[Comic Review] - Scooby Apocalypse

 

 

Official Blurb:

 

The Hanna-Barbera cartoon classic is re-imagined for a new generation in SCOOBY APOCALYPSE VOL. 1!

Fred. Daphne. Velma. Shaggy. Scooby-Doo. Roaming the globe in their lime-green Mystery Machine, they've solved countless crimes and debunked dozens of sketchy supernatural shenanigans.

But what if the horror was real?

Something terrible has transformed our world, turning millions of people into mindless zombie hordes. And only five people-well, four people and one mangy mutt-have the smarts, the skills and the sheer crazy courage to stare down doomsday.

Can these pesky kids and their canine companion-using every incredible contraption in their arsenal-defeat the evil that has overwhelmed planet Earth? We've got only one thing to say about that- ZOINKS!

From comics mastermind Jim Lee and the superstar creative team of Keith Giffen (JUSTICE LEAGUE 3001), J.M. DeMatteis (Justice League Dark) and Howard Porter (JLA) comes Scooby Apocalypse, a whole new spin on the most beloved paranormal investigators in history 

 

: My Take : 

So comics can be weird things, and I do not mean weird in content, but weird in the fact that like most things they are a business of complex interconnected copywrite ownership, partnerships and flagship IPs. This leads to some really great things like Aliens vs Predator (forget the films, the comics were actually awesome) and Xena Warrior Princess vs. Army of Darkness.  It is also responsible for a period in DC comics that many have forgotten and most people wrote off without reading a single book as a corporate board meeting idea dreamed up by some exec that has never read a comic in his life. Hanna Barbara Beyond.

The "brilliant" idea here was to reimaging the Hanna Barbara cartoon characters, whom DC had the rights for and were no using... aka monetizing, into modernized comic books aimed at teens and the terminally childish, like myself. The goal was to produce a DC Muntiverse Shard of Hanna IP Characters and run it almost like a imprint, though it was published under the DC brand and so technically was part of the larger DC Muntiverse.

Wow.. what a bonkers idea.

As you would expect the series didn't do so well. While my generation might love Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Top Cat and the like. Young people didn't care. They do not even know who they are, and while they might know of The Flintstones, no kid who grew up with Invader Zim or Spongebob really gives a toss about them. On the other side, the people that DID know and watch these cartoons as kids, saw the entire thing as kinda bizarre and cheesy. I mean it was cool, but in a "pick it up and have a chuckle at the cover, flick through it and put it back on the shelf" kind of way. The truth is that the entire thing was doomed to fail from inception. Despite that, and in retrospect. It actually wasn't half bad, with some decent comics getting produced among the rot.

I mean, check out Exit Stage Left, that tells the surprising sophisticated tale of a prejudiced and relationships. One that follows a brilliant but deeply flawed main character who is playwright living in New York during a time that is a thinly veiled retelling of the McCarthy Era. All that anti-gay, anti-jew and anti-commie black list type stuff. Snagglepuss, here, is basically Truman Capote or a Tennessee Williams type guy trying to work, live and love during a time of repression. It is actually really good.

Or how about, Wackey Raceland a mad max style Cannonball Run across the desert. With all the favs. From Darstadly and Mutley, to Penelope Pitstop and the Anthill Gang. A non-stop action packed, and kinetic comic. All style no substance. Yes, everyone on that cover is from the classic Wacky Races cartoon. Can you spot them all?

Ok, lets actually talk about Scooby Apocalypse.

 So in this comic the basic premise of the "team" is the same.. but that is about it. Scoob is a rescued military science experiment, alla the excellent we3 comic by Grant Morrison. This is why he can "talk". Shaggy is a hipster doofus animal trainer at the science lab. Velma is a head scientist, genius who runs the lab and Daf is a reporter with her camera man, Fred.

They meet up as Shag is breaking out Scoob and Velma is trying to whistle blow on the nefarious global plot that is using her research. One thing leads to another and the entire earth is chronenberged. It is now the apocalypse where people have been transformed into monsters form their subconscious. Vampires, Swamp Things, Werewolves.. are all in the mix. Classic Horror Icons come to life.

The thing that sets this apart from the other Hanna Barbara Beyond Comics is that while it starts silly and pretty much what you expect, over the years it insidiously turned into one of the better no-soup comics form DC had at the time. Amassing a decent following and gaining a kind of cult status among comic book readers. The only other book from this period that is as loved is Future Quest. The Jonny Quest series. It collects all the sici elements from Hanna Barbara, but even that is not as popular.

I recently read this, as in last month. I skipped it and most of the Hanna Barbara Beyond stuff when they were new. I like many thought it was just to strange and unappealing. During my read I found it more of a curiosity than something that is inherently good. Though it dose pick up. I think this book suffers from the "Look Shinny Thing" syndrome. This is a term I invented to describe corporate designed media, that kinda suck.. but after a while the corpo looks at something new and the artists are left alone to basically do what ever the hell they want, regardless of the original detectives where. They basically operate with no oversight.

One of the big things to look for is the change in the character of Daphne

So the "Look Shinny Thing" effect is clear in this series. Once the conceit of the story was done and the entire HBB idea was proving a failure, the Scoob book really kicks into another gear and becomes something unique. Something special. dare I say. Something good.

 It seemed like a good idea at the time - Shaggy