Doom Patrol
Doom Patrol is a superhero team appearing in American comic books by DC Comics. The original Doom Patrol first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80, and was created by writers Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, along with artist Bruno Premiani. Doom Patrol has appeared in different incarnations in multiple comics, and have been adapted to other media. The series' creator has suspected that Marvel Comics copied the basic concept to create the X-Men, which debuted a few months later.
Doom Patrol is a group of super-powered misfits whose "gifts" caused them alienation and trauma. Dubbed the "world's strangest heroes" by editor Murray Boltinoff, the original team included the Chief, Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man ; Beast Boy and Mento joined soon after. The team remained the featured characters of My Greatest Adventure, which was re-titled Doom Patrol as of issue #86. The original series was canceled in 1968 when Drake killed the team off in issue #121, last of that series,. The team did not return until 1987, after writer Paul Kupperberg killed most of the new team during the Invasion! event. Beginning with issue #19 of the second volume of Doom Patrol, Scottish comic writer Grant Morrison transformed the title into a much more surreal and bizarre story that explored topics of mental health, gender identity, and sexual discovery in an abstract manner. Morrison's run garnered critical acclaim, and the mature themes of their stories led to the comic being integrated into Vertigo Comics.
Publication history
''My Greatest Adventure'': ''Doom Patrol'' (volume 1)
Doom Patrol first appeared in 1963, when the DC title My Greatest Adventure, an adventure anthology, was being converted to a superhero format. The task, assigned to writer Arnold Drake, was to create a team that fit both of these formats. With fellow writer Bob Haney and artist Bruno Premiani, he created Doom Patrol, a team of super-powered misfits who were regarded as freaks by the world at large. According to Drake, editor Murray Boltinoff told him My Greatest Adventure was in danger of cancellation and he wanted him to create a new feature which might save it. Boltinoff was enthusiastic about Drake's initial pitch with Elasti-Girl and Automaton, but Drake wanted a third character and enlisted Haney's help in coming up with Negative Man. The team was initially announced as "The Legion of the Strange".Doom Patrol were announced on the cover art of My Greatest Adventure #80. Drake and Haney devised the plot for the issue together, and then each scripted half the issue independently. Niles Caulder motivated the original Doom Patrol, bitter from being isolated from the world, to use their powers for the greater good. My Greatest Adventure was officially retitled The Doom Patrol beginning with issue #86.
In an interview, Drake discussed the conception of Doom Patrol.
The members of the Doom Patrol often quarrelled and had personal problems, something that was already common among superhero teams published by Marvel Comics such as Fantastic Four, but was novel among the DC lineup. Doom Patrol's rogues gallery matched the strange, weird tone of the series. Villains included the immortality-seeking General Immortus, the shape-shifting Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, and the Brotherhood of Evil led by the Brain, a disembodied brain kept alive by technology. The Brotherhood of Evil also included the intelligent gorilla Monsieur Mallah and Madame Rouge, who was given powers similar to those of Elongated Man, with the extra attribute of a malleable face, allowing her to impersonate various people.
The Doom Patrol had two crossovers: one with the Challengers of the Unknown, teaming up to fight Multi-Man and Multi-Woman; and second with the Flash in The Brave and the Bold #65.
As the popularity of the book waned, the publisher cancelled it. Drake killed off the entire Doom Patrol in the final issue, Doom Patrol #121 where Doom Patrol sacrificed their lives to Madame Rouge and General Zahl to save the small fishing village of Codsville, Maine. This was the first time in comic book history that a cancelled title was concluded with the death of its cast. Artist Bruno Premiani and editor Murray Boltinoff appeared at the beginning and the end of the story, asking fans to write to DC to resurrect Doom Patrol, although the latter was supposed to have been Arnold Drake. According to the writer, he was replaced with the editor because he had just resigned over a pay dispute and moved to Marvel Comics. He finished the script only out of friendship for Boltinoff. A few years later, three more issues appeared, reprints of earlier issues. A proper Doom Patrol revival did not occur until 1977, nine years after the original's demise.
