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scans_dailySholly Fisch is proving, again, what a master he is of the genre of the completely ridiculous team-up, and that's a fine thing to be.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'm an old fashioned type. Whilst I'm all for nuanced and grey area heroes, when push comes to shove I like my heroes (and heroines) heroic and my villains (and villainesses) villainous, and my extra-dimensional imps mischevious. Simplistic? Maybe, but it can be terribly satisfying!
We open with the Dynamic Duo help Mystery Incoroprated finally answer a question that I'm sure at least some of us have asked over the many, many years of their investigations
"Where do they get all those wonderful to..." Oh wait, that's the other guy.
That... makes rather more sense than it should...
When Fred tries to unmask the two villains, it gets a little weird.. Firstly the Spook is revealed to be... False-Face, and vice versa. Then Velma pulls THOSE masks off, and they're revealed to be Shaggy and Daphne. Then Robin has a try and THOSE masks are removed to reveal Scooby and Batman... It's at this point that Batman realises who must be "helping".
Yup, it's Bat-Mite, Batman's #1 fan (and #1 pain in the ass) Mystery Inc, of course, have neever heard of him so he tries to explain his vital role in the grand scheme of things..
Nice meta there Shaggy!
Then Bat-Mte decides that in order for the Batman/robin & Mystery Inc team up to work properly, they need to have a fight first... he even supplies a boxing ring. A completely bemused Flase Face and Spook have to agree that that IS how things seem to go most times
Our heroes, of course, refuse to take part in such a pointless fight, but Bat-Mite still feels there's something not quite right yet... If they want to work WITH Batman they need to look the part. Beyond Gotham City limits they might be Mystery Incorporated, but IN Gotham City they must become...
His next plan, to up the interest in the fight by giving the Spook near godlike magical powers so he's a worthy foe (Shades of what Bat-Mite did to Calender Man in a Brave and the Bold episode) does not go well, until Daphne (who has a refreshingly linear thought process) realises that if this is still one of their adventures, she can stop the Spook no matter how powerful it is, by invoking the thing which ends all their cases... she pulls his mask off, thus breaking the spell and removing his powers.
At this point things take a turn for the truly deranged when a new player enters the scene... if Batman can have Bat-Mite then Scooby can have.... Scooby Mite? Who is vaguely... disturbing in appearance if I'm honest. (I can imagine him saying "It rubs the lotion in it's skin" to a Great Dane puppy somehere along the line)
He's keen on making Scooby Doo more popular that Batman, yes there are lunch boxes and chia pets but he wants MORE, and he thinks Bat Mite only likes Batman better because of the voice, and the cape and that he does a WICKED batusi (Velma, with a grin, asks Batman "You dance?", and gets the stony reply "I don't want to talk about it")
He has a few ideas...
Even Daphne draws the line at the ponies...
It then becomes a battle of...well, "wits" might be stretching the point... Scooby-Mite conjures up an army of hungry zombies, only to have Batman and Robin defeat them because they have a supply of Scooby Snacks in their utility belts (If you want to ask why, presumably in case they ever came up against an army of hungry zombies)
So Scooby-Mite returns the favour, in order to showcase the Scooby Gang's skills
(Heh, my kind of deathtrap!)
Bat-Mite ups the threat level too, throwing in quicksand.. and random ghouls. And the worrying things is that each starts to realise that the other has a point, and they resolve to p the ante over and over and over, until they have a positive "Crisis of Infinite Scoobies"!!
Again, it's down to Daphne to stop this threatened cosmic level chaos...
Batman agrees "If you love watching our adventures, just go home and let us have more of them".
The slightly embarassed imps decide that they do have a point and decide to leave, which leaves everything as it was before.
