Ruh Roh! Rit’s Ronder Roman!

WONDER WEDNESDAY

On Wednesdays I look at various chapters in Wonder Woman’s history. Click here for previous installments.

I have to admit, I’ve had the latest collection of the current series of Wonder Woman lying around for three months now, and just haven’t been inspired to write about it yet. That series moves along at such a glacial pace that I feel like not much has happened since last I wrote about it. I’ll get around to it eventually. But a Wonder Woman comic came out last week that I can’t wait to write about. Because at long last, Wonder Woman teams up with…Scooby-Doo!

That’s what I’m talking about!

Scooby-Doo Team-Up #5, DC Comics, September 2014.

There are only a handful of comics that I buy in single issues rather than waiting for the trade collection, but Scooby-Doo Team-Up is one of them. In fact, it’s the only one published by DC other than Batman ’66. And the reasons are similar. Both are nostalgia pieces packed with in-jokes about the absurd tropes of the old TV shows on which they’re based, and they’re just plain fun comics.

So true. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Dr. Joyce Brothers guest-starred on Scooby-Doo.

For the first few issues, it seemed like Scooby-Doo Team-Up might as well be called Scooby-Doo and Batman Team Up. In the first issue, the Scooby gang joined forces with Batman and Robin, which wasn’t so strange because they’d done the same thing on Scooby’s original TV show. The second issue guest-starred Batman and Ace the Bat-Hound. Issue three featured Bat-Mite. So were they ever going to break out of the Batverse?

Well, yes, in fact, in the very next issue. Number four featured Teen Titans Go!, as seen in the TV cartoon of the same name. Mind you, this still included Robin, albeit in a very different cartoon style, which inspired a pretty funny joke about how different Robin seems when he’s not around Batman. “He even looks and sounds different!” Daphne says. “His voice doesn’t sound like Shaggy’s anymore!”

This, of course, is a sly reference to the fact that both Shaggy and Robin were voiced by Casey Kasem in the 1970s cartoons. This comic came out only a month before Kasem died, as it happens, and when the issue hit the stands Kasem was in the news because of a weird family custody battle over him while he was ailing. Still, it was such a fond tribute that the joke didn’t seem at all in poor taste.

And see, Robin and Speedy are voiced by the same guy in the new cartoon.

That’s what I love about how Sholly Fisch writes these stories. They’re simple, funny adventures for kids, and artist Dario Brizuela really captures the cartoon’s style, but there are also tons of clever in-jokes for fans of the old series. In fact, the Wonder Woman issue is the first one so far that doesn’t poke fun at the fact that the Scooby gang is used to being able to solve every single mystery by pulling the mask off the monster. It’s their only move.

It’s funny because it’s true.

In issue 5, Velma and Daphne are on Paradise Island riding kangas and training to be Amazons, which seems pretty random until we find out that Wonder Woman invited them there to solve a mystery. Mythical creatures keep showing up to menace the Amazons, only to disappear suddenly. And, well, mythological creatures are right up Wondy’s alley, but fake monsters? Those are Scooby-Doo’s business.

Hey, look! It’s Nubia! We haven’t seen her in a while.

Meanwhile, Shaggy and Fred have to wait in the invisible jet, because men can’t set foot on Paradise Island without the Amazons losing their powers forever. As you might imagine, this becomes important later. Scooby can run free, on the other hand, because there aren’t any rules about dogs.

Oh, that Shaggy.

The story isn’t nearly as funny as previous issues, but it’s still a fun installment in a fun series. There are some wacky hijinks from leaving the boys in a thought-controlled plane, and the mystery villain is an appropriately nostalgic blast from Wonder Woman’s past. We even get to see Nubia again! When it comes right down to it, just having a Wonder Woman-centered issue of one of the current comic series that I find most enjoyable is a rare treat.