About a week and a half ago, I had the opportunity to meet Scott Innes, who voiced the characters of Scooby-Doo and Shaggy Rogers in several of my favorite entries in the long-running Scooby-Doo franchise. During our conversation, I learned that Innes works as a morning show host on the radio in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and we had fun talking about everything from voice acting, to haunted bayous, to space aliens. The whole experience has had me looking back at Scooby-Doo and I thought it would be fun to look at one of the most horror-related entries in the franchise, Scooby Apocalypse, which wasn’t a cartoon, but a comic book written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis for DC Comics.
Scooby Apocalypse, which ran from 2016 to 2019, is set in an alternate world where Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby meet as adults. Daphne is a television host and Fred is her cameraman. Velma is blowing the whistle on the lab where she’s been employed to create nanites that are supposed to “improve” humanity by removing our baser emotions. Shaggy is a lab assistant and Scooby is part of an experiment giving dogs the power of speech. During the interview, the nanites are released. Instead of improving humanity, they turn most people into horrible monsters who begin laying waste to the world as we know it.
Over the course of the three-year run, we learn more about Velma’s role in the creation of the nanites. We also meet two of her brothers. The gang gains allies in the form of Cliffy, an orphan boy, and one of Velma’s sisters-in-law. We even meet Scrappy-Doo, who like Scooby is part of the program designed to give dogs intelligence and enhanced abilities. Scrappy starts out as a villain but ultimately becomes more of an anti-hero. One of my favorite elements was a romance between Shaggy and Velma. Watching the original series as an adult, I always felt the chemistry was there, but so far, the only other series to explore it was Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated. While that take was played for humor, Scooby Apocalypse gave us a more nuanced relationship.
The series also took some dark twists and turns. This really shouldn’t be surprising given that it’s apocalyptic fiction, but some moments were stunning given the source material. After three years, the series came to a generally satisfying conclusion. Apocalyptic horror allows you to put a set of characters into the most extreme situations so you can explore how they react. Of course, some characters rise to meet the horrible challenges they encounter. Others fail miserably. I find that apocalyptic fiction can be a surprisingly hopeful genre because it suggests that humans can survive even the most extreme catastrophes.
Scooby Apocalypse also proved to be an interesting cautionary horror tale. This kind of tale hits close to home because I had several college professors who worked on the atomic and hydrogen bomb projects. They hoped these weapons would be so horrible they’d bring an end to warfare. Unfortunately, warfare has not stopped but, so far, no one has unleashed a full-scale nuclear barrage. In the comic, the AI controlling the nanites had been corrupted by characters with their own selfish agendas. When the series started in 2016, such a scenario seemed utterly science fictional. As we see AI becoming more widely deployed, the story seems much more prescient. We need to think about how to use AI responsibly even as its use becomes more widespread.
Finally, Scooby Apocalypse showed how you can take characters you know and drop them into a new situation as the way to explore a story. Most of us aren’t going to get permission to write stories about characters from popular television series, but such characters can be a starting place for creating your own unique cast to populate a story. For example, this series reversed the roles of Fred and Daphne. Fred became the danger-prone character who got into trouble while Daphne became the leader. Giffen and DeMatteis sought a way for us to suspend our disbelief in talking dogs by imagining tech that taps into their brains, allowing them to express themselves. While you can’t just lift characters from other franchises, tweaking aspects of characters you like and relate to can be a great starting point when creating your own memorable characters.
Threads that Bind 
12 responses to “Scooby Apocalypse”
Boy, the things I miss playing Fallout! I once read a blog post by an author, and I don’t think he was “anybody,” whose method was to read a book or watch a movie. That narrative became his backstory. After changing the names of the characters, he continued the story, writing what amounted to a sequel. I can’t imagine how this would work for a major author, but for an indie… Sure, why not?
Interesting post, my friend. Looks like quite a take on an old show.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Jack!
