As the title of CAPTAIN CARROT AND HIS AMAZING ZOO CREW makes clear, it all begins with Captain Carrot, the rabbit, the lapine legend, himself.

    His powers were sort of generic, as these things go: strength, toughness, super-sharp vision, super-hearing, EXTRA super-strong legs which enabled him to leap through the air in something approximating flight, and, though we never saw it used in combat, a super-powerful overbite. Okay, so not QUITE generic. Still, far more interesting was how he CLAIMED those powers... and RE-claimed them, every day.

    The Captain's origin story calls to mind the phrase "can't win for losing." He was that most pathetic lower form of animal on his Earth, a comic-book writer-artist, drawing the adventures of Super-Squirrel, et cetera. He worked for a boss who could have intimidated J. Jonah Jameson. And while it IS, undeniably, a massive stroke of luck to get super-powers more or less at random, he didn't get the powers directly from Superman.

    Rather, he got exclusive access to a box of Superman-irradiated CARROTS that gave him the powers. And they wore off every 24 hours or so, which usually happened while he was in costume, which made him look more like a dork than ever. The carrot box contained about three carrots at any given time, which should have made Captain Carrot's career about three days long, but fortunately, these carrots seemed to reproduce like... well, like rabbits.

    You'll notice I've avoided mentioning the good Captain's real name. There's a reason for that, but first a slight digression.

    I constantly hear people confusing this guy with Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson of Terry Pratchett's lunatic Discworld books. No relation, as far as I'm aware, and neither Terry nor DC are likely to start a lawsuit over it, so it's all good.

    Now, DISNEY is another story. DISNEY will sue you for muttering about Minnie Mouse-Daisy Duck lesbian fantasies in your SLEEP. (Not that YOU would ever do such a thing.)

    And sure enough, Disney raised a stink when CCAHAZC introduced its protagonist, who had the "street" name of... Roger Rabbit.

    WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? was, at that time, a little-known book that Disney was about six years away from developing into a motion picture. So DC got off light: they could use the name... as long as they gradually phased it OUT, over the course of the series run. Roger developed a MIDDLE name, as unexpected as a third nipple, and began showing a pronounced preference for it, going from "Roger Rabbit" to "Roger RODNEY Rabbit" to just plain ol' "Rodney Rabbit."

    It was worth worrying about, actually, because while the two Roger Rabbits would never be mistaken for each other in a police lineup, they DO have one thing in common... they date way, WAY out of their league.

    You think YOU'VE got relationship issues? Try this on for size:

    Ol' Rodney walks into his studio one day and runs smack into Super-Squirrel, Wonder Wabbit, and company, whose adventures he supposedly CREATES for a living. Yet here they are, looking as real as you or me. Well, as real as RODNEY, anyway. But how can this be? The explanation is simple enough if you have a few beers (PICK ONE):

    A. They're all delusional impersonators.

    B. They're hallucinations brought on by the cosmic carrots, which also cause constipation and cottontail-pattern baldness.

    C. There is another rational explanation, ANY rational explanation WHATSOEVER, that does not involve an alternate Earth.

    D. As Rodney's predecessor explains it, "I think I see what's happened! You JLAers must hail from a PARALLEL EARTH! Somehow, my subconscious must have TAPPED INTO your world when I was writing my FUNNYBOOK STORIES!"

    If you guessed "D," go to the head of the class.

    As good friend Greg Eatroff points out, "The cosmological implications are staggering." Apparently this means Rodney had super-powers even BEFORE this thing with the carrots... he's had the ability, somehow inherited from his predecessor, to tap into AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE and be aware of EVERYTHING going on in it, which he then transcribes into comic-book stories. Maybe Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw had SIMILAR powers, which they used to invade HIS life. Maybe someone else is watching YOURS. Spoo-oo-OOky.

    Of course, that buys into the "writer as medium" theory, the one that says that the stories are out there, and all we do is find them. More popular these days is the "writer as God" theory, which says that we MAKE the stories... and THAT would make Mr. R. R. Rabbit more powerful and dangerous than John Ashcroft. But Rodney doesn't stop to consider any of this.

    Instead he promptly, and from the looks of it, INSTANTANEOUSLY, falls head-over-heels in love with "Wonder Wabbit," and worse yet, the feeling is MUTUAL. Now, they may LOOK good together, but he's a comic-book nerd on super-steroids, she's a warrior princess. Sooner or later she's going to see through that rugged exterior... and then poor old Rod might shrink into his clothes a bit FURTHER. And let's not even get INTO the vaguely incestuous fact that Rodney is essentially falling for his own ARTWORK, here. "It used to be easy," he soliliquizes. "I just thought of her as my ideal of feminine beauty. As long as I didn't know she was real, I could handle my fantasies."

    ...I don't think there is anything I can add to prose so luminous.

    But credit where credit is due. Rod is eventually forced to bring the waking fantasy to an end... and then gets to experience the rare pain of DRAWING his dream girl all over again, when all he wants to do is forget.

    ALSO to his credit, the Captain was gradually building a relationship with the feline magician Alley-Kat-Abra, another of his female co-workers. It had sort of stalled out, but the kindling of a romance was there, and it just needed the proper spark to build it into a roaring flame. Finally, they found just what they needed to give them that spark.

    More drugs.

    Long story short: Abra runs afoul of some enchanted catnip, which basically gets her going like marijuana. She magically changes the Captain from rabbit to fellow feline just so he can trip right along with her. Peace out, dudes.

    Even after the buzz gets killed, the two make a little acknowledgement that really left us wondering what would happen next...

    ...and the answer, of course, is that the series got cancelled.

    Abra was quick to point out that she was never that irresponsible when sober. And this is true. She did, however, swing wildly from nearly omnipotent to nearly totally impotent, with a little incompetence thrown in for good measure. In Part 3, we'll do our best to give her a performance eval....

    Proceed to Part 3