Happy Chinese New Year, and welcome to the Year Of The Rabbit!
To rejoice, we’ve give you a listing of some of the greatest (and in some circumstances, worst) comic e book rabbits.
Note: we’ve determined to go along with principally Western comic characters right here, however would nonetheless like to offer particular point out to some manga characters as properly, equivalent to Carrot, the rabbit mink from One Piece, Rabbit hero Mirko from My Hero Academia, and of course, Momoji Sohma from Fruits Basket, who was cursed by the spirit of the rabbit of the zodiac.
Miyamoto Usagi
Stan Sakai’s Miyamoto Usagi is arguably the greatest bunny-themed comic character ever created. – Photo: Dark Horse ComicsOne of THE greatest rabbit characters in comic books ever was impressed by a real-life samurai warrior – Miyamoto Musashi, an actual life samurai whose story was immortalised in Hiroshi Inagaki’s traditional Samurai trilogy again in 1954-56.
Like him, the star of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo comic e book, Miyamoto Usagi, is a samurai, a ronin (masterless samurai) forged adrift after the dying of his grasp, and now wandering the land on a warrior’s pilgrimage. He simply occurs to be a cuddly fuzzy-wuzzy rabbit as properly.
Born in Kyoto in Japan in 1953, Sakai’s household moved to Hawaii when he was simply two-years outdated. There, he found the joys of comic books and samurai motion pictures and dreamt of doing a comic e book collection based mostly on Miyamoto Musashi. Then at some point he was doodling in his sketchbook and drew a rabbit with its ears tied up right into a samurai topknot. He cherished it a lot that as a substitute of Miyamoto Musashi, he turned it into Miyamoto Usagi as a substitute, Usagi that means rabbit in Japanese.
The first Usagi Yojimbo (Japanese for “Rabbit Bodyguard”) comic was printed in 1984, as half of an anthology of comics that includes speaking animals referred to as Albedo Anthropomorphics.
Usagi Yojimbo lastly acquired its personal collection in 1987, and Sakai has since received quite a few Eisner Awards for the comic.
Usagi has appeared in an episode of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV cartoon collection, and there may be even a spin-off collection referred to as Space Usagi, set in the future and that includes one of the rabbit ronin’s descendents.
Recently, Netflix additionally tailored Usagi Yojimbo right into a collection referred to as Samurai Bunny, which options one of Miyamoto Usagi’s descendants in the lead as a substitute.
Hoppy the Marvel Bunny
Hoppy the Marvel Bunny is one other animal-themed model of one of DC’s most well-known heroes. – Photo: DC ComicsBack in 1942, Fawcett Comics determined so as to add an animal-led comic e book to go along with its superhero stuff like Captain Marvel (not the Marvel Comics model, however the one that will later be part of DC Comics and turn out to be Shazam).
So, they printed Fawcett’s Funny Animals, and creator Chad Grothkopf, got here up with a bunch of animal characters for it, one of which was a Hoppy, a bunny who dreamed of being robust. He then added parts from Fawcett’s widespread Captain Marvel strips, and SHAZAM! You’ve acquired Hoppy the Marvel Bunny!
Originally an strange bunny in the city of Animalville, he’s reworked into Captain Marvel Bunny when he imitates his hero Captain Marvel, by saying Shazam. He additionally has a Black Adam-like enemy referred to as … Black Bunny. Maybe they need to get The Rock to play him as properly.
Captain Carrot
DC Comics had fairly a quantity of rabbit characters, truly. Besides Hoppy The Marvel Bunny (who would later, er, jump over to DC after it purchased over Fawcett Comics), there was additionally Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, the stars of a 20-issue comic run that first got here out in 1982.
Captain Carrot is sort of like a bunny model of Superman. – Photo: DC ComicsOriginally launched in 1982’s The New Teen Titans #16, Captain Carrot was initially a light mannered comic e book artist referred to as Roger Rabbit (no, not THAT one), who will get Superman-like powers when he’s struck by fragments of a meteorite introduced into his world by none apart from Superman himself!
You see, Superman had been investigating an odd phenomenon that was making the residents of Metropolis to behave like primates, and located that there was an odd power coming from Pluto. But when he flew there to test it out, he was stopped by an power barrier.
