Scooby-Doo Team-Up #42 – Sholly Fisch, Writer; Dario Brizuela, Artist; Franco Riesco, Colorist
Ratings Ray – 7/10
Ray: Scooby-Doo Team-Up is at its best when it’s successfully fusing the title cartoon’s traditional mystery with obscure DC continuity.
Scooby-Doo Team-Up #42 definitely has the latter, but it’s so stuffed with guest stars that it loses sight of the former. This issue’s theme is apes and lots of them! Good apes, evil apes, and psychic apes.
The issue opens with the Mystery Machine crew facing off against an army of evil apes, including Monsieur Mallah, Nazi vampire ape Pryemaul, Gorilla Boss, and Mod Gorilla Boss. These are all real characters. Fortunately, the heroes have an assist from heroic apes: Sam Simeon of Angel and the Ape, Congorilla, and Detective Chimp.
It’s exactly as bizarre as it sounds, and only gets more so when the real villains – Gorilla Grodd and Ultra-Humanite – show up to reveal their master plan. And they have a secret weapon in the form of the biggest DC ape of all – Titano. The first half of the issue feels like it’s little more than one ape after another showing up and getting introduced.
This is definitely one of the sillier issues that this series has done, and easily the silliest focusing on the DC characters. The ape villains would have a much better chance at success if they weren’t constantly bickering and turning on each other, and even powerhouse villains like Grodd and Ultra-Humanite come off as little more than buffoons here.
However, the issue does have a pretty great handle on the characters’ unique abilities, and it has particular fun with the body-swapping abilities of Congorilla. I didn’t recall the character being half this funny when he appeared in Robinson’s Justice League of America prior to the New 52.
By the end of the issue, Titano has been neutralized, the villains have been stopped, and one more DC ape – or monkey – shows up for a cameo. This series is great when it comes to showing kids new corners of the DCU, but this issue might have pushed the gag a bit too far – I’m not sure of the audience for an all-ape comic.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
I enjoy the series and hope it continues. I’d like to see the Mystery Inc./Archies crossover since we’ve recently seen a Batman ’66/Archies title. Perhaps even Mystery Inc./the Monkees?