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From Friendly Ghosts To Gamma Rays, No.163

Hey folks and welcome back to another edition of our all-ages column From Friendly Ghosts To Gamma Rays! It’s been a little bit since this column last appeared because we had an unexpected break, however, you can expect to see us appear weekly again until right around Christmas time! So now this week if you’re not too stuffed from Thanksgiving yesterday, or too tired from staying up and watching King Kong (a tradition with a lot of folks surprisingly on the upper East Coast of America), I implore you to keep reading a little further because in just a few more words we have a review for you!

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Scooby-Doo Team-Up #1
Publisher: DC Comics
Story: Sholly Fisch
Art: Dario Brizuela
Remember years ago when you saw, either when it originally aired or when it was re-run a billion times on Cartoon Network, the Scooby-Doo cartoon The New Scooby-Doo Movies, where he’d team up with like the cast of I Dream of Genie or the Harlem Globe Trotters? Well one famous episode that has been a fan favorite for years was the one where Scooby and the gang teamed up with Batman and Robin. That is essentially the initial set-up of the all new comic Scooby-Doo Team-Up from DC, in which we get to see Scooby, Shaggy, and the rest teaming up with DC super heroes, the initial issue featuring Batman and Robin.
Issue #1 finds the Mystery Inc. and Scooby running into Batman and Robin, referencing that they already know each other through the previously mentioned cult-favorite cartoon episode. Turns out Batman is searching for Man-Bat who flew off from Gotham and into their neck of the woods, and Batman is just trying to give him his serum to turn back to normal. Suddenly terror strikes at a nearby mall where multiple Man-Bats are robbing and trashing the place! Batman, Robin, and Scooby-Doo hit the scene to solve this case and save Man-Bat.
Everything about the issue works really well. The wink and nod to things like old The New Scooby-Doo Movies TV show, the friendly fill-in-the-gap back story of Man-Bat for younger readers not familiar with him, and just the fact we get to see Batman and Scooby cross paths again! Writer Fisch has done a great job with the first issue, tying it all together in an enjoying format for readers of all ages, and Brizuela’s art looks great, his renders of the DC heroes fitting into the Scooby-Doo world style. We get action, we get comedy, there’s nothing not to like here.
The future of Scooby-Doo Team-Up looks promising, too! DC has started a digital version of it, and like LiL Gotham, the printed book will come out bi-monthly printing what we get digitally first, so there’s a life planned for this title for at least a one year chunk at minimum. Also we know from previews that next issue he crosses over with Batman and Ace the Bathound! Man, Ace and Scooby in the same issue, I’m sold at the thought of it.
Scooby-Doo Team-Up is too much fun for any reader of superhero titles, check it out.

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That’s it for this week, see you next!
Drew McCabe
drew@comicattack.net