Monday, July 13, 2015

Curiously Familiar #1: Hoppy the Marvel Bunny and Hoppy the Magic Bunny

Welcome to the first of a ten-chapter run of blog posts I'm calling "Curiously Familiar." In these entries I'll be casting some light on various comic book characters who turned up at at least two different publishers, but wore a different name at each one. This is not the same as characters who were created in homage - in this instances, the two characters were actually intended to be the same entities. Let's begin!

Hoppy the Marvel Bunny was a pink rabbit person who got into all sort of humourous antics with his girlfriend Millie. Also, by uttering the magic word "Shazam" he could transform into the super-powerful Marvel Bunny (who looked just like Captain Marvel).

Hoppy the Magic Bunny was a pink rabbit person who got into all sort of humourous antics with his girlfriend Millie. Also, by uttering the magic word "Alizam" he could transform into the super-powerful Magic Bunny (who looked just like Captain Marvel).

The Story Behind the Story: Worn down by a lengthy lawsuit from DC Comics, Fawcett finally decided to be rid of periodical comics in 1953 and sold some of their properties to Charlton, including Hoppy the Marvel Bunny! By 1953, Hoppy seldom dressed up as Captain Marvel, having long-since become a typical funny bunny cartoon character. When Charlton brought his alter ego back into the series, they had to change both his magic word and his costumed alter ego, those having evidently been retained by Fawcett as part of the Captain Marvel property rights (the costume was mostly intact). By 1955, Hoppy would even change his name to Happy, further divorcing him from his Fawcett origins. Decades later after DC purchased Fawcett's back catalog they began making occasional use of Hoppy in their comics, despite the Charlton sale; Charlton might have complained except... they had been brought by DC too. And so, everything came full circle.

Thankfully, that was the last time there were any complications in the publishing history of Fawcett's Captain Marvel franchise.

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