Doom Patrol (Vertigo)

xpost

OTM. I posted about that on the ILE Doom Patrol thread a few months ago, after rereading the first three volumes (there's a fourth? sweet!)

The Scissormen are the Pale Police are the Men From N.O.W.H.E.R.E., innit? I mean, I know they represent very different things, but that whole creepy humanoids that talk in weird codes thing, it gets a bit sameish. Also, wtf @ awful Constantine satire/rip-off.

-- Daniel_Rf (filosofiaebolacha...), July 22nd, 2006.

Awful Constantine ripoff is more a fly-like melding of JC and Withnail.

The final Candlemaker storyline has some of the best cliffhangers ever, irc. Shame you can't get that from the trades, but pretty exciting at the time. Hopefully they'll still reprint the great "Next Month: [Squiggly Line]" box.

The awful Constantine rip-off is great!

Doom Patrol notable of course for having one of the best final issues ever - followed immediately by a better one!

Why?

John Constantine - old bore based on Sting. 3 grillion appearances.
Willoughby Kipling - GMo doing a Withnail riff. 5 appearances and out.

Come on! There's no contest. John Constantine from 1988 onwards is one of the worst characters in comics.

I like Rudyard Kipling's "The Finest Story In The World" better than Keanu Reeves, I guess.

Also, Spike wins.

Mr. Perpetua is right. Issue 53 gets special notice in my book - it's just joy incarnate, essentially.

(cue "I like my comics like I like my etc." joke)

Well, the "DADA II: MORE DADA" storyline that began in vol. 4 does conclude in volume 5, but that's the only significant bit of continuity that leaps to mind.

If you want to miss out on the boring bits, read everything up to the space story, stop, pick up again for the Flex Mentallo/Pentagon story, stop, and then pick up again for issue 50. And carry on.

And then when Rachel Pollack joins, it gets even better!

?Que?

Madness.

Okay, I finally bought the fifth book, and everyone was right, it did get better. The second Brotherhood of Dada story was almost as good as the first one (shades of Invisibles there), and the Kirby/Lee pastiche was totally pointless, yet great! The "Aenigma Regis" story perhaps delved a bit too deep into Morrison mumbo jumbo, devoting a whole issue for what could've been told in five pages was maybe too much. And the Chief's big revelation about how he'd planned it all felt a bit forced, but I guess retconning (that's the word, right?) often does.

So things are picking up steam here, am I right that the Morrison run will end with the next book? AND WHAT A FUCKING CLIFFHANGER ENDING TO THE BOOK, and I can't even find any information when the next is gonna come out. Please don't put any spoilers here about how it'll all end, okay?

As the story has progressed, I think Morrison has dealt with many of the themes he'd later develop in The Invisibles... But I think DP has been a more enjoyable read, because it's also a silly superhero comic, so he can just throw stuff into air, and it doesn't all have to be a part of this huge, intricately detailed and meaningful story about human nature and stuff like that. And the characters just seem to work better here. I mean, I liked Invisibles for the most parts, but characterization simply wasn't the strongest thing there.

Tuomas otm! I enjoyed this volume the most, too.

One thing I don't get, why would Morrison go through all the bother of hinting in previous issues that the Chief is doing something shady, then making him give a half-issue long revelation speech, and then killing him immediately after that before he even had the chance to put his plan to work? Was Morrison just fucking with genre conventions? Or was the Candlemaker manipulating the Chief all the time? How else would he have known that the Chief will build a body he can use?

And if we want to nitpick, why was the Chief pretending to be crippled when the Beard Hunter attacked him, if he had had the use of his legs for "quite some time"? It's not like any of the Doom Patrol was there to see him.

(Obvious answer: it was better for the story to underline the Beard Hunter's impotence.)

Actually, the Kirby/Lee issue isn't necessarily pointless, if you look at it as foreshadowing, where Celestius = Candlemaker. But does this mean the part about some villain inside Cliff's body saving the world will also come true? Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Does anyone know when the next collection will come out?

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic_novels/?gn=8592

Out in January, finally! Magic Bus came so soon after Musclebound that I'd thought there be a shorter break before the last one comes out... I guess I'll just have to live in suspence for three months more, don't want to spoil it by reading plot summaries or something.

No FLEX MENTALLO for you! Come back TWO YEARS!

