sholly fisch

Mighty Mouse was famously created by Paul Terry in 1942 as a combination of two of the most popular characters in the world, Superman and Mickey Mouse. Now the Mouse is back in a new series from Dynamite, written by Sholly Fisch with art by Igor Lima. The first issue, out in June, features variant covers by legendary artist Neal Adams and painter/legendary fan of old stuff Alex Ross.

With the season of spookiness upon us, I thought for sure that the one thing I was guaranteed to get from 75 years of seafaring adventures was a story where Aquaman had to fight a ghost ship. It's one of those things that feels like it has to have happened at some point, but... here we are. As near as I can tell --- and please tell me if I'm wrong about this --- there has never actually been a story where Aquaman took on an undead crew of pirates out for blood and vengeance. The closest we ever got was a story where he actually teamed up with one instead --- and even that didn't happen until 2011.

We are living in an era where the strangest crossovers imaginable are actually being published at an almost alarming rate. I mean, we just got through Archie vs. Predator, in which Riverdale's teenage population had their collective spines ripped out by an alien hunter, and once we've seen that happen, there's not a whole lot that is no longer on the table. Those books, however, tend to be isolated incidents. DC's digital-first Scooby-Doo Team-Up, on the other hand, is based entirely around that premise, and while they've done team-ups with classic cartoon properties like The Flintstones and Jonny Quest, the most notable stories are always the ones where they're hanging out with super-heroes, and those are getting a whole lot weirder. So in case you missed it, this week's issue had them teaming up with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, and it's pretty great.

This week, Chris and Matt are oddly surprised by the (possible?) commentary found in New Suicide Squad #1 by Sean Ryan and Jeremy Roberts. Then they like how Armor Hunters #1 by Robert Venditti and Doug Braithwaite hits the big event-comic notes without being contrived. And finally, they discuss a couple of DC's digital-comic offerings: Scooby Doo Team-Up #5 by Sholly Fisch and Dario Brizuela, and Bat-Manga #1 by Jiro Kuwata.

Wonder Woman has been quite the topic of conversation of late, thanks to the news that the popular and critically-acclaimed Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang creative team would soon be leaving her title after a three-year run to be replaced by the already controversial team of Meredith Finch/David Finch -- who have already made some troubling statements in simply trying to promote their run -- and the news that Gilbert Hernandez will bring his talents to the character for Sensation Comics. While we were all talking about the Finch family, feminism, and the premier female superhero in comics history last week, we may have missed the fact that DC Comics just published an excellent Wonder Woman comic, one that cherry-picked elements from her most popular iterations (her weird-but-awesome Golden Age persona under the guidance of her creators, the Lynda Carter TV show, Super Friends) and presented them in dismemberment-free, all-ages comic that could be enjoyed by anyone from the littlest girl to the oldest old man. A comic book that was both fun and funny, and had just a touch of good old comic book insanity.

Cartoon Network's version of the Teen Titans is coming back to DC Comics this December, and the new digital-first series will share the same comedic backbone as the Teen Titans Go! cartoon, according to the writers. Like the cartoon, the comic will be about "the interaction between the characters," said writer Merrill Hagan, who will alternate arcs with Sholly Fisch.

Scooby-Doo and Batman have met before -- in one of the so-called New Scooby-Doo Movies of the early 1970s and then again on Batman: The Brave and The Bold. The Scooby gang and the Dynamic Duo will be teaming up once again, this time in a digital comic, DC Digital announced in a Thursday panel at Comic-Con International.

While the rest of DC's line is occupied with building the universe of the New 52, the Batman: The Brave and the Bold comic -- a tie-in to the animated series of the same name -- has been quietly giving readers some of the best and most fun team-up stories of all time...