For many TV viewers, Scooby-Doo and the gang—along with their Hanna-Barbera counterparts—are synonymous with fond Saturday morning memories. DC Comics is looking to channel that nostalgia in a drastically different direction on the printed page with their newly announced Hanna-Barbera reboot titles, including Scooby Apocalypse.
Entertainment Weekly reports that beginning this May, DC Entertainment will debut new comic book series centered on beloved Hanna-Barbera characters. The upcoming series include Scooby Apocalypse, Future Quest, Wacky Raceland and The Flintstones, with the respective comics following rebooted versions of familiar characters like Scooby and the gang on new adventures.
Fans hoping for more of the late ’60s/early ’70s charm of the cartoon may want to look elsewhere for their Scooby Snack, as Scooby Apocalypse will give the gang a more modern style (luckily, fans of the original series still have DC's more vintage Scooby-Doo! Where Are You? comic series to dig into).
In an interview with EW, DC Entertainment co-publisher Dan DiDio talked about the different takes on Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo:
"It was so fun to go out and look at them, but not just bring back versions that existed 40, 50 years ago and really look at it the way of saying, if these characters were created and interpreted today, how would they exist?
...we just thought it would just be really interesting to take the cartoon version of these characters and see where they would be if we took what existed in the very first iteration of the cartoon and moved it into this day and age. We didn’t want to just repeat what people saw in the past."
The creative team for this Hanna-Barbera comics slate includes DC co-publisher Jim Lee, Evan "Doc" Shaner (Justice League Darkseid War: Green Lantern), Jeff Parker (Aquaman), Howard Porter (Superman), and Mad Max: Fury Road designer Mark Sexton.
Time will tell if Scooby Apocalypse satisfies fans both old and new, but we'll keep Daily Dead readers updated on further details. In the meantime, we have a look at artwork for the series below, as well as a glimpse at the Wacky Raceland comic (courtesy of EW via DC Comics):
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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