I have a short question about the final issue of Morrison's Doom Patrol... I just realized the "hell" Candlemaker has sent Crazy Jane in has the same colour scheme as the world the Grant Morrison character in Animal Man inhabits, which would suggest it is the "real world"; this would also explain why the psychiatrist woman has never heard of superheroes. Does this mean, then, that Morrison thinks real world is hell? Or maybe hell is just a world without imagination, as the story seems to be saying.

Yes, I think that's exactly what he was saying.

That theme gets played up in his JL Unlimited mini as well. And somewhere else. Oh yeah, FLEX MENTALLO, which you owe it to yourself to find, even if you have to t0rr3n7 it.

But I can ysi if you can't find it.

I still curse the involuntary six-month comics sabbatical which coincided with the release of Flex Mentallo. Now I just pray for 300 dpi scans to come floating through teh intarwebs someday...

Yeah, I've read Flex Mentallo as torrent. I liked the basic idea a lot, but it's still not my favourite Morrison, because it's so compressed it's kinda difficult to follow plus it's not as fun to read as his best works. I will still buy it if it ever comes out as a trade, for Quitely's art alone.

By the way, having just reread the whole of Doom Patrol, I have to say the final issue is probably the best single thing Morrison has ever written. Like Matt said, it's basically about the same things as Flex Mentallo and many other Morrison comics, but it's amazing how he manages to make it a fitting series finale and a recap of its themes, and still squeeze in some cool new ideas and a lot of emotional weight into one 24 page comic. The scene where Jane stands on the bridge and Cliff suddenly emerges there and says, "Didn't I promise?", just brings tears to my eyes.

Just thought I'd post this review of the collected Doom Patrol; I have to waste a lot of time explaining what it is, but there's room for an idea or two: http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2008summer/doompatrol.shtml

There are two questions that have been sorta bugging me about the finale of Morrison's Doom Patrol, maybe some of you might be able to provide answers to them?

1) If Danny the Street was always able to turn into Danny the World, why didn't he do so earlier? Nothing in the story hints this was some ability he'd only gained recently, nor does the story really explain his motivation for doing so at the time he did it.

2) What was the whole deal about "Aenigma Rebis"? I thought something cool and weird was going to happen to him/her after the episode on the Moon, but in the end Rebis just died and was reborn as pretty much the same character. So what was the "aenigma"? Also, if Rebis knew about the Chief's plans all along, as he/she stated, why didn't he/she try to stop him earlier? It's not like Rebis was some sort of a Dr. Manhattan character uninterested in humanity, by the end of the story he still cared about saving the world and the Doom Patrol.

1) If Danny the Street was always able to turn into Danny the World, why didn't he do so earlier? Nothing in the story hints this was some ability he'd only gained recently, nor does the story really explain his motivation for doing so at the time he did it.

Motivation-wise, who knows? Probably just Morrison providing an absurdly happy ending to counterbalance the disarray that had taken over the team. Interpretation-wise, it works quite well with the final issue, wherein Jane's subconcious is revealed to be the playing field for the entire series (and the entire DCU (which amuses me)) - Danny's return to "world" status can be read as Jane's return to a healthier imagination, beyond the cycle of "bad daddy/incomprehensible authority" which has dominated thus far.

2) What was the whole deal about "Aenigma Rebis"? I thought something cool and weird was going to happen to him/her after the episode on the Moon, but in the end Rebis just died and was reborn as pretty much the same character. So what was the "aenigma"? Also, if Rebis knew about the Chief's plans all along, as he/she stated, why didn't he/she try to stop him earlier? It's not like Rebis was some sort of a Dr. Manhattan character uninterested in humanity, by the end of the story he still cared about saving the world and the Doom Patrol.

DUNNO. From my recollection of the letter pages, there was some clamor for a solo Rebis issue, so fan service seems a possible extratextual excuse for #54 proper. That issue (and probably the one before) always struck me as a rather loose set of ideas that Grant wanted to play with before the onset of that last plot-driven act of DP – the intermission sequence forecasting rough and grisly times ahead, the delicious lark of ending a story with a horoscope excerpt, etc. Thankfully, the series was always rather exultant in its self-indulgence, so he could get away with that kind of thing. I mean, god, it certainly wasn’t a surprise to anyone to see Rebis give birth to him/herself, Grant hammering home that damn “Russian doll” motif at least once during every storyline – not much of an “aenigma” there…

OH, AND AS I SEE IT: it’s sorta logical that Caulder would take advantage of Rebis’ absence to enact his masterplan, isn’t it? That doesn’t explain anything, but it clarifies things, sorta, in a circumstantial No-Prizey way.

