Bruce

Origin

The Hamsters are all anthropomorphic and larger than normal hamsters. Bruce can be recognized by the dark patch around his right eye. Bruce started out as the most generic of the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. He had no discernable personality, unlike his brothers Chuck, Clint, and Jackie, a fact which the writers joked about multiple times.

Eventually, Bruce became known as a car enthusiast and mechanic/technician.

Character Development

Original Series

Bruce and the others are originally mutated in the process of destroying a cloud of cosmic radioactive Jello for NASA. They are later trained in the martial arts by Tibetan monks.

When they return to the outside world, they beat up a drug dealer and steal his money. Then they defeat a group of hijackers on a plane.

They land as heroes, but they almost immediately lose this status as they get into a variety of scrapes in New York. Jackie, Clint, and Bruce went to a club. Later, they go on a moralistic tear throughout the city, destroying anything they deem immoral, including the Statue of Liberty, which they think is a giant half-naked woman.

They are caught by the police, and cause havok as they are processed into prison. They start a food fight in the mess hall, and eventually break out. They meet up with Chuck and flee the state.

They are playing video games in a mall when they get in a fight with a bully. He casually throws aside Bruce and beats up Clint, but Chuck finally beats up the bully. A professional wrestling promoter, Vincent DeLuxe, saw the fight and signs them up to fight the world champion Mighty Midgets as a tag team. The Hamsters become famous and are all over TV. Finally the fight starts. However, the Midgets couldn't get to the arena on time, so they have to wrestle four huge guys instead. The Hamsters manage to win, and get DeLuxe to give them $5 million each because of the mix-up. Bruce buys a Ferrari, Mercedes, Porsche, and the 'Vette from Miami Vice with the money, and buys another car every month with the interest he gets on it.

Driving an RV (which Bruce fixed up with various forms of advanced technology), they end up at a toy store, where Jackie wants to buy the new hot toy, Flower Garden Folks dolls. However, the dolls eventually go crazy and try to kill everyone. The Hamsters manage to destroy the dolls and rescue their maker.

They drive across country and stop in a rural area. Jackie runs off, thinking he is a WWI Flying Ace, and Bruce, Clint, and Chuck get into trouble in a convenience store. They are arrested, and then they are waylaid by the C.C.C., or Coo Clucks Clan, a religious/racist cult who worships Colonel Sanders and dresses up like chickens. They prepare to cook the hamsters over a cauldron.

Meanwhile Jackie runs into the Heap, who helps him find the others (although they destroy the RV on the way). With the help of the Heap, they quickly route the C.C.C. and escape.

They leave the Heap. They decide to go to Dizzyworld. The P.L.O. has been released from jail on condition of finding and killing the Hamsters. The police try to waylay the Hamsters on the bus on the way to Dizzyworld, but pretend to be dogs with the help of a human friend, Randi. They arrive at Dizzyland only to run into the P.L.O., who has been tipped off about their destination.

Bruce and the others fight against the villains, but have a hard time until Captain Tree and Bush Boy arrive and save the day by sacrificing themselves in the act of killing the P.L.O.

In one out-of-continuity story, Bruce gets a magic saxophone that attracts women. However, it ends up only calling dogs. He gets a new magic sax, but it only calls giant female lizard monsters.

The Hamsters take a vacation in Miami, where they run into a toe-sucking monster. The Hamsters retreat in one of Bruce's Ferraris, and eventually end up falling into a whirlpool while battling the Toe-Jam Monster. The whirlpool sucks then down into the lair of the villain Infidel Castro. Bruce is tied up underwater and killed with a harpoon. The others bring him back inside the underwater base, but can't restore his heartbeat, and go out to mourn. However, a strange creature breaks out of a nearby pod and works on him, somehow restoring his heartbeat. He then locks the door, sets the base's self-destruct mechanism, and, one supposes, takes his body with him. The other Hamsters escape the base, but are separated by the explosion, seemingly forever. The original series ended here.

