Let's get this out of the way. "Chasing Rabbits" features writing by Daniel Kibblesmith, pencils by Carlos Villa, inks by Roberto Poggi, colors by Chris O'Halloran, and letters by VC's Clayton Cowles.
This was the final issue of this particular miniseries and I'm so very sad to see this title end!! LOCKJAW features a very simple character -- the Inhumans' teleporting dog -- and builds of an engaging, humorous, and smart comic book. Plus it somehow managed to match Lockjaw with D-Man of all people -- and make it work so well!
First, we got ourselves a very brief origin of Sleepwalker's new canine companion, Dogwalker. Sleepwalker, in an attempt to better understand humans, recognized that we often keep pet dogs around. So he created Dogwalker. Of course, this ignores the fact that Sleepwalker used to hang out with a real dog named Rambo way back in the old SLEEPWALKER series. But I like Dogwalker, so I'm not complaining!
We also got ourselves an actual and complete origin for Lockjaw in this issue. Which is incredible given that the character has been around since 1965! It turns out that some simple Inhuman woman "kidnapped" a young puppy from some human family, mistaken the animal for a mistreated child. Inhuman scientists began performing awful experiments on the poor dog, including devising ways to impregnate the dog with her own cloned material and then torturing the puppies.
Eventually, they exposed the dog to Terrigan Mists right before she was set to give birth to Lockjaw and his four siblings. The mists caused spontaneous mutation of Lockjaw, but not his siblings -- which isn't completely true because they were clearly changed. They're all very intelligent for dogs -- especially Doc Jaw -- and they all have lived for decades.
Regardless, Lockjaw recognized that his siblings were at risk and so he teleported everyone away from within their mother's womb. Bixby was left in Brooklyn, the Beast was taken to the Savage Land, Doc Jaw ended up on Larval Earth, and the fourth dog was taken to the Negative Zone -- where he's been at the mercy of the evil Annihilus, who's tortured the dog and tapped into its latent teleporting abilities. Annihilus has been trying to capture Lockjaw and his siblings with plans for teleporting whole planets into the Negative Zone so that he can torture and kill all of the natives. Because he's not really nice.
Once Sleepwalker and Doc Jaw helped Lockjaw tap into his forgotten memories about where he left his final brother, Lockjaw and D-Man teleported to the Negative Zone and confronted Annihilus. This led to a huge multi-dimensional battle between Annihilus, Lockjaw, and D-Man transformed into a dragon (don't ask).
Annilhilus was ultimately defeated in Earth's distant past and D-Man was quickly deposited back in Brooklyn with his brand new Inhuman puppy! That's right, Lockjaw entrusted his lost brother to his new human pet!
Of course, we don't know this dog's name. I actually reached out to Daniel Kibblesmith via Twitter to thank him for the series and to ask about the new dog's name. He deflected, confirming that he does indeed have a name for the dog. However, he wants to keep it to himself to reveal at a later date if and when he gets to write D-Man again. Which I really want him to do!!
Speaking of D-Man, it's unclear if he got his original powers back after the temporary power boost/dragon transformation that was given to him by Doc Jaw. I'm kind of hoping that he doesn't end up with the ability to transform into a dragon-man now. Then again, I could think of worse powers in the world!