Granted I’d be scared of the Spectre too.
Scooby-Doo Team-Up #13
DC Comics (January, 2016)
“Don’t Be A Stranger”
WRITER: Sholly Fisch
ARTIST: Dario Brizuela
COLORIST: Franco Riesco
LETTERER: Saida Temofonte
ASSISTANT EDITOR: David Piña
EDITOR: Kristy Quinn
The Phantom Stranger and Deadman come to the gang on Halloween seeking their help when various ghostly heroes and villains disappear. They figure out where the missing departed have been taken and travel there thanks to the Phantom Stranger, eventually learning they were captured by the Stranger’s enemy Tannarak, who wants to use their ghostly powers to give himself immortality. He even tricked the Spectre into separating from his host and capturing him while he was weak. However, the Spectre takes over Scooby as Deadman takes over Daphne and together they break out the heroes as Shaggy and Kid Eternity stop Tannarak. But it was all just Shaggy’s dream. Right?
What they got right: One thing this series does well is paying tribute to DC owned characters (though many of them were purchased from closing companies) and as a Halloween story this goes into the most ghostly superheroes (and Gentleman Ghost, the only villain I recognize), some of which I actually know from one source or another and others I only just learned about here. This may draw people into checking out a few of these other characters. I didn’t even know the Phantom Stranger HAD a nemesis.
What they got wrong: The “it’s all a dream…or is it?” cliché. Can we stop doing that please? Choose one and stick with it. At this point I’ve given up on mystery stories we can solve along with the gang from the DC run so I’m just going to accept this series for what it is because at least it’s doing something better than the other two titles I’ve looked at. (I really don’t care about Scooby Apocalypse so I won’t be reviewing that here. I don’t care if it’s good because it doesn’t interest me.)
Recommendation: This is a decent peak into DC’s supernatural history and something worth checking out. Maybe some of these guys will end up in one of the supernatural titles someday?
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