DC Meets Hanna-Barbera—Volume 2

Comic Info

Flash/Speed Buggy Special #1

Reprints Super Sons/Dynomutt Special #1, Black Lightning/Hong-Kong-Phooey Special #1, The Flash/Speed Buggy Special #1, and Aquaman/Jabberjaw Special #1 (July 2018).  The Super Sons are a quest to help Blue Falcon and Dynomutt while Black Lightning finds himself teamed with Hong-Kong Phooey in an attempt to takedown Professor Presto, Cheshire, and Bronze Tiger in a 1970s brawl.  The Flash tempts fate by helping Dr. M. Blanc test his new Speed Bug vehicle by tapping into the Speed Force, and Aquaman finds himself on an adventure with Jabberjaw and the Neptunes in Los Aquales…plus, add a dose of the Funky Phantom and Captain Caveman!

Written by Dan Abnett, Bryan Hill, Scott Lobdell, Jeff Parker, and Peter J. Tomasi, DC Meets Hanna-Barbera—Volume 2 is a DC Superhero/Hanna-Barbera crossover collection.  Following DC Meets Hanna-Barbera—Volume 1, the collection features art by Oclair Albert, Brett Booth, Denys Cowan, Andrew Hennessy, Scott Kolins, Fernando Parsarin, Paul Pelletier, Norm Rapmund, Bill Sienkiewicz, Matt Banning, Marc Deering, Mark Irwin, and John Livesay.

Hanna-Barbera was the classic cartoon producer of childhood.  While things like Looney Tunes provided laughs and Walt Disney provided drama and song, Hanna-Barbera was a source of consistency.  You almost always knew what you were going to get with a Hanna-Barbera cartoon and that is why this collection is a lot of fun even if it is a bit uneven.

There are only a few choices the writers can make here.  They can create a parody of the cartoon or they can treat the cartoon with all seriousness.  For the most part this collection features presentations that could fit in a standard DC Comics without irony…even if it does feature Black Lightning teaming up with a talking dog.  DC’s own weird creations provide enough range for the writers to really play with the story and try to make it canon (or at least feel like it is canon).

Aquaman/Jabberjaw Special #1 Variant

This mostly works and some of the stories have interesting twists on characters (like giving Speed Buggy more of a tragic origin).  I actually like things like Dynomutt and Blue Falcon as part of the DC Universe and they virtually almost make sense when you consider some of DC’s fringe characters like Angel and the Ape, Stanley and His Monster, and even a character like Dolphin…all of which have made mainstream appearances (maybe not in current canon due to various “Crisis” events).

The series also leaves you wanting more by having a couple of Hanna-Barbera vignettes with characters like Funky Phantom and Captain Caveman.  I liked the shorts, but it would have been fun to see them expanded and developed (especially Captain Caveman since he always was a favorite).

While not everything about DC Meets Hanna-Barbera works, it mostly works, and those who grew up with these cartoons will have fun with the crossovers.  Though these one-shots were just that, I’d still love to see this idea surface again…and you want to stick with some of these characters, change-up the team-ups.  There is an almost infinite number of combinations now, but it is nice to see a light-hearted comic collection like this still exist.

Related Links:

DC Meets Hanna-Barbera—Volume 1

The Flintstones—Volume 1

Exit Stage Left:  The Snagglepuss Chronicles