Bucky O'Hare

Bucky O'Hare is a fictional character and the hero of an eponymous comic book series as well as spin-off media including an animated TV series and various toys and video games. He was created by comic book writer Larry Hama and comic book artist Michael Golden[1] between 1977 and 1978[2] and debuted to the public in Echo of Futurepast #1 in May 1984.[3]

For other uses, see Bucky O'Hare (disambiguation).
Bucky O'Hare
Bucky O'Hare as he appeared on the cover of the Nintendo video game, 1992
Publication information
PublisherContinuity Comics
First appearanceEcho of Futurepast #1
(May 1984)
Created byLarry Hama
Michael Golden
In-story information
Team affiliationsS.P.A.C.E (Sentient Protoplasm Against Colonial Encroachment)
AbilitiesMaster tactician and field commander

The storyline of Bucky O'Hare follows a parallel universe where a war is ongoing between the inept United Animals Federation and the sinister Toad Empire. The United Animals Federation is an interplanetary republic run by sapient mammals, while The Toad Empire is controlled by a vast computer system known as KOMPLEX, which has led the highly consumerist toad population to fight an expansionist campaign against the rest of the galaxy.[4][5]

Overview

Bucky O'Hare comics were first published by Continuity Comics in the mid-1980s, appearing in the comics anthology series Echo of Futurepast, with Hama writing and Michael Golden on pencils. The series was later collected into an oversized graphic novel. Hama wrote a second Bucky O'Hare arc, which was never published.[6] A UK version of the comic was published in 1992 by DC Thomson.[7]

The comic book spawned an animated TV show which ran from September 1991 to January 1992, along with a series of action figures. During that period, Konami produced two tie-in video games based on the property: an NES version and an arcade version, both released in 1992.

Characters
Main article: List of Bucky O'Hare characters
Bucky O'Hare and crew. Art by Michael Golden

Bucky and his crew are members of the S.P.A.C.E. organization, which stands for Sentient Protoplasm Against Colonial Encroachment.

  • Bucky O'Hare – a green hare, captain of a S.P.A.C.E. frigate named The Righteous Indignation. His crew was introduced in the comic and consists of:
  • Jenny – first mate and pilot, a female cat from the planet Aldebaran with mysterious magical and psionic powers common to the females of her species. They include telepathy, astral projection, energy blasts, and healing. Because of the Prime Directive of the Aldebaran Sisterhood, she keeps these powers secret from the other members of the crew. She shows overt romantic affections for Willy DuWitt.[8][9][10]
  • Bruce – a Betelgeusian Berserker Baboon who served as the Righteous Indignation's engineer. He vanished into another dimension when the ship's photon accelerator malfunctioned during battle.
  • Willy DuWitt – engineer, a pre-teen human genius from San Francisco who enters the Parallel Universe via a portal between the ship's photon accelerator and his own accelerator at home. He replaced Bruce, the former engineer, who was vaporized when toad plasma weapons caused a massive feedback in the ship's photon accelerator.[11][12] Later, Willy became stranded when his parents turned off the photon accelerator back in his room. Bucky and his crew decide to keep Willy a secret from the Toads.
  • Deadeye Duck – gunner, a four-armed former space pirate duck from Kanopis III. He is missing an eye, and is impatient and violent, preferring to let his four laser pistols do the talking for him. Speaks with a Southern accent.
  • AFC Blinky – an advanced AFC ("Android" First Class). Has only one eye. Uses the phrase "Calamity and woe!" to identify problem situations for Bucky and his crew-mates.

The members of the Toad Empire introduced in the comic are as follows:

  • KOMPLEX – the undisputed ruler of the Toad Empire. This sapient computer program was designed to run the consumerist toad culture, and it did, by conquering it and militarizing it. Its name, in toad language, is an anagram for 'Feed me'.
  • Toad Air Marshall – one of KOMPLEX's foremost commanders, with a uniform adorned with medals and a face covered in warts.
  • Toad Borg – one of KOMPLEX's elite troops, part toad, part robot.
  • Storm Toads – the indoctrinated soldiers who serve as the primary attack force for the Empire.

In the comic, Bucky and crew escape a toad attack but must rescue Jenny when she is captured by the toads. In the end, a strange, nigh-omnipotent mouse banishes the toads attacking Bucky to "a safe place where the food is bad and taxes are high". Willy's parents, not knowing what the photon accelerator does, deactivate it, trapping him in the Parallel Universe.