There's then a last page gag which is both genuinely funny, and shows what a craftsman Mr Fisch is, as it brings in another, similar character to the Mites, and who has an agenda of his own (which includes hero worship of one of the above characters), but who comes from yet another animated series. Alas, page count prevents me from showing it, but I do recommend hunting this issue down, as four pages doesn't really cover the fun of it, but I didn't want to wait until the next issue to be able to share this! :)
I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'm an old fashioned type. Whilst I'm all for nuanced and grey area heroes, when push comes to shove I like my heroes (and heroines) heroic and my villains (and villainesses) villainous, and my extra-dimensional imps mischevious. Simplistic? Maybe, but it can be terribly satisfying!
We open with the Dynamic Duo help Mystery Incoroprated finally answer a question that I'm sure at least some of us have asked over the many, many years of their investigations
"Where do they get all those wonderful to..." Oh wait, that's the other guy.
That... makes rather more sense than it should...
When Fred tries to unmask the two villains, it gets a little weird.. Firstly the Spook is revealed to be... False-Face, and vice versa. Then Velma pulls THOSE masks off, and they're revealed to be Shaggy and Daphne. Then Robin has a try and THOSE masks are removed to reveal Scooby and Batman... It's at this point that Batman realises who must be "helping".
Yup, it's Bat-Mite, Batman's #1 fan (and #1 pain in the ass) Mystery Inc, of course, have neever heard of him so he tries to explain his vital role in the grand scheme of things..
Nice meta there Shaggy!
Then Bat-Mte decides that in order for the Batman/robin & Mystery Inc team up to work properly, they need to have a fight first... he even supplies a boxing ring. A completely bemused Flase Face and Spook have to agree that that IS how things seem to go most times
Our heroes, of course, refuse to take part in such a pointless fight, but Bat-Mite still feels there's something not quite right yet... If they want to work WITH Batman they need to look the part. Beyond Gotham City limits they might be Mystery Incorporated, but IN Gotham City they must become...
His next plan, to up the interest in the fight by giving the Spook near godlike magical powers so he's a worthy foe (Shades of what Bat-Mite did to Calender Man in a Brave and the Bold episode) does not go well, until Daphne (who has a refreshingly linear thought process) realises that if this is still one of their adventures, she can stop the Spook no matter how powerful it is, by invoking the thing which ends all their cases... she pulls his mask off, thus breaking the spell and removing his powers.
At this point things take a turn for the truly deranged when a new player enters the scene... if Batman can have Bat-Mite then Scooby can have.... Scooby Mite? Who is vaguely... disturbing in appearance if I'm honest. (I can imagine him saying "It rubs the lotion in it's skin" to a Great Dane puppy somehere along the line)
He's keen on making Scooby Doo more popular that Batman, yes there are lunch boxes and chia pets but he wants MORE, and he thinks Bat Mite only likes Batman better because of the voice, and the cape and that he does a WICKED batusi (Velma, with a grin, asks Batman "You dance?", and gets the stony reply "I don't want to talk about it")
He has a few ideas...
Even Daphne draws the line at the ponies...
It then becomes a battle of...well, "wits" might be stretching the point... Scooby-Mite conjures up an army of hungry zombies, only to have Batman and Robin defeat them because they have a supply of Scooby Snacks in their utility belts (If you want to ask why, presumably in case they ever came up against an army of hungry zombies)
So Scooby-Mite returns the favour, in order to showcase the Scooby Gang's skills
(Heh, my kind of deathtrap!)
Bat-Mite ups the threat level too, throwing in quicksand.. and random ghouls. And the worrying things is that each starts to realise that the other has a point, and they resolve to p the ante over and over and over, until they have a positive "Crisis of Infinite Scoobies"!!
Again, it's down to Daphne to stop this threatened cosmic level chaos...
Batman agrees "If you love watching our adventures, just go home and let us have more of them".
The slightly embarassed imps decide that they do have a point and decide to leave, which leaves everything as it was before.
There's then a last page gag which is both genuinely funny, and shows what a craftsman Mr Fisch is, as it brings in another, similar character to the Mites, and who has an agenda of his own (which includes hero worship of one of the above characters), but who comes from yet another animated series. Alas, page count prevents me from showing it, but I do recommend hunting this issue down, as four pages doesn't really cover the fun of it, but I didn't want to wait until the next issue to be able to share this! :)
