With Halloween fast approaching, we’re due for another round of the shockingly good DC/Hanna Barbera crossovers, and DC sent us an exclusive preview of Nightwing/Magilla Gorilla from Heath Corson (from the also-shockingly good Bizarro) and Tom Grummett (Superboy).

We’ve already had a number of insanely good comics from DC’s Hanna Barbera line – both individual series like Snagglepuss and The Flintstones, and from crossovers like Black Lightning/Hong Kong Phooey. And while it’s astonishing that any of these premises came out good at all, it’s even more incredible that they continue to be good.

Magilla Gorilla was a flimsy 60s premise about a gorilla who Mr. Peebles can’t sell. That’s…about it. It was the same joke over and over again, with no actual gags outside of your typical thin early-TV sitcom repetitions and fourth wall breaking. Here, they plop him in a pretty traditional Hollywood murder story that’s also a fairly straightforward Nightwing book, and yet, like the others, it somehow works.

It’s probably because Heath Corson pretty skillfully weaves Nightwing’s history into the tale. The focus here isn’t the novelty of the crossover, it’s the families that Dick and Magilla have built around themselves. It’s actually touchingly sad, about fathers and sons and trying to break away and form your own identity. Now, I want you to reread that paragraph remembering that we’re talking Magilla Gorilla. That added layer of absurdity, the way it makes you step back from the emotional beats and go “Really?” adds a degree of difficulty to the storytelling that makes it somehow land better.