crossover series featuring tons and tons of Independent comic book characters teaming up to defeat an evil to the comic book multiverse at large. My Bounty Hunter character is in it, and so is Usagi Yojimbo! Yeah, I flipped my s**t when I found that out, and added the rabbit on to my list of Things To Buy.

It took a while, but I have finally gotten around to it. I'm currently buying up as many of the Usagi Yojimbo trades as I can get my hands on, and there are a few, but I'm slowly getting back up to speed. While talking with a buddy about the new Michael Bay Ninja Turtle movie (mostly negative things were being said), Usagi came up, and my friend went into his room, and handed me this:


Usagi Yojimbo #100! He asked if I wanted it, and of course, like I always do when offered something for free, I said "HELLS YEAH!!! GIMME THAT FREE THING!"

Number 100 is basically set up like a celebrity roast type of deal. Featured in the issue, doing the roasting, are quite a few popular people from the comic book industry (you can see exactly who by clicking on the image of the cover above). But...whoa...hey, hold on a second. Do I see Scott Shaw's name there? And what the Hell does any of this have to do with Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew?

Well, I'll just post the pages done by Scott, and not just the Captain Carrot cameo panel as I was originally going to do, as his whole section is freaking amazing! Feast your eyes on these puppies...uh, bunnies?? Yeah, bunnies is more appropriate.



As you can see, Scott and Mark Evanier really knocked it out of the ballpark with those pages.

It's just too bad Captain Carrot had to be kept in silhouette due to legal reasons. But he's there nonetheless.

Well, off to see if I can track down any more obscure appearances. They pop up in the strangest places. Hope you enjoyed this one.

And read Usagi Yojimbo if you're not already. You wont regret it.

Captain Carrot House Ad?

A fan of the blog recently drew my attention to this Captain Carrot house ad that he discovered over on fourcolorpromises.com Does anybody know where this ad was originally featured? Maybe Scott Shaw! knows?


I know I've seen a variant somewhere in some old DC comic I have kicking around, but the thing that has me wondering about this one is the Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew title logo is completely different from the final version that they actually used on the series. For one thing, Captain Carrot is spelled out in CARROTS!!!

Whoa...so trippy.

Any help would be fantastic.

Keep on crewzin', people!

Happy 75th Birthday, Superman!!!

Today is Superman's 75th Birthday! So go out and buy him a cake, or a new pair of socks. Better yet, get him some red underwear for his stupid new costume in Man of Steel!!!

Yeah, that last one.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,SUPERMAN!!! We love you!! (But you really need to get the red gotchies back.)

Action Comics #1, June 1938

I wish!!!

I stumbled across this picture on facebook the other day, I believe on the Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew page. I LOVE these customs. I only wish some company would finally give us some real Captain Carrot AND all the Zoo Crew action figures. (and by all, I mean ALL!!! Even Little Cheese.)

Alas, we'll probably get a Captain K'Rot figure before we get a Captain Carrot figure.


Go here to see more awesome customs pictures: The Fwoosh Forums: The Customs Threads.

Lots of awesome custom-made action figures in that thread, from all over the place. DC, Marvel, Star Wars, you name it. There's even a Darkhawk figure. :)

If you know of anywhere there are more Captain Carrot custom action figures on the Internet, drop me a line and I'll post 'em up on here. And hey, while I'm at it, if you know of any podcasts that have talked about CC&HAZC in an episode or two, let me know about those, too. I'm dying for a CC-centric podcast.

New Blog Added, Supergirl's Comic Box Commentary

Added a new blog to the links today. Supergirl's Comic Box Commentary is a blog all about, you guessed it, SUPERGIRL! I've just read through the first few pages of posts, and it's a great and informative site to visit if you want to keep up to date on Supergirl.


So check it out. You won't regret it.

Oh, and if anybody is wondering why this blog is getting its own entry on the Burrow, when none of the others did, it's a new thing I'm doing. From now on, any time I add a new link I will give the site its own blog entry as well. I figure it will give more attention to said blogs, and help promote them a bit better than me just adding the link silently to the Links list.

So there!

Threshold #2 (Captain K'Rot's debut)

Well, the moment we all dreaded has finally arrived. Threshold # 2 has hit shelves, and with it, Captain K'Rot (and Pig-Iron as well. WTH?) makes his rip-roaring first appearance.

I'm going to start off by saying, this is NOT a review of the full issue. I'm just going to be commenting on Captain K'Rot. I know everybody is just dying to know what I think. Well, I can summon it all up with two words:



ROCKET RACCOON!

Yup, that's right, Rocket Raccoon. That's all this character is. People have been bandying it about on the 'net since K'Rot was first announced, and sadly, that's what happened. Captain K'Rot is, for all intents and purposes, a Rocket Raccoon clone. I know Keith Giffen is one of RR's co-creators, but come on. Now, I LOVES me some Rocket Raccoon. I've followed the character from as far back as his first appearances in Marvel Preview #7 (Summer 1976) and The Incredible Hulk #271 (May 1982. I have his appearances in Quasar, She-Hulk, his own 4-issue limited series and pretty much all of his current day appearances since Annihilation up until now. So, you'd think, being such a fan of RR, I would love to see a DC-counterpart.

