Hmmm, I’ve seen more drama in Scoobie-Doo. It’s a shame when you set up a story with promising elements of absurdity (in the literary sense), satire, and even suspense, only to let it all collapse under the weight of missed opportunities and weak execution. Well, the story is still in progress. Will Mark have to return to the clear danger of going back into that “lion’s den“? Is he going to chase that lion back into the house and lock the door to protect the public? Will Mark tell Sammy that the lions are loose?

It seems to me as if Rivera could have set up this portion of the story like a computer adventure game, where the explorer has to work through a series of mysterious rooms and areas, locating treasures and clues, while avoiding dangers along the way. So this could have been genuinely interesting and suspenseful. Yet, it has not come off that way at all.

But, we have just two very obvious “clues” after a less-than thorough search of this mansion.

The decision to have lions inside and outside of the house make no sense, given that the story was originally based on the concept of lions locked inside a house with a movie director and his actors. Nobody wanted to go into the house, not even the movie’s animal wrangler, Sammy Spotter. So Mark was tasked with making the dangerous foray into the mansion. But all of that is blown away. And given the apparently easy access outside, why would lions not be roaming the island, eating the wildlife and attacking tourists?

Art Dept. In spite of the textured coats of the sphinxlike lions, they are not very convincing, especially as they so clearly jar with the flat imagery around them, like a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling of a plain, concrete room.  The artwork seems to get even more illogical. For example, in panel 1, the wall of the house extends below Mark’s right leg, suggesting that Mark is about 12 feet tall. Clearly, that was not intended, but is just careless. The small bush between Mark’s legs is just a too-cute joke.