Scooby-Doo! Team Up #50 Review

I'll admit I haven't kept up with the Scooby comics recently, mainly due to lack of interest with the overuse of stock art, but when Lance was kind enough to send me a copy of Team Up #50, I decided to read it and review it given the popularity of that particular issue.

I know a few people have asked me via email when I'm reviewing the recent Teen Titans / Scooby-Doo crossover that aired earlier this month, so I'll answer this here too in case anyone else may be wondering. I'm waiting for it to be posted on WCOStream (the new rebranded name for WatchCartoonOnline), who has unfortunately been incredibly slow in posting it. I am aware it's on other streaming sites such as KimCartoon and others, but I don't want to risk it, as recently their plethora of pop-up ads has been making my antivirus go crazy. That makes me a bit nervous, as I have heard horror stories of people getting viruses on their computers from pop-ups, and paying hundreds of dollars to repair the computer and get the virus removed. So for now I'm waiting for it to be posted on WCO, and I'm checking regularly so hopefully they post it soon so I can review it. But anyways, back to our main topic now! 

I really enjoyed this issue. I'll admit, I'm not used to reading comics (please don't take my nerd license away, haha) so this was a bit different for me. From this point on, there are spoilers, so don't read this review unless you've read it, or for some odd reason want it to be ruined for you even though you haven't read it yet.

Villain-wise, even though it was good to see Scrappy again, I was bothered that they fell back on the old "haha Scrappy sucks!" trope. I feel that's been so overused now and can't understand why the writers still think that's funny 17 years after the live-action film where it began. I did, however, like seeing some of the old Scooby recurring characters like Vincent Van Ghoul, the Hex Girls and Flim Flam. Honestly, I never thought I'd see Robi again in a Scooby-related production, so that was a huge surprise!

It was fun seeing all the versions of the gang interact with each other, but I wish they would have expanded on the dialogue a little more. Other than young Fred from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, and a few of the versions of Daphne, none of the character versions really said anything that differentiated themselves from the other versions. I must admit, I am getting sick of the quick nostalgia grabs so this could have clouded my opinion a bit, but I think this is the best "classic throwback" we've had in the 50th anniversary so far. Still, I didn't think it was super special. I felt they could have done so much more with the character interactions, but it felt rushed. There was a little bit of contrast between the versions in the final panel, when all the individual character versions group up by their character, but I would have liked to see more plot development there. Something like Cyber Chase maybe?

As for Batman, he seemed pretty unnecessary and underutilized in this team up. Bat-Mite seemed to take center stage, so it's odd that Batman was the main credited one since he was barely used. I liked Mr. Camera, and thought he looked similar to the Night Ghoul from "The Night Ghoul of Wonderworld" from the 1979 Scrappy series. The joke about him just wanting to go to jail was amusing.

Despite my criticisms of the issue, I didn't hate it and it was definitely fun. It may be an unpopular opinion, but I feel like too many of these "throwbacks" for the 50th anniversary are choosing to just scratch the surface of the franchise rather than giving us an actual, fleshed-out return to classic aspects of the franchise that haven't been utilized in a while.

What did you all think of the 50th and final issue of Team-Up?