While grim and brooding reboots of comic book hero origin stories are a dime a dozen - both on page and onscreen - the beloved denizens of the Looney Tunes universe don't really seem like the doom and gloom types. So, while fans may think these anthropomorphic animals came to exist in a family-friendly manner, the pages of DC's Lobo/Road Runner Special #1 prove that your favorite Saturday morning cartoon characters actually have a surprisingly dark and almost David Cronenberg-esque story behind them.
The book is just one of several one-shots released by DC, starring its own characters crossing over with the Looney Tunes. Team ups include Catwoman alongside Tweety and Sylvester, Batman partnering with Elmer Fudd, Wonder Woman and the Tasmanian Devil and more. But it was a story featuring Wile E. Coyote, Lobo and the Road Runner that showed readers the Tunes are basically man-made genetic abominations rampaging throughout the world.
The story begins in 1949 - the same year Wile and his avian counterpart made their debut - with a pair of scientists from ACME tranquilizing a coyote in the Nevada desert. A throwaway line has one of the workers complaining that the "wabbit" they'd already collected was too small for a tranquilizer shot. Bringing their quarry back to ACME Labs (located in Duckwater, NV), we learn the pair's names - Dr. Adams and Dr. Daniels - and see the lab is a sight to behold. Vials, control units, display monitors and chemicals fill the book's pages, but it's the large incubation vats that raise an eyebrow.
It turns out that the reason Adams and Daniels had been collecting animals for ACME is that the company is trying to splice alien DNA with terrestrial DNA, and the characters we all grew up with are just the results of these twisted experiments. And while, sure, ACME is responsible for such outlandish products as Jet Bikes, Tornado Seeds and Jet-Propelled Unicycles, this seems like a bit much even for them. Daniels even ponders, "Does anyone else find it strange that ACME Labs has gone from building a better mousetrap to weird science in just a couple years?"
Dr. Caldwell, seemingly the lead scientist on the project, explains that, "by observing the mutations in these animals we can surmise how the alien DNA could alter and enhance human biology," going on to say his tests could lead to increased stamina, strength and intelligence. An explosion in the lab leads to all of the characters escaping, with the previously normal coyote having been transformed into the hot-tempered and hapless Wile E. Coyote everyone knows and loves. And that, according to DC, is how the Looney Tunes came to be.
Where ACME got alien DNA in the first place is never explained outside of an offhanded line about Roswell, though the previous book in the series did end with Marvin the Martian in government custody after a misadventure with Martian Manhunter, so there's room to theorize. Regardless, if anyone is disappointed that their favorite childhood characters are just science monstrosities gone awry, the blame lies with DC Comics and the Looney Tunes themselves.