Rodney Rabbit
In Reality Z-25 31-H, Rodney “Roddy” Rabbit was a mutated rabbit, sentient and anthropomorphic. He was the life partner and primary lab assistant of Professor Madison.
Description
Physical appearance
Rodney Rabbit was a white anthropomorphic rabbit, looking as though he'd hopped straight out of a cartoon. He was markedly shorter than the average human. As his only articles of clothing he wore spotted “Mickey Mouse”-style shorts and the classic four-fingered gloves. (COMIC: Ghost in the Apparatus of the Spirit in the Shell of the Machine)
Personality
Rodney was frequently drunk, as alcohol appeared to have no lasting negative effects on him. Notably, he was a fine marksman (and indeed prone to resolving problems by shooting at them) in spite of his perpetually-inebriated state. Outside of situations which he perceived as threats needing to be shot at, however, Rodney was friendly and easygoing.(COMIC: Ghost in the Apparatus of the Spirit in the Shell of the Machine)
Biography
Meeting Kelly and Jenkins
Rodney was living (and sleeping) with Professor Madison by the time in 2011 when their hideout in the Mojave Desert was visited by Kelly and Jenkins, the newly-minted “Terrific Two”. Though distrustful of the strangers at first, Rodney took a shine to Kelly and ended up having a one-night stand with her. The following day, Rodney helped in the effort to stop Hank Richards, Madison's other assistant, from wreaking havoc with a giant robot and Madison's Deathray; Rodney ended up being decisive to said victory, shooting the control panel of the robot and thereby freeing it from Richards' control (the feedback from which event knocked out Richards, killing two birds with one stone). (COMIC: Ghost in the Apparatus of the Spirit in the Shell of the Machine)
The Legion of Light affair
Some time after Merv the Griffin was summoned to Reality Z-25 31-H from the Sixth Realm by Doctor Brain and Jesse Brain, (COMIC: For Whom The Toll Bells) Rodney and Professor Madison were invited to his fortress by Captain Evening so that Madison could help detect the potential openings of other portals. While Professor Madison's device was being tested, Rodney slipped away with Jenny and they slept together. Jenny noted with amusement that Rodney seemed in a hurry with their affair, and he explained that he lived by a carpe diem philosophy because “a bunny's life is short”. Rodney was later present, with a firearm in each hand, during Captain Evening and friends' intervention in the building where a transdimensional portal had been detected — though it turned out to be nothing to do with Doctor Brain. After the actual bad guys were easily disposed of, Rodney once more slipped away to party with the group of strippers whom the villains had been attacking. (COMIC: Enter–the Legion of Light!)
Things subsequently quieted down for Rodney, sinking back into as much of a sense of “normalcy” as could ever possibly describe the life of an anthropomorphic rabbit and a mad scientist. However, Rodney reflected that this was not necessarily a bad thing. (COMIC: Rodney's Epilogue)
The Singularity War
Rodney and Madison later attended a conference for scientific geniuses, for which reason they were unavailable during the Armagedda situation. Returning to the Fortress of Evening, they found the Odds gone, having been called away to England. Captain Evening gave Madison a call, asking her to house-sit for him. She enthusiastically accepted, intending to spend some quality time with Rodney enjoying the luxury accommodations of the Fortress. (COMIC: Battle of Britain)
However, Madison was instead persuaded by Kelly and Jenkins to help them launch an attack on the Bureau of Singularity's headquarters at the Nexus of Realities. Rodney naturally joined the adventure; after he, Madison, the Terrific Two, and several other heroes made their way through the Pool Portal, Rodney joined Kelly, Mysto the Space-Wizard and Terry Tornado in a direct assault on the forces of the Bureau on the ground floor of their headquarters, serving as a distraction while an invisible Jenkins and Madison snuck their way to the Director of Singularity. (COMIC: Singularity War)
Back at the Fortress, they were joined by the Odds, returning from England. Rodney helped Madison study the Blue Knight with whom they had returned, with Rodney being greatly amused by the Knight's predicament of being two separate people of opposite genders merged into one by Merlin's magic. Despite his initial sniggering, Rodney ended up befriending the Blue Knight, who, at a party held at the Fortress later the same day, enthusiastically described their experience taking a subway for the first time to Rodney. (COMIC: Meanwhile, On Earth)
Return to normalcy
Madison and Rodney then returned to their lab and resumed their usual mad-science experiments. (COMIC: Child of the Stars)
Rodney was present with Professor Madison in their desert hideout when the Cosmic Solution began causing havoc in New York City. The two watched the TV broadcasts together, though Rodney, tipsy as ever, did not seem overly concerned by what he was watching. (COMIC: Journey Out Of Misery) After it departed, Madison travelled to New York in person with Rodney to help repair the damage it had caused. When she found herself not knowing what to do with a small rip in reality in Times Square that she had no idea how to seal, Rodney suggested that they use it instead of trying to destroy it, and they ended up encasing it in a garbage bin, turning it into an eco-friendly method of waste disposal. (COMIC: Epilogue to Destruction)
The reign of the New Protectors
When the New Protectors began calling for independent superheroes to join up with them, Professor Madison and Rodney were seen in footage broadcast on Hero Hour among the various New York City-based heroes who headed to the city hall in good earnest, little expecting that within the day, the Protectors would slide from this voluntary sign-up to declaring independent superheroes to be outlaws overnight. (COMIC: Season of the Witch)
Welcoming Kate Five
Some time later, Professor Madison and Rodney were in the living room of the Fortress of Evening when Kate Five and her friends, significantly harried after their encounter with Valmorri in Hell, teleported in without warning. Madison phoned Centennia, who'd gone to Angel Falls in search of Kate Five, to update her on this unexpected twist. (COMIC: The Search For Kate Five, Kate Five vs Symbiote - Chapter 6)
Behind the scenes
Rodney's hedonistic, promiscuous love life is presumably a joke on the cliché of actual, non-anthropomorphic rabbits spending their time breeding. His being in a committed relationship with a human woman, combined with his name, may also be seen as reminiscent of Roger Rabbit.
| Recurring elements of The Cosmic Beholder | ||||||||||
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