Not entirely true. Let's put it this way. If K'Rot was NOT supposed to be the New 52's answer to Captain Carrot, I would probably adore the character. As it is, I'm kind of left rolling my eyes as I read about him, thinking of the massive missed storyline DC let slide by creating this CC/RR mash-up. More on that later.

I guess I should give at least a quick run-down of what the issue is about. Threshold Presents: The Hunted #2 picks up where #1 left off, with Stealth and Space Ranger, on the planet Tolerance, being hunted by one of the top hunt clubs, the Crimson Thrust. Yada Yada, they emerge triumphant,of course. We then switch to Jaime Reyes (otherwise known as the Blue Beetle), who is being held captive by the operators of The Hunted game show. They plan to release him into the game to hunt down Jediah Caul, a fallen Green Lantern. After Jaime is released is when we get out first glimpse of our new furry heroes, as seen below:


Enter Captain K'Rot, Pig-Iron and...uh...Sleen? Not sure what she's supposed to be exactly, but I think she's a raccoon-person. Yeah, that's right. A freaking raccoon. Really, Keith?

Apparently, this new notZoo Crew has been hired by something called the Consortium to collect a Reach scarab, and they see poor Jaime Reyes as their opportunity to get their paws on one.

Silly Rabbit. Reach scarabs are for kids!
Needless to say, K'Rot and gang fail, and after knocking Jaime unconscious, the scarab activates the Blue Beetle armor. Unfortunately for the notZoo Crew, with Jaime out like a light, the scarab is pretty much free to kick all their asses. K'Rot flees, with the Blue Beetle close behind, and coincidentally leads the Reach warrior right to Jediah Caul (it seems K'Rot and Caul know each other, which makes it even more coincidental). Chaos ensues, and the issue ends with the Blue Beetle facing off against Jediah Caul.

Overall, a pretty good read. I really do like this book so far, but I can't help but think how much better it could have been, from a purely Captain Carrot point of view. Which brings me back to my "more on that later" up above.

WHAT DC COMICS SHOULD HAVE DONE! BUT DIDN'T! BECAUSE THEY ARE STUPID!by Sean N. Koury
Now as far as I can tell, at the end of the real Zoo Crew's last appearance in Final Crisis, the Crew was still stranded in the regular DC universe. I like to imagine, after the events of Flashpoint, they still were. If I was in charge at DC, what I would have done is have Captain Carrot and the rest of the Zoo Crew stay as they were, AND be the only ones to remember the way the old DCU used to be. Imagine it. Out of all the characters in the DCU, the Zoo Crew are the only ones who realize that something has changed. Not Superman, not the Flash, or the Specter, or the Phantom Stranger, but the Zoo Crew. The least likely candidates to have knowledge of something so cosmically profound.

Then, in their journeys to find a way back to their own dimension (which, when last we saw it was flooded and overthrown by Starro), they end up in space, and get tangled up in the events in Threshold. This series would sky-rocket to the top of my list if this had happened, and would fall in line a lot closer with what Scott Shaw! wanted to do with the Zoo Crew after the events of Final Crisis. But then DC would have had to pay out royalties or something. Can't have that, right? (Lame!)

A missed opportunity if ever I saw one. Could have been so much fun, seeing the cartoonish Zoo Crew interacting with the regular DC universe.

I like to think that this did in fact happen, and the Zoo Crew is kicking around somewhere in the nu52, trying to find their way back to Earth-C, or 26, or whatever. Maybe one day, we'll see a Captain Carrot/K'Rot team-up.

Yeah, right. I doubt it.

(PS. What's with the cosmics in this book using "Das't" as a swear word? Isn't that the EXACT same word the cosmics used FIRST in the Marvel cosmic books? Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Color Phil Jimenez Zoo Crew picture FOUND!

A few months back, on November 2, 2012, I posted a blog entry entitled Captain Carrot Fan Art: Artist Unknown. It featured an awesome piece of Zoo Crew art, and I really wanted to know who the artist was.

Well, it turns out it wasn't a piece of fan art, but a professional piece done by comic artist Phil Jimenez (Wonder Woman, Infinite Crisis, New X-Men, amongst others) for an issue of the now defunct Wizard magazine. I talked briefly with Phil on facebook, and he told me it was done up as part of an April Fool's Day issue. He also told me that there was a COLOR version of the picture that had been done for the magazine, but he unfortunately didn't have a copy of it for me.

Of course, I now needed to track this down.

For once, luck was with me. I didn't have to look far. In the comments section of the same blog entry, a CCB fan calling himself Monitor_ep told me to contact him, as he had the color version to send me.

