Review: The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #2.5

by Lauren Fiske
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“Rat’s All Folks!”
Writer: Sholly Fisch
Artist: Dario Brizuela

Color Artist: Franco Riesco
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
Review by Lauren Fiske

The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #2.5 presents quite a silly adventure for the Mystery Gang and the Bat Crew this week! This time, the group faces off against some mobster rats with unknown origins. This issue has some excellent references and surprising backstory, at least if you’re unfamiliar with the women of the Kane family!

You can check out previous reviews of the series here to get caught up on the action.

The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #2.5

The creative team behind The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #2.5 did some great work with this issue. The story wasn’t overly complicated, yet the comic was compelling and interesting. I really enjoyed getting to see Batwoman on the page and the artists clearly worked hard to get her details and color scheme represented accurately. I also finally got what I wanted with the inclusion of more female characters in this series!

I sometimes feel that comics creators are afraid that including women, particularly strong women, in comics will be detrimental to the content or somehow weaken the story. I’ve found the opposite to be true, especially in this series. Having more female characters on the page, as well as more women involved in the comic’s creative team, causes the issue to be more successful overall. Admittedly, the villains for this week’s issue were a bit hokey, but that wasn’t the main focus of the story. Everything came back to character for this issue, particularly the Kane women.

The Kane-iac Combo

Mystery Inc. are initially called in to help Bette and Kathy Kane as a favor to Batman, but it’s quickly revealed that the women of the Kane family are no wilting violets. Bette actually ends up disclosing that she was the original Bat-girl and her aunt Kathy the original Bat-Woman. Considering that the Mystery Gang are not aware of anyone else’s secret identities in the universe of this comic series, this is a big deal!

The creators also spend some time showing Kathy and Bette in action via flashback and it’s just really good fun. Seeing the older costumes depicted in modern comic style is amusing and delightful. They do still seem a bit contrived even in a modern drawing style, but it’s fun to see retro and modern styles mixed.

This issue also had some touching moments with Kate Kane, the current Batwoman. Although the Mystery Gang doesn’t know her true identity, we get to see some nice moments between Kate and her aunt Kathy, as well as among the three Batwomen (okay, two women and one Bat-girl).

Conclusion

This issue was an alright outing overall, for both the creative team and the characters. It was a little bit different for Batman to scarcely appear on the pages of The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #2.5, but the issue didn’t suffer for it. I think my main problem with this comic was the simplicity of the antagonists. As mentioned before, the main focus of this issue was the women of the Kane family, so that’s why the villain and his mutant rat henchmen weren’t as deeply covered. This does not change the fact that parts of the issue fell flat as a result, however.

I don’t know. I got what I wanted overall and I’m sure there’s more Scooby Doo content coming down the line. This week’s issue just felt a bit safe to me. I personally will never turn down an issue that lays a lot of groundwork in it, but I’m sure not everyone else feels that way. Perhaps in future issues that amount of background could be devoted to the antagonists instead. We shall see.

Images Courtesy of DC Entertainment


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