My Greatest Adventure #80

A comic featuring the Doom Patrol team has arrived on comic shelves once again. At the helm is the legendary John Byrne. He's legendary indeed because of his groundbreaking work in the 1970s and 1980s (most notably his work with Chris Claremont on X-Men), but the man no longer lives up to his own legend. The first issue of this new Doom Patrol, for instance, was particularly bland in both writing and art. It's only worth picking up in order to experience for yourself the result of a stupid decision made by DC Comics and Byrne. The Doom Patrol in this series is the first Doom Patrol to ever be revealed to the DCU. By this, I don't mean this is the 1963 Doom Patrol. This 2004 Doom Patrol is the one and only Doom Patrol in the DCU. DC and Byrne decided all other previous incarnations of the Doom Patrol we read about throughout the years did not actually exist. All of those characters and their adventures have been wiped from DCU continuity.

The decision to do this is quite a shame when you consider the rich history this team had in all its incarnations. This installment of Canceled is a tribute to those stories...

Doom Patrol version 1.0

Doom Patrol was a collection of outcasts shunned by society because of their freakish abilities, brought together by a man in a wheelchair. This sounds eerily familiar to X-Men, doesn't it? In fact, Doom Patrol is often ridiculed as being a rip-off of X-Men, even though Doom Patrol actually debuted three months before the X-Men. This kind of similarity between heroes debuting in the Marvel and DC Universes was actually rather common in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. (The other one that comes most readily to mind is Swamp Thing / Man-Thing.)

Doom Patrol's debut came with a June 1963 cover date in My Greatest Adventure #80. This was a comic that had, until this point, featured non-series fantasy stories. The introduction of a superhero team into its pages caught readers' attention and by the time issue #86 rolled around, My Greatest Adventure had been renamed Doom Patrol.

The team was comprised of Rita Farr, Larry Traynor and Cliff Steele. Rita was an actress whose career was ruined when a chemical accident caused her body to grow and shrink. Larry, a pilot, had an accident that give him the power to control a being of energy. The downside was Larry was now dangerously radioactive and had to be placed inside a protective suit. Steele was a racecar driver who was in an accident so bad that only his brain could be saved. That brain was placed inside a robotic shell. Their names were Elasti-Woman, Negative Man and Robotman. They were brought together by Niles Caulder, also known as The Chief.

Doom Patrol was promoted as "The World's Strangest Heroes" and writer Arnold Drake certainly made the team live up to its name, but nothing seen in this early incarnation could prepare the world for Grant Morrison's take on these characters in the latter 1980s and 1990s. Before we get to that, I should say Doom Patrol's roster increased before their cancellation at issue #121, which had a cover date of September - October 1968. Garfield Logan was the first new team member, a green-skinned young man who adventured under the name Beast Boy. Mento was the other, a wealthy man who built himself a helmet that gave me telekinetic abilities. He would marry Rita Farr in the June 1966 issue.

Beast Boy would eventually find himself a home throughout the DCU, appearing in various incarnations of the Teen Titans, including the most recent series helmed by Geoff Johns. The rest of the original members of Doom Patrol weren't so lucky. Instead of simply letting the series end when the cancellation papers were handed out, the creators and DC decided to kill the team off. Beast Boy and Mento survived that final issue. We all know what Gar has been up to. Mento simply faded away.

Doom Patrol version 2.0

Doom Patrol was restarted in 1977 in Showcase #94. This issue revealed Robotman's robotic body survived the blast that killed his teammates, which meant his brain was okey dokey too. He managed to get back to the team's headquarters where he discovered a new Doom Patrol had taken residence. This particular team didn't get to be in the spotlight too long. Their story was told in Showcase #95 and #96, at which time they disappeared until October 1987.

Doom Patrol volume 2 would be the team's longest run, lasting until issue #87, which had a February 1994 cover date. It was revealed a woman claiming to be The Chief's wife and calling herself Celsius, had found that Robotman and Negative Man had survived the events of volume 1. She brought more misfits to the team, including Negative Woman, Tempest, Karma and Lodestone. Celsius would die in an alien invasion. Soon after The Chief returned and the comic and its characters were moved to DC's Vertigo imprint. So began the Grant Morrison era.

Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer known for his non-linear narratives and counterculture leanings. In crafty Doom Patrol, Grant Morrison used free writing techniques, which is the process of writing without thinking of an overall plan. The intent is to remove inhibitions, making for inventive departures from the norm. Departing from the norm is certainly what Morrison achieved in Doom Patrol. His run is commonly heralded as one of the best for the series or one of the worst. Depending on who you talk to, Morrison either saved or destroyed Doom Patrol. He must have been doing something right. He stayed on the series from 1988 to 1992. The series would end two years after his departure.

Doom Patrol version 3.0

The Doom Patrol name was sold to eccentric millionaire, Thayer Jost, who assembled a new team of misfit heroes. The roster was made up of Negative Man II, Fever, Freak, Kid Slick and Cliff Steele (actually an imaginary character created at the end of Morrison's run after the real Cliff Steele was killed). The team parted ways with Jost for ethical reasons. Jost then hired four heroes (Metamorpho, Dr Light IV, Elongated Man and Beast Boy) to oppose Robotman's team. The imaginary Cliff disappeared and later Cliff's actual brain was found inert under a mountain. It was revived and placed in a new robotic body.

John Arcudi of Mask and Major Bummer fame was the writer of this third Doom Patrol, which debuted with a December 2001 cover date. It was a comedy, which is quite a departure from the earlier versions of the team. The series was short-lived. It was cancelled with issue #22, which shipped in the summer of 2003.

Doom Patrol started in the 1960s, appeared again in the 70s, ran healthily in the 80s and 90s and even appeared for a short while at the turn of the 21st century. Over the course of their existance, many characters were introduced and many adventures were had. Sure, Doom Patrol was never one of the most popular or widely-recognized teams in the DCU, but they were a team with many adventures worth reading. Those tales can still be found today: Volume 1 has been collected in the delectible DC Archives series; Grant Morrison's run is slated for trade paperback release in September 2004; and, you can probably still find Arcudi's Doom Patrol in the quarter bins. These tales can still be read and enjoyed, but DC has decided to wipe those tales from the face of DCU continuity. John Byrne has started from scratch. All the trials and tribulations, laughs and tears experienced by Doom Patrol have been discarded. It's an injustice.

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