POBB April 10, 2023

Pick of the Brown Bag

April 10, 2023

by

Ray Tate

It's been awhile, but I'm still here.  Welcome to The Pick of the Brown Bag!  The continuing saga of a man that desperately wants to read and review his comic books but finds himself in a constant time crunch.

In 1963, writer Arnold Drake and superb realist art maestro Bruno Premiani created The Doom Patrol.

The Doom Patrol consisted of Cliff Steele, Rita Farr, Larry Trainor and Niles Caulder.  They were a quartet of misfits that suffered at the hands of fate. 

No, no.  Not him.   

Soon to be arch-nemesis General Immortus catalyzed the crippling of Niles, who became known as the Chief.  

Actress Rita Farr on a jungle shoot inhaled toxic fumes and transformed into the giant/miniature Elasti-Girl.  

Race car driver Cliff Steele wrecked on the track resulting in his brain surviving in a robot body.  The second Robot Man.

Larry Trainor, a test pilot, encountered deadly radiation which required him to be swathed head to toe in specially treated lead lined bandages.  A being lived in that radiation and now lives in Larry.   He granted Larry purpose as the Negative Man. 

The Doom Patrol concluded their original run with issue one-twenty-one, where their creators took an unusual step.

The Doom Patrol sacrifice themselves for fourteen ordinary Joes in a small Maine fishing village.  

For about ten years, the Doom Patrol remained dead.   The Chief however designed Cliff Steele's robot body too well.  Cliff's metallic remains, which protected his human brain, washed ashore.  Robotics genius Will Magnus, creator of the Metal Men, discovered him and redesigned Cliff's form.

Thus begins the reformation of the new Doom Patrol, who though not forgotten will have even less impact than expected on future versions of the team.

The fact of the matter is that of all the various protagonists introduced in various incarnations of the Doom Patrol, only Crazy Jane, created by Grant Morrison and artist Richard Case, had any staying power.   

Morrison's Doom Patrol series is truly a marvel to behold, pun not intended.  I enjoyed every weird issue.   However, Morrison inadvertently fed the beast nicknamed Dead Chicks and/or Damaged Chicks.  He brought back Larry Trainor and the Chief, but omitted Elasti-Girl.  He also revealed the Chief never was crippled in the first place or healed himself.

Yeah.  That's pretty unfair in a universe that crippled Barbara Gordon needlessly for twenty-five years.  

Fortunately, John Byrne had the next substantial crack at the Doom Patrol, and he rebooted them from scratch.  The original quartet with a clean slate history appeared in their own series under the care, and it was indeed care, of the artist/writer.

DC revisits Doom Patrol frequently, but never would I have imagined the Doom Patrol becoming a stream-series.  That incarnation of the Doom Patrol draws on the entirety of the characters' and the team's histories.  So does the newest comic book.  

Dennis Culver, Chris Burnham and Brian Reber steer the latest reiteration of the Doom Patrol into Gotham City.  

The so-called Unstoppable Doom Patrol is part of The Dawn of DC.  I have no idea what that "dawn" business means, but I can tell you what it doesn't mean.  The premiere of Unstoppable does not represent an origin issue or the very first appearance of the Doom Patrol in a rebooted universe.  The Doom Patrol is a known quantity in a shared universe.

 

Not a well liked quantity.  But a known quantity.  This animosity toward the Doom Patrol developed in the offshoot titles.  While the Doom Patrol always considered themselves freaks.  The citizens they ended up protecting more often did not.  The original Doom Patrol formed to set an example.  To demonstrate that people who are different can nevertheless contribute to society in meaningful ways.  Cliff, Rita, Larry and the Chief became accepted when they formed a "superhero" team.  

The new mission statement draws upon the original.  It actually works even better in the now than it would have then.  We are more aware of mental stress because everybody all over the world got a taste of it during the bad days of the COVID epidemic.  

The idea of the Doom Patrol trying to pre-empt what amounts to a "mental health" misunderstanding is very plausible.  There's even an excellent scene where the new model of the Chief reasons it out with Batman, who naturally, guest stars.

Batman has in fact come to the same conclusion at times.  During the New 52 era, Batman encountered the Birds of Prey.  Then they consisted of Black Canary, Katana, Starling and Poison Ivy.  After a fight against the Talons, enforcers for the Court of Owls, he remanded Poison Ivy back to the Birds of Prey's custody.  He believed Ivy was better off with them than in Arkham.  True.  She was indeed doing good while not being a do-gooder.

Batman isn't a massive guest-star in this Doom Patrol debut, but his presence gives the team context.  Batman is not only aware of the Doom Patrol.  He also knows the Chief's secret, which I'll not reveal here.  His knowledge arises from more than masterful deduction.  

Bunham and Reiber present a classic Batman.  As mentioned, the reader isn't on ground level.  The DC Universe has been thriving.  This is neither the Batman's, Robin's or the Doom Patrol's first appearance.  They appear to be old colleagues.  The Chief in fact mentions the Justice League and the Flash.  This is in keeping with tradition.  The Powers That Be only removed the Doom Patrol from the DC Universe proper when they shifted Grant Morrison's series to the Vertigo imprint. The Doom Patrol have always been part of the DCU.

In addition to the engaging plot, Batman cameo and the technical excellence, The Unstoppable Doom Patrol offers much more to recommend.  Elasti-Woman takes a page from her stream-series counterpart portrayed admirably by April Bowlby.

After Rita Farr joins the original Doom Patrol, she gains full control of her elasticity.  The stream series however suggests that her abilities and emotions are tied together.  Thus, Burnham's depiction of a droopy faced Rita Farr, chastised by the Chief, nods to the Bowlby depiction.

The Doom Patrol face a body-horror derived giant monster that looks to have come strait from Brian Yuzna's and Stuart Gordon's H.P. Lovecraft factory.

The fact that the beast is smacking around its tormentors and or custodians grants it sympathy.  It hasn't done anything particularly nasty to any innocent bystander, and the creature/person's wardens aren't particularly likable.  

The creative team reverse engineer Crazy Jane.  From her original Grant Morrison version-to Vertigo-and now back again to her original, with a slight but smile-worthy twist.  She's a very strange superhero.

Robot Man isn't just the brawn of the team; arguably Rita fills that role.  He's also the voice of reason. 

The new character Beast Girl, an overt callback to Teen Titan Gar Logan, is quite entertaining and provides a lot of youthful bounce and humor.

In other words, what we have here is a perfect debut that will appeal to all Doom Patrol fans, Batman followers, comic book art aficionados and for those that like there super-hero/science fiction tales with a touch of weirdness.