Some similarities exist between the original Doom Patrol and Marvel Comics' original X-Men; Marvel acknowledged the similarity in its humor title Not Brand Echh. Both include misfit superheroes shunned by society and both are led by men of preternatural intelligence who use wheelchairs. These similarities ultimately led series writer Arnold Drake to argue that the concept of the X-Men must have been based on the Doom Patrol.
Drake stated:
In an interview shortly before his death in 2007, Drake took a more moderate position, stating that while it is possible Lee took his ideas from Doom Patrol, he could also have arrived at a similar concept independently: "Since we were working in the same vineyards, and if you do enough of that stuff, sooner or later, you will kind of look like you are imitating each other."
The four lead characters of the original series have much in common with the members of The Fantastic Four. Both teams, composed of a woman and three men, have one member with stretching powers, another with great strength trapped in a distorted or inhuman orange body, and a third whose form seems ablaze with fire or energy. One can extend the comparison by saying that the fourth member is either invisible or behind the scenes. This has inspired fan speculation that The Doom Patrol was inspired by, or imitative of, the earlier series. John Byrne, who has written and drawn all three sets of characters, has written that "I wish someone would ask Arnold Drake about the Doom Patrol's similarities with the Fantastic Four, instead of always bringing up the X-Men comparison."
The respected comic book and television writer, Mark Evanier, disagrees. He notes that the time period between release dates of The Doom Patrol in My Greatest Adventure #80 and The Uncanny X-Men #1 was too short for the necessary production time window to produce an imitation comic book series. Furthermore, Evanier noted that there would be no point to attempt such a rushed production to imitate a property that had no guarantee of success prominent enough to justify such efforts: "It was probably a good six months before any reliable sales figures on My Greatest Adventure #80 were known. No one even started tallying them until the issue went off-sale…in this case, two months later." As it was, sales ultimately proved mediocre for the original concept, so imitating it would have been pointless.
''Showcase'': Paul Kupperberg's ''Doom Patrol''
Writer Paul Kupperberg, a longtime Doom Patrol fan, and artist Joe Staton introduced a new team in Showcase #94. DC was then lining up features for the Showcase revival—the series was initially an anthology that would debut new characters who could springboard into their own series if they proved sufficiently popular, and Showcase #94 was the first new issue of the series in almost seven years. Editor Paul Levitz instructed Kupperberg and Staton to do a Doom Patrol feature. Kupperberg opted to create a new lineup because he wanted to respect the story in which the Doom Patrol met their deaths, and was inspired by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum's then-recent "all-new, all-different X-Men". Kupperberg has since said he is not proud of the reboot, remarking that " missing the point of the Doom Patrol. The original group were outsiders and freaks, while my new guys were just comic-book superheroes. I was young and inexperienced and new to writing, with about two years under my belt before getting the gig."The new team is led by Celsius, the Chief's previously unseen wife, who recreates the Doom Patrol to protect herself from General Immortus. Robotman is the only survivor of the original Doom Patrol, and his ruined body is replaced by a new, futuristic one built by Will Magnus. The Negative Spirit now possesses Russian cosmonaut Valentina Vostok, making her Negative Woman, and she is able to transform her own body into its form rather than sending it out under control. The final member is Tempest aka Joshua Clay, a Vietnam veteran/deserter who fires energy blasts from his hands.
This new version of the team did not receive its own series following its three-issue tryout. Kupperberg said this was most likely due to poor sales, as even in the months prior to the DC Implosion he heard no word of a new Doom Patrol series. However, the team did receive a series of guest appearances in various DC titles, such as Superman Family, DC Comics Presents, and Supergirl. Robotman also appeared as an occasional supporting character in the Marv Wolfman and George Pérez era of Teen Titans, where it was revealed that Changeling, formerly DP associate Beast Boy, had arranged for Dayton Industries technicians to recreate the Caulder body design for Cliff. His first storyline here had him, the Titans, and a new Brotherhood of Evil battle Madame Rouge and General Zahl, the murderers of the original Doom Patrol, who died in the battle.
Eclipse Comics published Doom Patrol: The Official Index with covers drawn by John Byrne in 1984. The two-part series included all of their appearances from My Greatest Adventure #80 to their final appearance before their 1980s return.