DC Comics is doing new versions of The Flintstones, Johnny Quest, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races

[JD]

I saw this over in the DC Rebirth thread, and I thought it deserved it's own thread.
Apparently DC is going to be releasing comics featuring their own updated versions of The Flintstones, Scooby Doo now called Scooby Apocalypse, Wacky Races now called Wacky Race Land, and what appears to be a Johnny Quest/Space Ghost crossover called Future Quest.
I'm not really familiar with Johnny Quest, Space Ghost or Wacky Races, but I do like the designs there.
I love the Flintstones designs, but I'm not real sure what to make of Scooby Doo. The Flintstones designs are a perfect updating of the characters, they're still recognizable as those characters, but with a more modern design sensibility. I'm not quite sure what to make of the designs for Scooby Apocalypse though, it looks just too over the top to me. I don't really know Wacky Races, but the Wacky Race Land designs have a definite Mad Max vibe, and I love that kind of stuff so it has my attention. I don't really have an opinion either way on Future Quest.

 

[Thestral]

No Jessie Bannon = no sale on the Quest one, which was all I was interested in.

 

[Admiral2]

That version of Scooby-Doo? Just no...

The Flintstones version? HELL TO THE NO!

The Wacky Races one I might be able to tolerate...

And it looks like they're not just pairing Jonny Quest with Space Ghost. Those pictures show The Herculoids, the Galaxy Trio and the Impossibles thrown in. And they didn't make Jonny Quest a nineties teenager. For this one I'm in.

 

[Saga]

could be interesting. i grew up with reruns of all these shows so i'm happy to see them get some love. though, after Space Ghost Coast to Coast and the Brak Show its hard for me to take Brak holding a spear seriously.

 

[kirk55555]

The new versions look interesting. "Wacky" Races looks anything but wacky, and Scooby Doo just looks bad, but besides that it looks like the books will be worth trying out, at least.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I don't care much for Velma and tattooed Fred but I find myself surprisingly OK with hipster Shaggy.

 

[Christopher]

The image suggests they're going with a version of Scooby that doesn't talk but instead communicates in text with some kind of cybernetic device, sort of like the dogs in Pixar's Up. That's an interesting idea.

 

[JD]

I don't care much for Velma and tattooed Fred but I find myself surprisingly OK with hipster Shaggy.

Yeah, the new Shaggy is pretty much the only thing I like about Scooby Apocalypse.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The image suggests they're going with a version of Scooby that doesn't talk but instead communicates in text with some kind of cybernetic device, sort of like the dogs in Pixar's Up. That's an interesting idea.

Being comics perhaps it's a play on "thought bubbles"?

 

[JD]

Newsarama has the creative teams for all of the series, and descriptions for some of them.
Scooby Apocalypse:
Co-Writer/Character Designer: Jim Lee
Co-Writer: Keith Giffen
Artist: Howard Porter
Description: “Those meddling kids” and their Mystery Machine are at the center of a well-meaning experiment gone wrong and they’ll need to bring all of their mystery solving skills to bear (along with plenty of Scooby Snacks), to find a cure for a world full of mutated creatures infected by a nanite virus that enhances their fears, terrors and baser instincts. This time, the horrors are real in this apocalyptic near-future badland!

Future Quest:
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Evan "Doc" Shaner
Featured Series: Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Birdman, Migthtor and Frankenstein Jr.

Wacky Raceland:
Writer: Ken Pontact
Artist: Leonard Manko
Vehicle Designer: Marc Sexton
Featured Characters: Dick Dastardly, Penelope Pitstop, the Ant Hill Mob, and more
Description: A time of hope and innocence with Utopia at the finish line has given way to planetary Armageddon and a desert wasteland full of radioactive lakes, nanotech dust storms, and cannibalistic mutants. Against this backdrop, the Wacky Racers and their sentient vehicles continue their contest, but now the competition is for survival, and there can only be one winner when the checkered flag falls.

The Flintstones:
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: TBA
Character Designer: Amanda Conner
Description: Russell will use Bedrock’s most popular family to shine a light on humanity’s ancient customs and institutions in a funny origin story of human civilization. Fred is still the simple man, striving to be the king of his castle, Wilma is still the tolerant but not-indulging wife and Barney (with his wife Betty and infant son Bamm-Bamm) is still the original wingman, whose loyalty to Fred often outweighs his common sense.