2008 Series

The 2008 series retcons much of the last issues of the original series. It simultaneously explains the Infidel Castro arc, and Bruce's death, as having been both a dream and having taken place in an alternate dimension. Whatever happened, the new series starts off with five new Hamsters ( Lucy, Jean-Claude, Steven, Arnold, and Rock) constituting an all-new team, and with the original four split apart--although in a different way, and for different reasons, than the split seen at the end of the original series.

The series starts off with the invasion of the monastery by a villain known as Genghis Khann. All of the new Hamsters are killed or captured trying to defend it except Lucy, who escapes and manages to reach Master Lock. Lock then contacts Jackie, who has been living with a group of samurai and mystics underneath Mount Fuji. Jackie has been training intensely, and misses his brothers, so when Lock lies to him and tells him they're all waiting for him so they can all recapture the monastery, Jackie is glad to come.

When it turns out that they are still split up around the world, Jackie and Lucy fly off in their jet to find them. Bruce and Chuck have not been taking care of themselves nearly so well--they are overweight and look middle-aged. They have been working together for some time in Texas, hunting Chupacabras, but haven't seen Jackie or Clint in years. Bruce rides a robot horse, and Chuck rides a normal horse. Bruce now says "reckon" a lot, and Chuck has a sheriff's badge and goatee. Bruce has a refrigerator built inside his horse, and they like to take a load off, drinking chilled root beer around the campfire.

While they are reminiscing about their brothers, a Chupacabra catches them and ties them up in her cave. She wants to mate with them. When Bruce wakes up, he's still thinking about his "dream" about Infidel Castro. They manage to get down and fight the Chupacabra, showing the good old teamwork and banter. However, they are out of shape, and are not winning. Jackie rappels down and saves the day, quickly dispensing with the beast. Bruce and Chuck are embarrassed at how much better shape he is in, but Jackie is so glad to see them he doesn't care. They are happily reunited.

Meanwhile, Khann has been working on a secret plan. He somehow resurrected some of the new team of Hamsters and brainwashed them into working for him. He finds a computer room under the monastery which is tracking a cloud of cosmic Jell-o, just like the one that first mutated the original Hamsters. Then he and the zombie Hamsters catch Master Lock and get the codes to use the computer room.

Jackie, Bruce, and Chuck find Clint, who has also been living a very different lifestyle. He is now the doormat husband of an overbearing human wife. He works in a pawn shop. Jackie, Bruce, and Chuck come in to get him on the team again, but he pretends he doesn't recognize them. He is so stuck in his new pathetic life that he can't bring himself to admit that it was ever different. They all talk. It turns out that Clint was in love with Lucy, but she had a relationship with Chuck instead. The affair (which they liken to Yoko and the Beatles) made them all crazy and broke them up. Bruce understands the motivation to start all over, and gives him a hug.

Clint refuses to understand any of this and kicks them out. Clint's neighbor, Richard, sees them and invites them in, but it's a trap: he's a sex fiend obsessed with animals. Lucy finally finds Clint and knocks some sense into him, and the two of them rescue the others. The brothers want to set off to save the monastery, but Clint says no--he wants to go back to his family; as horrible as they might be, they need him.

Without Clint, the others invade the monastery and are caught. Khann brags about his new plan to them, and points out the incoming cloud of space Jell-o. Then, without further explanation, he shoots Master Lock, Jackie, Bruce, Chuck, and Lucy in the head, killing them. It turns out that the cosmic Jell-o is the home for many other Hamsters, who are apparently alien, not mutant, in origin, and Khann uses them to take over the Earth. Clint eventually tries to get revenge on Khann, but fails, leaving Khann in complete control.

Powers and Abilities

Like the rest of the Hamsters, Bruce is a skilled martial artist. He sometimes uses a bo staff.

He is also a skilled technician, able to fix cars and alter electronic equipment. For instance, he created a car GPS unit in the 1980s! He was also able to build a robot horse with a refrigerator inside.

He lost a lot of his skills over time, and while he could still fight in his later years, he was no longer in his prime.