The U.S. comic only ran this one plotline; however, to coincide with the TV series in the early '90s, a UK comic reprinted the issues, then produced a further fifteen issues written by Peter Stone, and illustrated by Andre Coates and Joel Adams.

In 2007, Vanguard reprinted the original Bucky O'Hare comic and two of the UK issues in a digest size collection, similar to a manga. The book is called Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Menace and is printed in black and white. The deluxe edition was also released. Some copies of the "deluxe" edition, however, were in fact the standard edition with a slipcover, not the signed, numbered color version that was advertised.

In other media

Cartoon series
Main article: Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars
  • Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars was a syndicated animated television network show which aired in 1991.

Other appearances
  • In Death Battle: Fox vs. Bucky (2013), Bucky O'Hare is one of the combatants and faces off against the protagonist of Nintendo's Star Fox games Fox McCloud. He loses due to Fox's superior experience as Fox chokes him and shoots his face off with a blaster.
  • In the Robot Chicken episode, "Noidstrom Rack" (2014), Bucky O'Hare is seen requesting to land on Moonport 4–5, only to mate and crash the Righteous Indignation.

Video games
Main articles: Bucky O'Hare (NES video game) and Bucky O'Hare (arcade game)

A Bucky O'Hare game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992, which required Bucky to rescue each of his crew members (except Bruiser, who is not featured in the game) on a series of planets. As each character was rescued, the player gained the ability to switch between them and Bucky on the fly to deal with different problems. Immediately after regaining his entire crew, they are once again captured and imprisoned on the Toad mother ship. Bucky and Blinky, sharing the same cell, break out and must rescue the remaining members. Afterwards, you continue through the monstrous ship. The gameplay and level design very closely resemble that of Capcom's Mega Man series with elements from Konami's Contra series and character switching from Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mixed in.

An arcade game by Konami was also released which allowed up to four players to control Bucky, Jenny, Deadeye or Blinky. It is a run-n-gun game similar to the Konami arcade games Sunset Riders, Mystic Warriors, Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa,[13] and Aliens. Perhaps to satisfy fans when a second season was not released, the plot of the arcade game allowed players to achieve final victory over the toads by releasing an energy called the Interplanetary Life Force contained within KOMPLEX. This last hurrah to the series also featured the original voice cast.

Konami also released a Bucky O'Hare handheld electronic game.

Toy line

In 1991, the toy company Hasbro released a line of action figures based closely on the Bucky O'Hare series. Most of the major characters were represented: Bucky O'Hare, Deadeye Duck, Willy DuWitt, Blinky, Bruiser, and Commander Dogstar were the heroes released, and Toadborg, Air Marshall, Storm Toad Trooper, and Al Negator were the villains that made it to the shelves. Two vehicles were released as well. The good guy vehicle was the Toad Croaker. The bad guy vehicle was the Toad Double Bubble.

The line was terminated before the next two series of action figures could be finished. There are several photographs available online of the unreleased figures, some completely painted with accessories, and others as unpainted prototypes. At least one photo shows the fully packaged Jenny, likely because this figure was completed in time for the first release, but was delayed to be part of the second. Several others show Pitstop Pete and Sly Leezard both as unpainted and as completed figures. Bucky in a spacesuit, Rumble Bee, Kamikaze Kamo, and Total Terror Toad are the other finished figures. The mobile configuration of the chief villain Komplex (Komplex-2-Go in the arcade game), Digger, and Tri-Bot (a minor villain from the final episode) are the other unpainted prototypes known to exist from these photos. More recently, both an unpainted prototype and a fully finalized figure of Jenny was revealed online in a review video.[14]

In 2017, Boss Fight Studios announced they would be releasing new Bucky O'Hare action figures.[15][16] These updated moulds feature multiple points of articulation and interchangeable hands and faces. The first two to be released were Bucky O'Hare and the much anticipated First Mate Jenny. Later releases included Stealth Mission Bucky, Astral Projection Jenny, Deadeye Duck, and the Storm Toad Trooper. Two promotional figures were also released; an Easter themed Bucky (moulded in chocolate themed colours) and a Corsair Canard Deadeye Duck who was packaged in a promotional steel lunch-box featuring Bucky O'Hare concept art. The line now has seen the introduction of Bruiser who is listed as a deluxe figure, and comes packaged in a window-box with Bruiser artwork and bio. Bringing a total of five figure moulds produced and nine figure variants released. Upcoming releases have revealed an Aniverse figure of Bucky and the Storm Toad; that feature vibrant colour schemes. And a new figure mould of Mimi Lafleur. There have also been promotional photos of a Stealth Mission Deadeye, but no confirmation yet that this will be an official release.