I have to admit, Wacky Raceland seems to be almost as weird of a take on the original series as Scooby Apocalypse, but I don't have the same emotional attachment to it as I do Scooby Doo, so I'm not as bothered by it.

 

[Christopher]

I don't know how I feel about the premise for Scooby Apocalypse. I'm rather partial to this essay by Chris Sims of ComicsAlliance, about how Scooby-Doo works best when the monsters are fake, because then it's fundamentally a story about thinking critically and seeing through the lies people use to exploit the fearful and gullible. Which is a mindset we could use more of in the world today. (Note that the essay was written before season 2 of Mystery Incorporated veered into "the monsters are real" territory, so it's a little out of date.)

 

[Richard Baker]

About the only thing I am interested in is seeing how they rework Dastardly's Mean Machine into the Mad Max world- it was such a fun evil design to start with and looking at what they did to Penelope's Compact Pussycat I can just imagine.
Taking classic television shows and reimagining them through some weird funhouse mirror of today seems to be an obsession. Like most of these projects- be in film or other media, they have some elements of the original but in such a different way that the appeal to original viewers is often lost and the new people unfamiliar with the material are confused about what al the fuss is about.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I don't really get it either. I can see wanting to put a modern twist on an old story, but sometimes they take things so far off from what it was, I have to wonder why they even bothered.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I don't really get it either. I can see wanting to put a modern twist on an old story, but sometimes they take things so far off from what it was, I have to wonder why they even bothered.

Because that's one of the many ways that creativity can work -- by taking an idea and seeing how far you can transform it or remix it. There's no wrong way to be creative. The only thing that makes me ask "why bother?" is doing something exactly the way it's already been done.

 

[JD]

I guess I cad see that, and I realize now that sometimes the new version actually ends up doing more intresting things with the idea, like the RDM Bttlestar Galactica compared to the original.

 

[Christopher]

I guess I cad see that, and I realize now that sometimes the new version actually ends up doing more intresting things with the idea, like the RDM Bttlestar Galactica compared to the original.

Or, for a more apposite example, Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated. It managed to be simultaneously a loving tribute to the original show and a thorough deconstruction and satire of it. It was smarter, funnier, and ultimately much, much darker than any previous version of the franchise, and it made me a fan even though I've had a low opinion of Scooby-Doo in general ever since I was old enough to develop a set of standards rather than just watching everything indiscriminately.

I mean, let's face it, these are Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the '60s and '70s. Aside from maybe Jonny Quest and The Flintstones, they were mostly crap, and don't have much to offer adults beyond nostalgia. So if you're going to try to tap into that nostalgia by appealing to the adults who liked this stuff as kids, then you have to revamp them in a way that isn't so lame and shallow, that satisfies the nostalgic desire to see these characters again yet also satisfies the adult desire for good, interesting stories.

 

[Admiral2]

I'll just reiterate what I said before. I'm all for a comic that brings back HB's science-action hero series because I was a fan of all of them to varying degrees, and Wacky Raceland looks interesting enough to try a couple of issues. I just wish Doug Wildey were still alive to draw the Quest stories.

I won't go into as much detail about it as the article Christopher linked to, but I do prefer when the Scooby gang uncovers the fake schemers. I guess that makes me an SD purist, but I never like when they have to face real monsters in the interest of being creative

And you don't touch the Flintstones. Period. It's a wacky caveman sitcom with wacky dinosaur appliances. You don't turn that into a semi-realist humanity study.

 

[JD]

Well, The Flintstones is being written by the guy currently writing Prez, which appears to be pretty goofy, and who wrote God Is Dissapointed in You, so I don't think we have to worry about them taking it to seriously.

 

[JD]

Newsarama has an interview with Scooby Apocalypse writer Keith Giffen. I think the concept for this is starting to grow on me a bit. I might actually check this out eventually.

 

[Marsden]

I really used to love Wacky Races, I wonder if that Yankee Doodle Pigeon will be mutated into some kind of giant monster?

I know that was another Dick Dastardly show.