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A review by helpfulsnowman
Scooby Apocalypse, Volume 1 by Keith Giffen
2.0
It's not a bad book, but it's got a Star Wars problem.
Allow me to explain.
With a lot of remakes and expansions, we see one of two things.
With something like Marvel, we see that the universe expands outwards. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, a bunch of characters all have their own thing going on, and those threads are combined.
With something like Star Wars, we have one thread, and everything is bound tightly to that one thread. There's allegedly a whole universe, but it's a universe that doesn't really accommodate a much difference. Think about it. Make a mental chart of which movies include: lightsaber battles, a bad guy who uses the force, fun little creatures, sassy robots, space wars, Skywalkers/Solos, and Death Stars. Almost all? It's not just that they use similar themes and elements, it's that they present to us as an entire universe of possibilities, but we mostly get movies that check the boxes.
Which brings us to Scooby Apocalypse.
The overall premise is a lot of fun. Basically, an apocalyptic event changes most of the humans into monsters. Weird ghouls straight outta the old cartoons, but a touch more interested in tearing people in half instead of scaring them away from an old theme park.
The characters are also given a little more backstory. Scooby is part of a group of cybernetically-enhanced dogs, Velma is a scientist, Shaggy is a dog expert. That part's fun too.
What's not fun is that the book is more interested in namechecking lots of stuff from the show than it is in telling a story of its own. We get a Mystery Machine, Zoinks!, and even a "Let's split up!"
We don't get is much of a story. There's A TON of story being set up. But it's set up in that annoying, "I'm telling you there's a story here, but not telling you what it is" kind of way. You can get away with that if you've got a POV character, which would've worked great in this book because all we'd know is what that POV character sees and suspects, but when we've got the POV jumping to different characters, we never really learn what's going on, but CONSTANTLY hear THAT there's something going on.
It's almost like the book is set to run X issues, so instead of story, we're being threatened with stories to come. "Oh, when I catch up with that Scooby." "Oh, when the others find out my true role in this whole mess." It's fine to lay some of that in, but let's have one story happening in the present with others upcoming, not just sort of characters bouncing around, waiting for something to happen.
Allow me to explain.
With a lot of remakes and expansions, we see one of two things.
With something like Marvel, we see that the universe expands outwards. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, a bunch of characters all have their own thing going on, and those threads are combined.
With something like Star Wars, we have one thread, and everything is bound tightly to that one thread. There's allegedly a whole universe, but it's a universe that doesn't really accommodate a much difference. Think about it. Make a mental chart of which movies include: lightsaber battles, a bad guy who uses the force, fun little creatures, sassy robots, space wars, Skywalkers/Solos, and Death Stars. Almost all? It's not just that they use similar themes and elements, it's that they present to us as an entire universe of possibilities, but we mostly get movies that check the boxes.
Which brings us to Scooby Apocalypse.
The overall premise is a lot of fun. Basically, an apocalyptic event changes most of the humans into monsters. Weird ghouls straight outta the old cartoons, but a touch more interested in tearing people in half instead of scaring them away from an old theme park.
The characters are also given a little more backstory. Scooby is part of a group of cybernetically-enhanced dogs, Velma is a scientist, Shaggy is a dog expert. That part's fun too.
What's not fun is that the book is more interested in namechecking lots of stuff from the show than it is in telling a story of its own. We get a Mystery Machine, Zoinks!, and even a "Let's split up!"
We don't get is much of a story. There's A TON of story being set up. But it's set up in that annoying, "I'm telling you there's a story here, but not telling you what it is" kind of way. You can get away with that if you've got a POV character, which would've worked great in this book because all we'd know is what that POV character sees and suspects, but when we've got the POV jumping to different characters, we never really learn what's going on, but CONSTANTLY hear THAT there's something going on.
It's almost like the book is set to run X issues, so instead of story, we're being threatened with stories to come. "Oh, when I catch up with that Scooby." "Oh, when the others find out my true role in this whole mess." It's fine to lay some of that in, but let's have one story happening in the present with others upcoming, not just sort of characters bouncing around, waiting for something to happen.