Happy Easter! Here’s A Guide To Various Rabbit Heroes And Villains

Easter usually means that cute rabbits get all of the attention. There have been quite a few bunnies, hares and rabbits in cartoons over the years, and some have even sneaked into superhero related media as time passed, although for this to happen some changes needed to be made. This article covers a couple of such examples.

Heroic rabbits. One of the best examples I can think of would be Usagi Yojimbo. Created by Stan Sakai, the character was inspired by the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, and his adventures take place in Medieval Japan, although an alternate version of the world, where other anthropomorphic animals like him exist and it is not considered to be anything too weird. Usagi has also appeared in 3 out of the (currently) 5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, and even had his own animated series on Netflix in 2022, titled Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles. This show however focuses on Miyamoto Usagi’s descendant Yuichi and takes place in the future.

In yet another parallel universe we find Bucky O’Hare. He was created by Larry Hama and Michael Golden, and his adventures focus on his fight with the sinister Toad Empire. He similarly received his own short-lived animated series in 1991, titled Bucky O’Hare and the Toad Wars. From DC Comics, we have Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, created by Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw. However the characters haven’t appeared yet in any “official” animated projects, but have apparently shown up in Robot Chicken sketches.

The actual Easter Bunny (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is one of the heroic holiday icons gathered in the 2012 DreamWorks movie Rise of the Guardians, with their mission being to stop the evil Pitch Black from covering the world in darkness.

Rabbit superheroes tend to be a bit silly and cannot be taken 100% seriously, but the following ones were supposed to be more comedic or parodies to begin with. Not exactly superheroes but still heroic enough, one could count on sheriff Ricochet Rabbit (Hanna-Barbera, 1964), Crusader Rabbit (Jay Ward, 1950 and perhaps the first animated series created for television), and who could forget Bugs Bunny becoming Super-Rabbit after eating super-carrots (Warner Bros., 1943). The Looney Tunes Show did an updated version of the short, in 2013, which parodied more concepts from the Superman comics, including stuff from the then recent Man of Steel movie.

Villainous rabbits. The recent (as of this writing) Devil May Cry animated series on Netflix also features a villain known as the White Rabbit. Voiced by Hoon Lee, this character plotted to merge the human and demon realms. Funnily enough, both Batman and Spider-Man have villains called White Rabbit; both of them are women dressed up as rabbits (although Batman’s foe does have some special powers), and neither of them has appeared in a cartoon at this point. Blackjack O’Hare (not to be confused with Bucky O’Hare listed above), was created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema for Marvel Comics. This was a mercenary, leader of the Black Bunny Brigade, and occasionally a foil to Rocket Raccoon. Blackjack has likewise appeared in animation a couple of times, on the Guardians of the Galaxy animated series, or the Rocket & Groot animated shorts.

For more comedy-oriented villains, there’s the actual Easter Bunny, at least the way he’s portrayed on Teen Titans Go!. This creepy Easter Bunny (voiced by Scott Menville) has been a recurring foe for the Titans, sometimes resulting in scenes reminiscent of the Alien franchise, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s a pretty weird take on the concept of the Easter Bunny, and it gets a bit gross at times as well, but it does fit in well enough within this wackier take on the DC Universe. Then there’s the evil mastermind “Mr. Bun Bun” from Underfist: Halloween Bash (a sequel/spin-off for The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy), who just happens to be a marshmallow bunny. From Looney Tunes, there was the the criminal duo of Bunny & Claude (loosely based on the real-life desperados Bonnie & Clyde), who appeared in a couple of animated shorts in the 1960s.

Now, if we were to include one-shot characters, unnamed giant rabbits heroes have to fight occasionally, we’d find a giant rabbit EVO (Exponentially Variegated Organism) from Generator Rex. This rabbit proved to be a nuisance for Rex as it chased him around throughout an entire episode (“Operation: Wingman”), returned in a latter one (alongside a second such creature), and even appeared in a video game based on the animated series. Batman also had to fight mutant Easter bunnies on Batman: The Brave and the Bold (“Legends of the Dark Mite!”), courtesy of the Calendar King, who got a power upgrade thanks to Bat-Mite, and was now able to bring to life such magical creatures. Not superheroes, but rather mystery solvers, Scooby-Doo and his gang encountered a few giant rabbits in various cases, with recent examples being “Fright of Hand” (Be Cool, Scooby-Doo) or “The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson!”, guest-starring Penn & Teller (Scooby-Doo and Guess Who).

Bonus Stage: Easter Island. Yes, the island of Rapa Nui doesn’t exactly have anything to do with the holiday and even less with rabbits, but it is still an intriguing place with its unique statues, and makes for a good setting in various cartoons. Especially action-y ones where they could come up with some interesting theories trying to explain the origin of the statues. Examples include The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (“The Secret of the Moai”), Gargoyles (“Sentinel”), the French mystery cartoon Blake & Mortimer (“The Secret of Easter Island”, one of the few original stories on the show, not an adaptation of a previous comic), or the 2017 Wacky Races animated series (“Easter Express”) if we were to include comedic cartoons as well.

There are probably more examples of heroic and villainous rabbits out there, but these were the ones that came to my mind. Leave a comment if you can think of others, or have opinions on the ones listed above.