Legacy

During the 1990s, VHS tapes were released by Family Home Entertainment. Due to Sunbow Productions' lack of a US home distributor currently (it was formerly Rhino, then Sony Wonder, which has shut down), the cartoon had been stalled in releasing a Region 1 DVD, a company called Exposure Entertainment was supposed to have released the 13 episodes on DVD in North America, in Region 1 NTSC format for the first time, but the overall release was either very rare and limited, or no set had appeared at all. The same company had a similar issue with their first season release of Biker Mice from Mars. However, it did have a Region 2 PAL DVD release in the UK by Metrodome Distribution, which as of 2013 is now out of print. Hasbro has recently acquired the rights to most of their cartoon library, since the toys were produced by Hasbro, it may be possible for the series to see a DVD release in Region 1 eventually, if Hasbro did acquire the rights to the cartoon and if they can find a distributor for the show.

Comic book artist Neal Adams and Continuity created a short online 3-D cartoon of Bucky O'Hare.[17]

Bucky O'Hare featured in an episode of Death Battle, where he lost a fight against Star Fox's Fox McCloud.

In 2006, it was reported that Neal Adams was working on a Bucky O'Hare movie project.[18]

A graphic novel of "Neal Adams presents Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Menace" was re-released in 2008 in manga format by Vanguard Press.[19]

References
  1. "MICHAEL GOLDEN NAMED GUEST OF HONOR AT MID-OHIO". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved 2010-12-10.
  2. Dallas, Keith; Wells, John (2018). "Part 3: Implosion (1978–1980)". Comic Book Implosion: An Oral History of DC Comics Circa 1978. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 85. ISBN 978-1605490854. Bucky O'Hare, Ms. Mystic, Sorcerer, and Starslayer were each developed for DC in 1977 and 1978 but they all then remained in the hands of their creators.
  3. Rovin, Jeff (1991). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Cartoon Animals. Prentice Hall Press. p. 38. ISBN 0-13-275561-0. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
  4. . 21 October 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20171021222832/http://2.bp.blogspot.com/DP0ox8zTFwAm1yoJpwiH2HPODiuQZJGD46B7odHbQWOw5DzT4nXJznj6-1KikdLd-CiXVT1CnhgA=s1600. Archived from the original on 21 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2018. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. . 21 October 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20171021223141/http://2.bp.blogspot.com/86ksXzLF_VyUNTqlody7aqV8HvdWqeYNRp56BsA-qWXH3gsCo8hh7MaMqj8FZHD3qPxfQOTQHmAg=s1600. Archived from the original on 21 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2018. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. "IN-DEPTH: LARRY HAMA ON GI JOE, THE 'NAM & MORE". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on 2009-06-07. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  7. "BUCKY O'HARE". Comics Price Guide. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  10. . 22 October 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20171022002911/http://2.bp.blogspot.com/zO_NLNciDUvnsSTdLMTbEjAG9JQqluC6rtnxvrjbbRwIsPyWdmFNgQkj0DL8n71wh03QcvPZ9t2O=s1600. Archived from the original on 22 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2018. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. . 22 October 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20171022002742/http://2.bp.blogspot.com/3vQMASjODjVvdoY5KaVDVYQZuPpbYhgIuZS2FzmLZK5ftbi5HwPf7ywAnqGLsqU53ncvVMZAq51A=s1600. Archived from the original on 22 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2018. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  12. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-10-22. Retrieved 2017-10-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. "Wild West C.O.W.-Boys Of Moo Mesa". arcade-museum.com. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  14. "Toy Review: Bucky O'Hare Jenny Unproduced Action Figure". YouTube. 12 December 2008. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
  15. "New BUCKY O'HARE Action Figures Are Coming From Boss Fight Studio - Nerdist". Nerdist.com. 5 November 2016. Archived from the original on 16 June 2018. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  16. "Bucky O'Hare Returns With New Action Figure Line". Cbr.com. 4 November 2016. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  17. "Bucky O'Hare". YouTube. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  18. "Neal Adams to direct, produce Bucky O'Hare film". Newsarama. Archived from the original on 2009-01-06. Retrieved 2009-07-31.
  19. "Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Menace". Vanguard Press. Archived from the original on 2010-01-23. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
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