I immediately...forgot all about this.

Yes, somehow I forgot about it. Monitor_ep left his comment back at the beginning of January 2013. I read it. And forgot about it. Bad, Sean. BAD!

But then...I remembered! And sent off an e-mail to Monitor_ep asking if he still had it. And he did! So here it is for your viewing pleasure!

I didn't think it was possible for this picture to look any better, but...well, there you go!

So a huge Captain Carrot THANK YOU going out to Monitor_ep for sending me the pic. And hey, check out his DeviantART page if you have the time. Monitor_ep has a TON of awesome custom DC action figures pictured there, and they look fantastic. Definitely worth a peek. You can find his page HERE.

Captain Carrot joins the Invasion! Sort of...

Earlier today, I posted a plea for help over on the Captain Carrot's Burrow facebook page, asking fans if they knew of a Captain Carrot strip that may or may not have appeared in DC's Invasion! Daily Planet Special Edition. I had remembered that a year or so back, over on the Comic Book Resources DC forums, somebody had mentioned the possibility of such a strip existing.

Well, I managed to find a copy of it online.

But first, a little backstory (although I'm sure it isn't necessary for any long-time readers of DC Comics.)

Invasion! was a three issue mini-series and crossover event that started in late 1988 and continued into early 1989. I remember it well. Even though I was pretty much only reading Marvel Comics by this point, I did actually pick up this mini, as well as a few of the tie-in issues. The reasons behind why I did, unfortunately, are lost to the sands of time.

Anyway, the series itself was plotted by Keith Giffen (Threshold, where Captain K'Rot is soon to make his debut) and scripted by the ever-awesome Bill Mantlo, in his first work for DC after a years-long career over at Marvel Comics. Come to think of it, being a huge fan of Mantlo's work on Marvel's Micronauts and ROM: Spaceknight series may actually have been what got me to pick up Invasion! in the first place. But like I said, the sands of time.

I don't want to get into too much detail about Invasion! itself, as that isn't the main focus of this article. If you would like to know more about it, you can follow this link to the Wikipedia page. Just clickety-click (Barba-trick) on Invasion! Wikipedia. Most, if not all, of the info on the wiki page is dead-on. At least as far as I can see.

Now that you've read all about the Invasion! crossover, you're almost ready for the Captain Carrot strip itself. As a special little extra to go with the main crossover, DC realeased the 16-page afore-mentioned Invasion! Daily Planet Special Edition. The cover boldly states "EARTH TO INVADERS: DROP DEAD!" and contains many fun Invasion! related articles, all written from an in-universe point of view. The Daily Planet released this Special Edition Friday, November 4, 1988, and there is even an editorial on Page 9 written by Perry White himself, and a Metro Report (on the same page) by Clark Kent, whoever that is.


Here's the cover:

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the Captain Carrot strip itself. Found on page 13 of the Special Edition, along with other such well-known strips as Out of the Tar Pits, Doonesfield and Baitman
(along with a couple of others, but I'm too lazy to type out the names), Captain Carrot is the second strip from the top. Without further adieu, here it is:

You may want to click on the image to make it a bit easier to read. I chuckled a little when I read it, but at the same time, I had been hoping for a Scott Shaw! piece.

Oh well, you can't win them all.

If anyone has any fun (or even not so fun) recollections of this crossover, feel free to share. I have to admit to not knowing if the Invasion! series was well recieved or not. Like I said, not much of a DCer at this point in time. Fill me in!

Who's Who in the Zoo Crew - Fastback

Well, it's time for another exciting entry in Who's Who in the Zoo Crew, and since I recently posted an article about the Terrific Whatzit, I figured who better to feature this time around than Whatzit's nephew.

Good 'ol Timmy Joe Terapin. Garsh, he's nifty.

This handbook entry first appeared in the September 1985 issue of Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. The issue number (or volume number as it states on the cover) is #7.

Here's the cover to the issue. Fastback can been seen running swiftly up the Elongated Man's back. Um...

And just for fun, here is another cool picture of Fastback I found in an old November 1997 Flash one-shot called Speed Force. This 64-page special contained stories featuring all kinds of characters who use the Speed Force to be...well, speedy. In its pages, you will marvel to the exploits of such super speedsters as the Flash, Kid Flash, Max Mercury, Jay Garrick (the Golden Age Flash for people who live under a rock), Jesse Quick and a MYSTERY FLASH!!! Unfortunately, there is no Fastback story, BUT there is an awesome Phil Jimenez pin-up showing all the characters (as of Nov. '97 anyway) that access the Speed Force, and Fastback, as you can see below, is on it.

Captain Carrot fans have often wondered if Fastback accesses the Speed Force when he uses his super speed. It is never mentioned in any of the comics he's in, but I've long believed that he probably does. So I was thrilled when I saw this picture. Does it PROVE anything? Probably not. But who cares?

Keep on crewzin', folks!!!