Blackjack O'hare First Appearance

In the first case, the wonger is already at the table, sacrificing a portion of the bankroll throughout the less favorable periods, so that they can count the cards with utmost precision. Once suitable, they signal the ‘big player’ and once they enter the gameplay, the wonger conveys them the exact table count, normally using a code. Blackjack O'Hare. Blackjack O'Hare is a skilled mercenary from Halfworld. First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk #271 - Rocket Raccoon! Appears in: 11 issues. Mimi LaFloo is the captain of the S.P.A.C.E. Frigate Screaming Mimi. Mimi LaFloo is a very beautiful anthropomorphic fox with a statuesque body, standing roughly four feet tall. She has green eyes, blonde hair, red lips, light brown fur, and dark brown eyelashes. She wears a blue S.P.A.C.E, captain's outfit with yellow trim, earrings, and epaulettes, a blue captain's hat, and black-and-yellow.

Introduction to Wonging

The gambling strategy known as ‘Wonging’ has a wide and varied application, but it is most tightly related to the game of blackjack. Basically, it is practiced by players counting cards at one or several blackjack tables on the casino floor, and choosing the prime moment, based on their count, to enter the gameplay.

Essentially, Rocket Raccoon, Blackjack O'Hare, and Lady Lylla get drunk and have a threesome. And Rocket ends up experiencing some odd feels towards the end, but that's less important. Based on an online roleplay by the following three Tumblr users: otterlylla, rocket-ringtail-raccoon, and black-jack-o-hare; Spindlewrites (Spindlesays on tumblr.

Who Invented Wonging?

There is no saying who was the exact person that invented the Wonging strategy, as players have long been known to hop from table to table mid-game. However, blackjack author Jack Ferguson, better known for his alias Stanford Wong, largely propagated and developed this strategy in his publications, thus prompting people to name it after his pen name.

In 2014, BlackjackInfo conducted an interview with Stanford Wong which you can find here.

The Basics

The wonging strategy can be viewed as a sort of a sub-type of card counting, as players count the cards at their chosen blackjack table(s), but without participating in the action. This allows players to keep track of the game flow and take a seat at the tables only when the count is favorable. Normally, they would occupy a less noticeable position that allows them full preview of the cards dealt, and stay there until the time is right.

Once the count is favorable…

… players take a seat at the table in order to make the most of it while the action is hot. This saves them the time and bankroll portion that they would otherwise have spent if they entered the action from the start. Cold periods with negative counts alternate with the positive ones and maintain some balance, but this particular strategy all but eliminates any possibility of staking your hard earned cash without getting a payout.

Nevertheless, beware…

… of appearing too conspicuous on the casino floor. Card counting as an activity in itself is frowned upon, and casino management are constantly on the lookout for any apparent behavior – fluctuations in bet sizes, sudden quitters from the table or signals to transfer information. As for wonging, players need to be additionally aware of the way they position themselves during table monitoring.

Different Approaches

Across the massive number of books written on the topic, both from Ferguson and others, experts have shared various approaches to a successful wonging strategy.

Some ‘wongers’ tend…

…to act busy and fidgety since the moment they enter the casino, as if they have a plane to catch and the casino floor is just a by-way stop until boarding time comes. These tend to continue their busy appearance all throughout the surveillance period and during the actual gameplay at the blackjack table.

Other wongers, however…

… apply a sort of self sabotage. This needs to be done carefully, so that it doesn’t appear to be on purpose and used against the player’s interest. Most of the time, wongers enter the table at a peak time, play a few hands while the gameplay suits them and leave, but not before risking some of their winnings for the sake of keeping up appearances. They may double their bets after a win, or just increase them during a less advantageous count – either way it is something that throws management off for just enough time to make a getaway.

Teaming Up

Wonging in teams is a third option to better practice this blackjack strategy. It can be done with the wonger – big player approach, or simply with a friend that can play along with the act just enough for the wonger to get the count. In the first case, the wonger is already at the table, sacrificing a portion of the bankroll throughout the less favorable periods, so that they can count the cards with utmost precision. Once suitable, they signal the ‘big player’ and once they enter the gameplay, the wonger conveys them the exact table count, normally using a code or association.

The latter team play option…

… would still require the wonger to do the card counting on their own, but it is much less conspicuous in the eyes of casino management. Once blackjack entered the big screen, relevant strategies portrayed there were commercialized and more widely applied, resulting in lower success rates.

… strongly supports this theory, as the characters doing the card counting would successfully work in teams of wonger – big player structures. Yet, even their timely demise indicates the need to be extremely attentive during such strategic plots.

Advantages of Wonging in Blackjack

Using the wonging strategy in your blackjack gameplay has its perks and downsides. However, the fact that it is still practiced decades after being publicly explained is proof enough of its beneficial character.

One benefit…

… is the fact it allows players to spare their bankroll. Wonging is applied at optimal times, when the blackjack table count is in the positive mark. This practically means wongers are going straight to the winnings without toiling out their day waiting for the table’s count to go up.

Secondly…

… players practicing wonging are indirectly also practicing bankroll management, one of the most recommended strategies for successful gambling in general. It limits the risk imposed on players’ bankrolls, and further allows them to maneuver their bet sizes. All in all, wonging is all about benefits from practicing betting strategies right.

Proper Wonging

Card counting as part of this proper strategy, is made all the more easier, even though it doesn’t require any special know-how in general. The fact that, in wonging, it is additionally performed at a place of your choosing on the casino floor makes it an even more attractive skill to acquire.

Disadvantages

Naturally, since it turns the odds in the wongers’ favor, it is bound to be frowned upon by casino establishments. Thus, wongers can rightfully assume that one key disadvantage is the fact that they could easily get banned from their preferred casinos on the assumption of practicing this strategy.

On top of that…

… most blackjack enthusiasts nowadays tend to turn to the online casino websites providing greater accessibility and player friendly house edge. These services, however, employ blackjack software that doesn’t subject to wonging and similar blackjack strategies.

Related Forum Discussions

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]

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[edit]

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.

Blackjack O'hare First Appearance Schedule

Characters[edit]

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

Blackjack O'hare First Appearance Date

• 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 Scottish 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.

Blackjack O'hare First Appearance Dates

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[edit]

Cartoon series[edit]

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

Other appearances[edit]

• 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[edit]

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'Harehandheld electronic game.

Toy line[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

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. ISBN978-1605490854. 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. ISBN0-13-275561-0. 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.
8. ^[1]^{[dead link]}
9. ^[2]^{[dead link]}
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.

External links[edit]

• Bucky O'Hare at MobyGames