Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold, on Cartoon Network

Batman has many nicknames: the Caped Crusader, Dark Knight, and World’s Greatest Detective. Mystery Incorporated also has a few: the Scooby Gang and those “meddling kids.” Frankly, Batman kind of likes the last one. They get along fairly well—maybe because this isn’t their first meeting. The characters had crossover team-ups in “The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair” and “The Caped Crusader Caper,” two installments of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which was really just another Scooby TV series, even though it pretended its episodes were movies. Their most recent on-screen collaboration really is a movie—that even had a theatrical premiere before releasing direct-to-DVD. Having laid the groundwork for the Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries comic book that launched in 2021 (and still regularly revives with special issues), Jake Castorna’s Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold airs this coming Saturday on the Cartoon Network.

Mystery Incorporated’s unmasking successes finally convinced Batman to recruit them for the Mystery Analysts of Gotham City. They simply had to pass a test he arranged with the help of Martian Manhunter and Detective Chimp. Honestly, the real mystery is why Warner Animation hasn’t used Detective Chimp more often. (His guest appearance in Wonder Woman #16 was a delight.) Then, they gang also must sleuth their way to the meeting, where they also meet the Question, Plastic Man, and Black Canary. As it happens, Fred Jones is totally gob smacked by her, which should put to rest a lot of rumors. For the record, the ascot does not help his cause.

Naturally, they want to help solve Batman’s only unsolved case, which coincidentally might be related to Gotham’s latest break-in. It seems the spectral Crimson Cloak’s theft of radioactive isotopes might be related to the unstable teleportation device from Batman’s notoriously open case. It turns out he saved the wrong lab assistant. The innocent one remains missing in the ether, but the other has been remanded to Arkham Asylum, under the name The Riddler. So off to Arkham they go, even though bad things always happen there.

Obviously, there are a lot of jokes in Scooby: The Brave and the Bold. It is a Scooby-Doo movie. However, it features the voices of Diedrich Bader and horror legend Jeffrey Combs as Batman and the Question, neither of whom get the credit they deserve for their DC animated work. Indeed, Bader’s Batman hits the right sardonic notes, indicating he is in on the jokes, at least to the extent he is constitutionally capable of acknowledging humor.

Arguably, the one character who suffers from Paul Giacoppo’s screenplay treatment is Aquaman, who comes off looking and sounding like a clumsy, obtuse meathead. Plastic Man is the same Plastic Man from the 1979 Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show. On the other hand, Black Canary and the Question should have seen their fandom stock rise from their appearances in this film.

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis

In the recent first issue of DC’s “All In” Aquaman, the Atlantean king is learning how to use his wife Mera’s telekinetic power over water, when they shifted to him after the conclusion of the Absolute Power miniseries. (Long story short, everyone lost their super-powers and then they mostly got them back, but sometimes slightly differently). It is a bit of déjà vu, because he had to learn his original powers from scratch back when he thought he was a mere mortal named Arthur Curry. Aquaman’s origin story had a snappy DC animated treatment in Ethan Spaulding’s Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, which makes fitting viewing today (Curry’s in-world birthday) and this Friday (1/31, Mera’s birthday).

As the film opens, the relatively new Justice League has a lot of fancy infrastructure, but only Cyborg really takes it seriously. Consequently, he answers the call when a US Navy submarine is attacked by mysterious forces. Viewers soon learn it was destroyed as part of Prince Orn’s false flag operations to foment a war between Atlantis and the surface world.

Deep down, Queen Atlanna recognizes the Prince’s ruthless nature, so she designates Curry, her secret half-human love child as her heir. Slightly disappointed, Orm responds by killing her and framing land-dwellers. Of course, Black Manta is the Svengali pulling his strings.

Cyborg will need the full Justice League to deal with this problem. Mera understands Atlantis also needs Curry, so she goes rogue, revealing his birthright. He can breathe underwater and communicate with fish, but learning how to best apply his super-powers will take time he does not have.

Heath Corson’s adapted screenplay roughly follows the 2013 Throne of Atlantis comic arc, but some of the best parts focus on other JLA members. It often seems like Cyborg gets unfairly overlooked by casual superhero fans (as a sometimes member of both JLA and the Teen Titans), but he has a new licensed flavored coffee that sounds delicious. Cyborg also gets some of the best scenes in Throne of Atlantis, wherein he considers the effects of his constant robotic upgrades on his underlying humanity, nicely expressed by Shemar Moore.

In addition, there is a cool subplot following the burgeoning romance between Clark Kent and Diana Prince (a.k.a. Wonder Woman). Yes, they were an item for a while in some of the comic storylines, because fans demanded it and it made logical sense. After all, Wonder Woman might be the only love interest who can withstand the force of Superman’s passion, so to speak. Obviously, the film does not go there, but its depiction of their courtship is quite appealing. Both super-characters are well-served by the winning voice-over work of Jerry O’Connell and Rosario Dawson.