I think it’s worth clarifying some of my thoughts on repurposing characters. First off, in my experience, the more you take a familiar character and make them your own, the less they look like that original character. For example, when I created Captain John Mark Ellis in my Space Pirates’ Legacy series, I started with Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek. I then asked, what if Captain Kirk didn’t get away with everything he manages in the series? What if he didn’t have the very best crew in his version of Starfleet? What if his grandfather was a notorious pirate and he was embarrassed by that? What if he actually had to confront that grandfather? What if funding in his world limited the kind of craft he could command? By the time I finished answering all of that, John Mark Ellis and his world didn’t look much at all like the world of James T. Kirk and Star Trek.
If you want to get fancy and start from more of a blank slate, you could argue this is just a way of exploring archetypes. In this case, we’re starting with a character who has elements of “the explorer” and “the hero” and putting him in that world. In Scooby, you can think of Fred as “the hero,” Shaggy as “the joker,” and Velma as “the sage” for example. You don’t have to adhere strictly to the archetypes and sometimes it’s really fun to throw away anyone’s definition of those ideas and start completely from scratch. If we turn this idea to my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt, you could imagine Mike being Fred, Steve being Shaggy, Bethany being Velma and Claire being Daphne. My characters don’t bear that much resemblance to those Scooby characters, but they do fall into similar archetypes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LALALALALALALALALALALA… Oh, brother, don’t ruin Astronomer’s Crypt for me! Hands down one of the absolute best spooky novels I’ve ever read. Anyone who’s eavesdropping on this conversation should round up a copy at once. It is a stellar effort by a professional astronomer who knows whereof he writes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jack, I know an indie author who writes tropical mystery/adventure stories. When asked where he gets his inspiration, he candidly admitted that he recycles plots from episodes of old TV shows like ‘The Rockford Files’, ‘Columbo’, etc. Whatever works, I guess…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Like I say, okay for an indie. I must look into this strange concept…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it’s worth emphasizing that this kind of idea is a starting point. By the time you finish, it should have become something new entirely. As for pro authors doing this, what about Neil Gaiman asking what happens if you put classical gods in the modern world? That’s exactly the same kind of thing I’m talking about.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One more thought on this… it occurs to me this whole process is much the same as how Jack Tyler created the exceptional Beyond the Rails series which, as I recall, was compared to Firefly. It’s not that you consciously borrowed from Firefly. You were just creating the same “band of brothers and sisters” kind of story. You could have done this more consciously, reinventing the characters, reinventing their time and place, then told a story that actually fit that time and place. By the time you would have done all that, it would be it’s own thing. This is just one way of breaking down the process of inspiration, which can happen directly or indirectly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, David! The exact quote was, “Jules Verne meets Firefly.” Being the product of a very dysfunctional family, I have always gravitated to the “found family” story. Hatari remains to this day my favorite movie, and it’s hardly a surprise that much of my fiction is built around a close-knit group of more-than-friends. I’m very happy you enjoyed it, and, oh, thanks for the plug. It’s available on my author tab above… hint. hint!
LikeLiked by 1 person
David, who knew Scooby-Doo could be so deep? But it is apparently so. I’ve watched a lot of ‘Scooby-Doo’ with the kids, but I never saw the comics you mentioned. I’ll have to take a look at those sometime. Meanwhile, I’m wondering if I could call myself a marine biologist since I’ve also watched ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’? 🙂 Seriously, thanks for another entertaining and thought-provoking post.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Glad you enjoyed it, Garrett. I think it’s worth seeking out Scooby Apocalypse. Digital copies are available on Amazon along with collected print editions. Originally, I read it as each issue came out, but now I’m reading the whole thing back-to-back like a novel. I’m impressed with how well the overall narrative holds together. The writers are the same guys who wrote Justice League International back in the late 80s. I’ve been a fan of theirs for a while. Still, I’m impressed how they grew and developed their characters over the three-year arc.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The mention of Neil Gaiman’s gods reminded me of a short story I read in which people kept little gods as pets in their yards (like dogs); and instead of doing doggy things like digging up gardens and such, they had to be watched in case they tried to sacrifice things, start fires, etc. It was pretty funny, but I can’t remember the title or the author (and the Bing AI I asked about it couldn’t find it). It was in some anthology.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That sounds pretty clever!
LikeLiked by 1 person