ComicsAlliance: The Strangest Moments of the Doom Patrol

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Today on ComicsAlliance, I do my best to prepare you for this week’s release of Doom Patrol (v.5) #1 by recounting twelve of the team’s most bizarre moments!

As you might expect, there’s a lot from the Grant Morrison run, which reveled in surreality more than anything else he’s done, but I also made sure to include a hefty selection from the original run, which was only surpassed in terms of craziness by Haney’s Metamorpho and Kanigher’s Metal Men. In any case, it’s one of my favorite series, and it was fun to take a look back.

So head over there and check out what I picked out as the epitome of craziness for the strangest team of all, and if you’ve got a favorite, leave it in the comments section over there. After all, I’m pretty sure there’s enough weirdness in that book to go around.

22 thoughts on “ComicsAlliance: The Strangest Moments of the Doom Patrol”

  1. Is there any chance of this new series not being terrible? The preview I saw online was just dreadful.

  2. Well, it’s Keith Giffen with backups by JM DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire, so it would probably be the best comic ever in 1988.

    But I’m hoping it’s good for 2009, too.

  3. Keith Giffen always deserves a chance, in my opinion.

    He doesn’t always do good work, I understand that. It’s true of any writer and artist. But I always want to give him a chance.

  4. Great list, Chris. Only other really weird thing that springs to mind that you didn’t list was Negative Man’s eventual transition into Rebis, which is probably one of the trippier superheroes around.

    As for the new series … man, I really hope it’s good. Even if it isn’t, though, I give major credit to Giffen being willing to work within the confines of the great continuity laid out before him by the likes of Drake, Morrison, and Pollack (as opposed to John Byrne’s “THE DOOM PATROL IS BRAND NEW” run).

  5. Oh, and since I didn’t see it the first time, I am officially stealing the name “Tales to Enrage” from Moment number 11 as the name of my comics blog, if I ever get off my ass and make it.

  7. …and if you’ve got a favorite, leave it in the comments section over there.

    Nice try, Chris.

    Also, was the “establishment” Japanese hero that showed up in Final Crisis the same guy who got his butt kicked by the Brotherhood of Dada when they were freeing the Quiz?

  8. Tonight on Raw it was announced that Sgt. Slaughter will be the guest host next week, the same weekend the new G.I. Joe movie comes out. I smell a special guest commentator: Snake Eyes!

  9. So Drake/Lee had a Paul McCartney/ Brian Wilson thing going on? (ripping each other off back and forth) We, the public, are always the winners when that happens.

  10. I seem to be the only person in the entire universe who both read and loved the 2001 revamp with Fever and the rest.

    But there were several instances of implied tentacle molestation to Flash Forward by Freak. That is all.

    And late in the series Fever meets up with Esteban Rojas, the Purple Purposeless, a shellshocked Vietnam vet who got allergies from Agent Orange and whose power is inaction.

    And there was a whole issue devoted to the production of the Doom Patrol tv show.

  11. I didn’t even know about this but I’m genuinely intrigued. With Giffen, there’s got to be at least a 50-50 shot that it won’t totally suck.

    And Rex, you’re not entirely alone. I bought Arcudi’s run. The worst parts of it were actually the issues that tried to shoe-horn in resolutions to previous Doom Patrol plots and characters.

    I liked Thayer Jost and his team of loser corporate heroes. Liked, not loved admittedly, but I would have kept buying it if they kept publishing it.

    That the reserve Doom Patrol featured in the run had Elongated Man and Dr. Light teamed together is also kinda interesting. (The non-rapist Japanese one, admittedly.)

  14. Wow. The Brotherhood of Dada might be my new favorite supervillain team.

    Forget the brotherhood of Dada. All their awesomeness is concentrated into one divine, elemental being of insanity:

    Mr. Nobody.

  15. Danny the Street was a tribute to Drag Artist Danny La Rue who recently died,La Rue/Street -Geddit

    Secondly it was Bruno Premiani and Murray Boltinoff who pleaded for Doom Patrol to live.Drake was having problems at this time with DC over staff rights.

  19. I bought and enjoyed the Arcudi and Huat run, although it did feel pretty aimless towards the end. Mostly I was just happy to have Cliff back at the time.

    Speaking of Cliff, who remembers the Totems prestige format that teamed him up with Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Black Orchid, Shade the Changing Man and Brother Power (amongst others)? I seem to recall it being really good, but can’t find my copy.

  20. Really, Alex? I think I hated Totems. It was a really cool idea, a team-up of some of the characters that kicked off the Vertigo imprint, but it was just kind of fell flat. John Constantine had to be written completely out of character just to take himself out of the story so he couldn’t fix everything in two pages, Shade forgot how his powers worked, and Swamp Thing’s ascension to godhood was completely ignored.

    (Though maybe I owe it a re-read.)

  22. The Drake/Premiani Doom Patrol is the best 60’s DC book for my money. Premiani’s art was absolutely spectacular… he was light years ahead of everyone else at DC.