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Monday 25 December 2017

DC Meets Hanna-Barbera Review (Amanda Conner, Ariel Olivetti, et al.)


DC superheroes go on adventures with Hanna-Barbera characters: it shouldn’t work – and it doesn’t!

Way too many of these stories were plain terrible for this whole concept to have ever been a thing. Booster Gold and the Flintstones, Green Lantern and Space Ghost, Ruff’n’Reddy (sheesh, how obscure can you get?!), Adam Strange and Future Quest, Batman and Top Cat (Dan DiDio should be banned from writing comics), Suicide Squad and the Banana Splits – poo on all of them! Arbitrary, uncreative match-ups, uninspired, forgettable tales – especially James Tynion IV and Christopher Sebela’s horribly convoluted Green Lantern/Space Ghost issue – make most of this book a chore to slog through. Much of the art is equally unimpressive. 

Ariel Olivetti’s art for Green Lantern/Space Ghost though was pretty damn cool as was Howard Porter’s on the Snagglepuss short. The Jetsons story included an unexpected and weirdly interesting origin for Rosie the Robot but Mark Russell’s Snagglepuss prologue to his own series was the only part of the book that really intrigued me. Here the character is reimagined as a 1950s gay Southern playwright whose work has landed him in hot water with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Heavens to Murgatroyd, I’ll definitely be checking out this title after Russell’s recent fine work on Prez and The Flintstones! 

Overall though, DC Meets Hanna-Barbera is one helluva boring read – don’t bother.

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