Scooby-Doo #1

Oct 1977 · Marvel · 0.30 USD

☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join free

“Three Phantoms Too Many”

About this Issue

Scooby-Doo #1 (Marvel, 1977) marks the first time Mystery Inc. — and a host of other Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters — appeared under the Marvel Comics banner, representing a brief but culturally fascinating overlap between the world's dominant superhero publisher and the studio behind Saturday-morning animation. The issue's one-page 'Scooby-Doodles' feature, scripted by the Bullpen, playfully assembled Marvel heroes like Thor, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Thing, Doctor Strange, Red Sonja, and Howard the Duck alongside Hanna-Barbera staples such as the Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Snagglepuss, and Dynomutt under the banner 'The Marvel Universe meets the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera' — one of the most surreal cross-promotional pages Bronze Age comics ever produced. Structurally, the series was also tied at the hip to the companion title Dynomutt: the back-up story in this inaugural issue fed directly into Dynomutt #1, a cross-title storytelling experiment that writer Mark Evanier publicly noted he disliked but accepted as a business directive. As Marvel's first sustained licensing deal for animated cartoon characters, the nine-issue run sits at a distinctive crossroads between superhero publishing and children's television merchandising at a pivotal moment in both industries.

artist, inker Dan Spiegle · colorist Carl Gafford · writer Bill Ziegler · letterer Mark Evanier · cover Dan Spiegle

Find on ebay

Search eBay for Scooby-Doo #1 ▸

No confirmed live listings for this exact issue right now — this opens an eBay search.

Sell my copy

Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.

We Buy Collections ▸

Fast, fair offers · we handle grading & shipping

History

The series launched on July 19, 1977, with an October 1977 cover date, under editor-in-chief Archie Goodwin — who presided over Marvel from 1976 through the end of 1977 — with Chase Craig serving as the series' direct editor, a credit confirmed in the letters page of issue #4. The lead story, 'Three Phantoms Too Many,' was scripted by Bill Ziegler (not Mark Evanier, as was long mistakenly credited; Evanier himself set the record straight in 2009), and adapted the Scooby-Doo Show TV episode 'The Ghost of the Bad Humor Man.' Evanier wrote the second and third stories, including the Dynomutt back-up 'Goody Twoshoes,' drawn by Paul Norris; all cover and lead-story art was handled by Dan Spiegle, who had already worked on Scooby comics during the Gold Key era and would remain the series' primary artist. The issue also exists in a 35-cent price variant, produced as part of Marvel's limited regional pricing test run across select U.S. markets between June and October 1977.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang (Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Shaggy Rogers) in a Marvel Comics publication.
Contains three stories: 'Three Phantoms Too Many' (script: Bill Ziegler; art: Dan Spiegle), 'The Horrible Hound Sound' (script: Mark Evanier; art: Dan Spiegle), and the Dynomutt/Blue Falcon back-up 'Goody Twoshoes' (script: Mark Evanier; art: Paul Norris).
The lead story is an adaptation of the animated TV episode 'The Ghost of the Bad Humor Man' from The Scooby-Doo Show; the script was long misattributed to Evanier before he corrected the record in 2009.
The 'Scooby-Doodles' one-page feature, credited to 'The Bullpen,' depicts both Marvel heroes (Thor, Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Thing, Doctor Strange, Red Sonja, Howard the Duck) and Hanna-Barbera characters (Fred Flintstone, Wilma, Pebbles, Yogi Bear, Snagglepuss, Yakky Doodle, Dynomutt, Scooby-Doo) sharing the same page under the tagline 'The Marvel Universe meets the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera.'
Cover and interior art by Dan Spiegle; colors by Carl Gafford; letters by Bill Spicer; editor Chase Craig (confirmed in issue #4 letters page); editor-in-chief Archie Goodwin.
The Dynomutt back-up story continues directly into Dynomutt #1 (Marvel, 1977), part of an editorially mandated cross-title reading structure that ran through the first seven issues of each series.
Published with a standard 30-cent cover price; a limited-distribution 35-cent price variant also exists, produced as part of Marvel's regional pricing experiment running June–October 1977.
The series ran for nine issues (October 1977–February 1979), part of Marvel's broader late-1970s wave of Hanna-Barbera licensed titles that also included The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, and Laff-a-Lympics.