Then, he observed a meteor passing via, so he grabbed it and was drawn into “Earth-C”, a world of speaking animals, some of whom gained superpowers from the meteorite’s shards, and would later kind the Zoo Crew, led by Captain Carrot himself.
With the rays additionally inflicting Earth-C denizens to revert to their non-anthropomorphic characters, the Zoo Crew crew up with Superman to cease the supply of the power, which in an ironic twist of destiny, seems to be attributable to Starro the Conqueror, the starfish-shaped alien, who was the purpose the Justice League was shaped in the first place.
Red Hulk Bunny
Not a lot rationalization is want for this man – in any case, he’s from the Spider-Ham comics, that includes speaking animal variations of Marvel’s superheroes.
He is mainly a bunny model of the Red Hulk who doesn’t do a lot and even say something in the comics moreover, properly, showing at any time when a giant group shot is required.
Red Hulk Bunny would not actually do something past present up when group photographs are wanted. – Photo: Marvel Comics
The White Rabbit
Inspired by, however to not be mistaken with Lewis Carrol’s White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland, Dr Lorina Dodson is a somewhat absurd however surprisingly long-lived supervillain that often comes up in opposition to Spider-Man.
The daughter from a rich household who grew up on Lewis Carrol’s books, she was married off to an older wealthy man and resented it a lot that she killed him, along with his dying dominated an accident.
White Rabbit vs Frog Man is a showdown we might wish to see in the MCU… not. – Photo: Marvel Comics
She subsequently used her inheritance to turn out to be the supervillain referred to as the White Rabbit, modelling herself after Lewis Carroll’s character, arming herself with carrot bombs and mutant rabbits, and even at one level resorting to stealing solely watches.
In her first look, she comes up in opposition to Spidey and Frog Man, who goes after her for robbing his favorite quick meals joint. Yeah, her first ever struggle was in opposition to Frog Man. No marvel her profession by no means actually improved by any, er, leaps or bounds.
Funny Bunny
What is it with Spidey and peculiar bunny villains? First there’s Red Hulk Bunny, then White Rabbit, after which there’s this unusual Easter-themed villain from 1975’s Super Spidey Stories #9.
Traumatised by a childhood occasion the place a bully sat on her basket of Easter eggs, Funny Bunny turned to a life of crime stealing different youngsters’ Easter Eggs.
Yes, this can be a Spider-Man villain that truly existed. Somehow we doubt we’ll ever see Tom Holland preventing her in the MCU (although we wouldn’t rule out Miles Morales coming throughout her in the Spider-Verse animation although).
3, a.okay.a Pirate the Bunny
Who knew a bunny would have such a tragic life? From the pages of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s We3 comic e book, all Pirate the Bunny, desires is to roam free and eat grass.
Instead, he’s pressured to be half of a army experiment that encases him in robotic armour and given cybernetic enhancements and weapons, alongside Bandit the canine, a.okay.a ‘1’, and Tinker the cat, a.okay.a ‘2’.
We3’s Pirate is arguably the rabbit with the most tragic again story ever. – Photo: Vertigo Comics
This three difficulty comic launched in 2004 is arguably the most tragic story a couple of bunny, a cat and a canine you’ll ever learn.
It can even be one of the most violent, with heaps of blood and gore, and even Pirate dropping landmines on a prepare and getting shot in the head. Yeah, not for youths or followers of furry bunnies, this one.
Jaxxon T. Tumperakki
The Star Wars universe has rather a lot of bizarre characters and aliens, however one of its weirdest can also be one of its most, properly, grounded in Earth phrases.
Jaxxon T. Tumperakki is a inexperienced Lepi alien, mainly a inexperienced bunny, that first appeared in difficulty #8 of Marvel’s Star Wars comics again in 1977, created by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin. A smuggler who was associates with Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, Jaxxon additionally pilots a ship referred to as The Rabbit’s Foot.
We reckon Jaxxon would get alongside fairly properly with Rocket Racoon. – Photo: Marvel Comics
His first ever story was Eight for Aduba-3, which was sort of like a tribute to Kirosawa’s Seven Samurai, however set in area and with a inexperienced bunny (What is it with comic e book bunnies and samurai anyway?).
Meant to be a kind of analog to Bugs Bunny, George Lucas famously hated the character, however he grew to become a fan favorite, and has since made appearances in extra trendy Star Wars comics as properly.
