This needs a stretch. (Feel free to remove when satisfied of completion.) |
Bats What I'm Afraid Of is a story in Scooby-Doo! #47 by DC Comics.
Premise
The Mystery Inc. gang goes batty investigating vampire bat trouble at a creepy coal mine.
Synopsis
Characters
Character |
---|
Scooby-Doo |
Shaggy Rogers |
Fred Jones |
Daphne Blake |
Velma Dinkley |
F.D.M. Mining Co. |
Waitress |
Norma Mae |
Gang of Silver Miners |
Silver Miner with clean work boots |
Sheriff |
Deputy Jim |
Villains
- Vampire Bats
- Silver Miner with the clean work boots
- Five Shadowy People
Suspects
Suspect | Motive/reason |
---|---|
F.M.D. Mining Co. | They had offered to buy out the shares of their own silver miners and give them work elsewhere. |
Norma Mae | She was furious that all the town's silver miners were thinking of leaving the town. She was very rude to the gang. |
Silver Miner with the clean work boots | Daphne noticed that he had clean work boots, apart from all the other miners' dirty work boots. |
Sheriff | He said his office had filled up with the vampire bats that he and his partner, Deputy Jim, had caught. |
Deputy Jim | The sheriff's office where he worked with his employer, the Sheriff, was full of the vampire bats that they had both caught. |
Culprits
Culprit | Motive/reason |
---|---|
Locations
- Hilltopper
- Diner
- Old Abandoned Silver Mine
- Sheriff's Office (Bats What I'm Afraid Of)
- Storage Shed
- phone booth
- The Hills
- The F.M.D. Mining Company
Notes/trivia
Reception
Plot: Bats almost entertainment folks.
While Brett Lewis uses the village under siege plot to good effect and comes up with an inventive motive, the story fails in its use of fruit bats as a disguise for the vampire species. There's no excuse nowadays for poor research when volumes of free information is but a click away. Fruit bats or Flying Foxes do not use echolocation. They prey on fruit. Fruit, brace yourself, does not move. Fruit bats, like humans, possess excellent stereoscopic vision. Were this mistake a mere aside instead of a plot point, I would mention it only in passing.
Joe Staton also must take a few lumps for poor research. His bats with their pushed up noses and big ears look like vampire bats, but fruit bats have doggy faces, snouts and smaller ears: remember, they don't hunt via echolocation. Am I to think that the miscreants behind the scheme attached to each bat a tiny mask?
Both creators do redeem themselves. Daphne is a scream. She spots a clue on page two, throughout the mystery looks delectable and actually seems to be in serious danger when the bats attack. Naturally, Daph stoutly surpasses her fear to be her usual valuable, competent self. [1]
- ↑ Ray Tate in Line of Fire Reviews