Scooby Doo Team-Up #44 – Sholly Fisch, Writer; Scott Jeralds, Artist; Silvana Brys, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 8/10
Ray: It’s back to the wacky world of Hanna-Barbera for Scooby-Doo Team-Up #44, as one of the other famous stars of Wacky Races gets their day in the spotlight. We saw Penelope Pitstop a few issues back, and now it’s Dastardly and Muttley’s moment to shine. Or, more likely knowing them, crash. The issue opens with them once again chasing their arch-nemesis Yankee Doodle Pigeon. This is the status quo from their own solo show, so they’re not trying to cheat to win a race for a change.
After the duo and their hapless minions crash their planes yet again, they come up with a new plan – hiring the Mystery Machine crew to help them with a case of a ghost pigeon. Sure, Yankee Doodle Pigeon isn’t actually a ghost, but no one needs to know that! An elaborate scheme involving a decoy statue and a cartoonishly-sized bomb later, Dastardly and Muttley seemingly eliminate their arch-nemesis.
And that’s when this issue takes off, as they soon find themselves haunted by an actual ghost pigeon! As the stunts in the issue get wackier and wackier, the teenage investigators start suspecting that Dastardly may not have been telling the truth when he hired them. It all leads to a series of chases, and for once Scooby and friends get to be the ones behind the ghost mystery, not the ones unveiling it.
It’s a clever twist on the standard format, and I really liked the twist ending about just what secret messages Dastardly is trying to intercept. This is a dense, wacky comic that has some fun mysteries that aren’t hard to figure out. The title overall continues to deliver amusing stories that pay tribute to an era of cartoons that not many people are still watching. And it’s one of the DCU’s longest-running continuously running comics without a relaunch right now!
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
