I didn’t know IÂ needed to see Velma and Daphne dressed in Themyscirean versions of their famous outfits, but I did and now I’m really glad that it exists in a comic somewhere.
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP #9 continues the trend of Scooby Doo team-up being the perfect comic book to get your little brother or sister into comics.
When I started reading comic books I didn’t know things like SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP even existed. Instead I came into comics through Jeph Loeb’s SPIDER-MAN: BLUE.
Maybe if I’d had something like SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP I would have started reading comics at an even younger age. I can also see how a comic like this, with such a simple art style that draws from the original incarnation of the Scooby-Doo cartoons, could inspire a younger kid to start drawing at a younger age.
POSITI
VES
I can see why SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP is its own series and not a one off special. Leveraging two of WB/DC’s biggest properties is a great marketing idea that pays off in being a harmless,
easy to read comic book. It LOOKS like a Scooby-Doo cartoon and comes off like an episode of SUPER FRIENDS that’s a little more conscious of what’s going on. Shaggy makes terrible puns, the DC heroes accept that a group of regular teens could hang out with them, and everyone puts their hands on their hips and laughs at least once an issue.
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP is one of the perfect comic books to give to a little kid, or have in a stack of magazines on an end table at the dentist’s office. It’s not ever going to be hailed as a great literary work like Little Nemo or anything, but who says little kids can’t enjoy some good, inoffensive fun?
NEGATIVES
Don’t let my disillusionment with superhero comic storytelling affect your viewpoint, but SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP ends with the same kind of cliffhanger set up that almost every DC issue did last month, which is either hilarious or depressing depending on your stance on comic book storytelling. You might pick up that Wonder Woman’s face and costume don’t seem to register as “classic” as the Mystery Machine gang’s do, but I don’t think the artists here were necessarily concerned with presenting an entirely cohesive art style.
VERDICT
SCOOBY DOO TEAM-UP is bemusedly shuffling through the kid’s pile of magazines they keep at the dentist’s office. You’re never going to find anything of real true artistic merit- but then again, Shaggy does make a joke about something being hard to see while sitting in the invisible jet.
