Spooky Scooby Stories: Highway To Heck In ‘Scooby-Doo Where Are You’ #82
by Tony Thornley
Scooby-Doo and the gang have faced all sorts of monsters in their long careers. What happens when one of those monsters ends up on eighteen wheels though?
Mystery Inc’s history with haunted cars is long and varied. There have been episodes about haunted cars, races and road rallies. I don’t think he’s ever faced a haunted 18-wheeler though. Meanwhile, the issue’s second story finds the gang facing a monster that seems to be obsessed with reality TV at a television studio.
Sholly Fisch, Scott Jeralds, Silvana Brys, and Saida Temofonte create the first story, while Jack Briglio, Roberto Barrios, Sebastian Bartolucci, Heroic Age and Travis Lanham create the second.
In the first story, a winged ghost haunts a truck stop, scaring the drivers all inside. Each time their trucks disappear immediately afterwards. That means Mystery Inc has to head out on the open road to solve this case.
In the second, the gang finds a monster haunting a studio that produces reality show after reality show. Every time the monster pops up, a team of copycat mystery investigators upstage Mystery Inc. Can they solve the mystery without the other sleuths getting in the way?
While I’ve been reading a ton of Scooby comics this month, this is the first of them that I’ve found the two-stories-per-issue format is to its detriment. Both of these stories are fun and engaging, but could have used more page count.
Regardless, both were a lot of fun. The first story puts the gang in a familiar situation with a new twist. Shaggy and Scooby driving a tractor trailer is a fantastic gag, which a longer page count could have had more fun with.
The reality show story is fun, but was too quick to be much more than that. The designs for the knock off Mystery Inc are fun (except the Daphne analog who’s just… Daphne). If they had some time to develop them slightly, this would have been even better.
Scooby fans would love picking this one up though. The novel twists on a couple common Scooby tropes would be enough for anyone, and it’s a great one to share with your kids!