Scooby Apocalypse Volume 1

I’m happy to say this was something I wasn’t expecting. Of course, by this point in history every bit of pop culture has been zombified, and our obsession with end times seems in no danger of letting up (for good reason, I might add), so why not give the Scooby-Doo gang their own apocalyptic saga? I was on board for it. I mean, I wasn’t counting on it being anything special but I was on board.

Well, as things turned out it was kind of special. First off, there aren’t any zombies. Instead, the apocalypse is brought about by those darn scientists with their lab coats and their desire to remake the world, and specifically humanity, into something better. Yeah, we know how that usually works out. We learn about this from Velma, who is the goggle-eyed brainiac in a lumpy orange sweater that we all know and love but who now has a much more complicated backstory. Rounding out the rest of the crew are Daphne and Fred as a pair of crusading “new media” citizen journalists (hey, they have a late-night show on the Knitting Channel) and Shaggy as a dog trainer who is helping out with a new program meant to create special dog soldiers at the same top-secret underground compound where Velma is working on her nanite plague. And the dog program has one washout of a recruit named Scooby-Doo. Rat’s right!

The characters are all easily recognizable, down to their signature lines. A refresher: Daphne says “Jeepers!”, Velma says “Jinkies!”, Scooby says “Zoinks!”, and Scooby says “Ruh-roh!” And they also have the same basic personalities you’ll remember from the classic TV show. Fred is the well-meaning but dense muscleman,  and he’s in love with Daphne. Daphne, in turn, is the professional woman warrior. Velma is the brains. Shaggy is a hipster. And they even get around in a revamped Mystery Machine, which is now a tricked-out war wagon. I’ll mention Scrappy-Doo too, but won’t give any spoilers for how he turns out.

The art is great and the colourful monsters a lot of fun. As I said, they’re not zombies. Velma’s corrupted nanites have turned the world’s human population into a motley assemblage of demons, vampires, and other freaks. How much of this was part of a deliberate plot is left undetermined, as is the extent of Velma’s involvement, but we still feel she’s on the side of the angels. Because who doesn’t have a bit of a nerd fetish for Velma?

If I had one complaint it’s that there’s too much going on. It’s a good story, and the characters are reimagined in a way that’s original but not degrading or overly political (this isn’t Mindy Kaling’s Velma). There’s no agenda to any of it. But there’s a lot of talk here. A lot. This is a comic that takes a long time to read, and I felt a good part of it was unnecessary. We’ve lived with the apocalypse long enough now for us to hit the ground running. We know the drill and it doesn’t take that long for us to be brought up to speed. I also had a hunch that whatever the mysterious Four were up to wasn’t actually that interesting. But that’s a question for the next volume to answer.

Graphicalex