Scooby-Doo Team-Up #3 Review

I’ve never been a huge fan of Bat-Mite.
I always found him to be pretty much the Scrappy, Flim Flam, or Jar Jar, take your pick, of the Batman mythos. So what kind of fresh hell will this issue be when you add in Scooby-Mite?

A magical imp is causing havoc in Gotham City, and the Dynamic Duo is looking for help from Scooby and the gang! But when Scooby gets his own “greatest fan” from the Fifth Dimension, can even Batman, Robin, and Mystery Inc. outwit two unpredictable imps to deal with the spooky, magical hijinks of…Scooby-Mite?!

The Cover: This is easily my least favorite cover of the 3. And not because it’s horrible or anything, mostly because of the lifeless empty background. After the beautiful work of art that was issue 2’s cover; needless to say this was a major let down.

Interior Art: The cover art may have been a let down but the guts of this thing are getting better and better. Having more detailed backgrounds, which I’ve noticed I complain about alot, are really making the visual feast all the more filling. Instead of just changing colors, Dario’s been adding anime style streaks like on the cover of issue 1 to give at least some pop to plain scenes.

The visual jokes and references are getting thrown in harder and faster. This time we get Men In Black, Ghostbusters, My Little Pony, and more. Specifically, I really dug the panel with Space Kook, The Creeper, and The Yeti from the original series. They look like the classic designs with a like sprinkling of Brizuela flair.
It shows that Dario Brizuela is still the best man for the job.
I even got a chuckle from the Scooby-Mite design. He looks like Scrappy if Scrappy had his face ripped off and replaced with a chubby asian boys face. If you were to take it super seriously I’m sure it would be super creepy and kind of unsettling.
Great art, I don’t have a single complaint.

Story: Two Mites Make It Wrong by Sholly Fisch.
We join the Gang with their new Crimesolving partners, Batman & Robin, as they are closing in on 2 Bat Villains, False Face & The Spook. The Ne’er-do-wells are captured and unmasked…and that is when things go wonky for our heroes. After multiple unmaskings àla Bravo Dooby-Doo, Batman deduces that only one man, No! One Imp can be responsible for this sort of wacky mischief and the floppy eared fellow appears.

And this is where it starts to lose me.
This story breaks away from any semblance of the Scooby formula and get dangerously close to the worst ends of the Pup Named spectrum and, dare I say it, close to Get A Clue territory. But thankfully, Fisch doesn’t push it far enough to make me hate it. Scooby has always been full of comedy no doubt about it, but when it goes super over the top I start losing interest fast. Quick transformations, I let it slide in Pup, and comical magic don’t fit well for me and that’s what this issue is all about…rightfully and expectedly so when you involve Bat-Mite. So in that regard, this issues story 100% hits its target.

To boil the story down, rest of it is pretty much just Bat-Mite and Scooby-Mite arguing about which of their Heroes is better, in doing so they end up putting the others heroes through the wringer until Daphne and Batman convince them that it doesn’t matter who’s better.

One final note, I have noticed that Sholly seems to have an affection for both Daphne, as she has had a feel cool/pivotal moments in the series thus far, and for Batman.

So, to sum it all up, this story was exactly what I expected. My least favorite issue by far but not in a way that makes me want to cut it from my pull list. I’ll look at it as a slight bump in an otherwise smooth and enjoyable journey. In this case, the art is vastly better than the story. And that isn’t a knock on anybody’s talent, just a matter of personal preference and taste. If you like the silly stuff, this is absolutely the issue for you.

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