DC launches ‘Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries’ comic

The new series will be written by Ivan Cohen and Sholly Fisch, with art by Dario Brizuela and Randy Elliott, writers and artists will swap stories, with Cohen and Brizuela telling the first, Fisch and Elliott the second, and so on. with digital chapters being published on a bi-weekly calendar, and stories spanning two chapters at a time.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Cohen and Fisch about the new series.

Scooby and the gang have teamed up with Batman since the early ’70s. Obviously, they share a love of detective work, but what makes the pairing of the two series so successful that it almost has a half a century?

Sholly Fish: The endless supply of Scooby snacks in the Batmans Utility Belt, of course.

Ivan Cohen: Scooby-Doo, great friends! and reruns of Adam West Batman The series all shot on TV at the same time during my formative years, so it’s hard for me to imagine why they wouldn’t fit together. But if I had to think about it, they have a lot in common. Colorful outfits, weird villains, and super smart detectives to be clear, I’m talking about Batman and Velma cramming in with, uh, say less brilliant crime stoppers who slow down solving mysteries long enough to add suspense.

The series offers both properties a chance to break out of their lore: When was the last time we saw Scooby Gang time travel, or Batman looking for ghosts in the Batcave? With that in mind, is it difficult to keep everyone in their character and make sure fans of the individual series are happy with what they read?

Cohen: In our first conversation after having this gig, Sholly and I bonded through shared memories of a collection called Batman from the 30s to the 70s. It was a hardcover that reprinted all kinds of different styles of Batman stories: time travel, sci-fi, luscious action, grotesque villains, right down to the “realistic” stories of O’Neil and Adams. So I think we’re both seeing Batman as being recognizable as Batman in any setting.

Scooby-Doo Teamwas both the perfect gateway drug to the best of the DC Universe and some of the best Scooby comics of all time, so I think readers will love what’s to come. Mysteries of Batman and Scooby-Doo, whether it’s their first time with these characters or their five hundredth.

Fish: Despite Ivans’ overly generous praise for my work on Scooby-Doo Team here are your five dollars, Ivan I must agree. After years of working on everything, children’s comics like Scooby Team to regular DC Universe stuff like Action comicsI’ve learned that one of the real keys to all of this is understanding what is at the heart of each character and what makes them great. If you do this, you can put them in almost any situation, no matter how severe or how ridiculous, while still making them look like themselves.

In this context, it is also worth noting how important our artists, Dario Brizuela and Franco Riesco, are to make everything work. Dario is brilliant at taking characters from incredibly disparate worlds and making them feel like they go together. I mean, him and Franco are the guys who brought Scooby to Apokolips, or who put Scooby and an Alan Moore inspired Swamp Thing in the same back panel in Scooby-Doo Team and makes it look natural! Can’t wait to see what they do with some of the stuff thrown at them Mysteries of Batman and Scooby-Doo.

You alternate writing tasks on the series; what are the things you most expect from the series?

Cohen: Read Sholly’s scripts, although they sometimes make me do additional rewrites to improve my game.Team upartistDario Brizuela again years after we worked together for theThe Green Lantern cartoon animated series. Getting the Scooby gang up against bad guys who aren’t always rubber masked real estate developers … oh, and writing “Batman Smiles” in a script is something some successful comic book writers have never been able to pull off. do, then I process this for all I can.

Fish: You mean writing Batman smiles without it getting shivering, right? I’m just checking …

In fact, back when Ivan and I were both writing stories for Teen Titans Go!, some of my arguments were rejected because they were too close to the ideas Ivan had already submitted. We both bring similar sensibilities to these things and I’ll kick myself sometimes because Ivan had thought of something cool before me. (Would you believe we both came up with ideas to put Scooby in the middle of Batman: first year?) But that makes things even more fun and pushes us both to push things even further. Giant mechanical dinosaurs, anyone?

As Ivan pointed out, Mysteries of Batman and Scooby-Doofollows success and really wonderful; Ivan was right Scooby-Doo Teamseries, which allowed the characters to meet all kinds of DC heroes. If the Dark Knight was arrested for an issue of the new series, is there a particular DC hero that either of you would be eager to see step in instead?

Fish: Oh damn. Thank you for the kind words about Scooby-Doo Team. You’re just determined to make me blush, aren’t you?

Scooby-Doo Team was an extremely fun series to write, as it gave me the opportunity to write dozens of characters that I have loved for decades, everyone from Justice Society and the Marvel family (or, I guess , from the Shazam family now) to the Inferior Five and Ultra the Multi-Alien. But that doesn’t mean that I have completely filled my wishlist. I would love to write New Gods and Forever People, for example. Not to mention Super Turtle. But, you know, I can’t really complain about getting the chance to write Batman every month either.

Cohen: Outside of Mystery, Inc. unmask GuardianssRorschach, which would be pretty funny, DC’s heroes have pretty much all encountered Scooby-Doo at one point or another, but Sholly doesn’t have all the fun of having fun. After sending the Scooby crew into the past of Batman: first yearin the first issue of Mysteries, I feel like time traveling, so maybe they could go back to Smallville to meet Superman when he was Superboy? And, you know, if the Legion of Superheroes were to drop by for a visit, well, the more the merrier.

Fish: Funny to mention that Scooby unmasks Rorschach. Towards the end of Scooby-Doo Team-Up, I finally, finally found a way to make a Guardians-Scooby kinda works fine, but the series ended before I had a chance to try. Well, maybe Batman could start wearing a trench coat …

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Mysteries of Batman and Scooby-Doo will launch digitally on March 27, with the first print issue following in April.