Scooby-Doo #23
DC Comics (June, 1999)
COLORIST: Paul Becton
LETTERER: John Costanza
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Harvey Richards
EDITOR: Dana Kurtin
“The Big Lake Fake”
WRITER: Rurik Tyler
PENCILER: Joe Staton
INKER: Mike DeCarlo
“The Haunted Halibut”
WRITER: John Rozum
PENCILER: John Delaney
INKER: Dave Cooper
In the first story the gang investigates a flying monster at a water skiing competition. Mystery really doesn’t matter in either of these stories and that’s becoming a bad trend (though the stories are still an improvement over that Archie run) but it does some cool stuff. The ending is happy one for everybody, including our fake monster, and it has a unique way of doing the suspect list, but I come to this series to watch them solve mysteries, not run from monsters and get lucky in the unmasking.
The second story does the whole mystery solving off-panel. An overcrowded lake (still not explained) is cleared out when a fish monster shows up. A so-called monster hunter shows up to chase him away but the gang proves it’s a scam. I just wasn’t impressed. I think the problem is the two story per issue restriction is really hurting this run.
Overall it’s not that great an issue. Give it a pass. The first story is just interesting enough to stay in my collection but it’s not worth the trouble to track down.
Maybe if each issue only focused on one story, there would be room to develop a much higher quality tale.
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