Interpretation-wise, it works quite well with the final issue, wherein Jane's subconcious is revealed to be the playing field for the entire series (and the entire DCU (which amuses me))

Really? What made you think the whole DCU was in Jane's subconscious? I didn't really read that from the last issue... To me the last issue was pretty straightforward: the Candlemaker sent Jane to "Hell", i.e. the "real world" (a world with no superheroes nor imagination - see my comment upthread), she couldn't handle it and tried to recreate her lost world in her mind (the Empire of Chairs), in the end Cliff found her and they returned to the world of Doom Patrol.

Of course you could interpret it so that Jane was always in the "real world", and everything that happened in the series was just Jane's imagination, but I think that would just make the whole thing needlessly complex. For example, then you'd have to ask, why did Jane imagine all the stuff that took place before she even entered the story? What made her return from her imaginary world back to the real world? Was it because her psyche became healthy again after confronting her father? If so, why didn't she return to real world immediately after that, why did it take fighting the Candlemaker to do it? And why did she then return back to the imaginary world in the end of the last issue?

It's definitely fun speculating with these sort of "it was all a dream" scenarios, but I really think the story works perfectly without adding those extra layers of complexity. The way I see it, in Morrison's universe the "real world" (the world without superheroes) and the "imaginary world" (the world of Doom Patrol) exist as parallels (imagination is the Fifth Dimension!), neither of them is really real nor in Jane's subconscious. The "Hell" Jane is sent to is merely a condition of the world where imagination is lost, so the world looses its vividness, its mysteries. But as long as Jane still holds on to the last mystery, the last piece of her imagination (the coin she gives to the doctor), she hasn't fully succumbed to that condition, so she can still return to the other world. Which is what happens in the end.

(and the entire DCU (which amuses me))

GOD, I'M BUSY - SORRY FOR THE LATE RESPONSE.

HA. I just threw that in as a lark - I wasn't being serious. I don't actually subscribe to this point of view - it just leaves me with a smile.

It's a nice bit of "what if" speculation anyway, I hadn't even thought of reading the story that way before you mentioned it.

I would like to go back in time, and every time Doom Patrol was in a poll and I voted for something else I want to change my vote to Doom Patrol. So good.

Best Morrison ever.

I'd like to continue my speculation on the "real world" in Morrison comics, which I started upthread... In JLA Classified 1-3 we learn that the infant universe Qwewq is corrupted by the supervillain Black Death, and in the future it becomes Neh-Buh-Loh the Huntsman, who then goes back in time to the current era as a servant of the Sheeda Queen. Now, the way the Earth of Qwewq is presented in JLA Classified #2 makes me think that this too is supposed to be the "real world", meaning that Qwewq is actually our universe. It doesn't have the same colour scheme as in the final issues of Animal Man and Doom Patrol, but the Earth in Qwewq is said to lack superheroes, and the news stories in the beginning of issue #2 make it feel like it's the "real world". And since Animal Man and Doom Patrol take place in the mainstream DC universe, that would also mean their final issues take place in Qwewq.

In JLA Classified #3 the Ultramarine Corps is sent in Qwewq to stop it from becoming corrupted, but in Seven Soldiers (Frankenstein #3 to be exact) we learn that they didn't fully succeed. However, apparently their influence did make Neh-Buh-Loh appreciate beauty, which he considers a flaw, and which eventually makes him die of entropy (though Frankenstein gives a little help there). So again we have the Morrisonesque idea of imagination (in the form of superheroes) saving the world: without the influence of the Ultramarine Corps Neh-Buh-Loh would not have been able to see beauty, and would've become totally corrupted. Apparently imagination, or the appreciation of beauty, also eventually leads to entropy and death. I'm not quite sure what Morrison is trying to say with that. Anyway, this would mean that the final destiny of our universe is to end up getting speared by the Frankenstein's Monster. Somehow this seems apt to me.

I really like how Morrison flips the expected script with his world-within-a-world schemes. Normally, you'd think that imaginary universes like the DC universe are micro level worlds that exist within a macro level world, i.e. the "our world". However, if my Qwewq speculation is correct, that would mean that the "our world" is actually a micro level universe that exists inside the macro level of the DC universe. The way I see it, this would mean that the "fictional" legends and myths of "our world" (such as superheroes) are actually micro level reflections of things that are "real" on the macro level of the DC universe. These themes of course appear in other Morrison comics too, like Flex Mentallo, The Filth, and All-Star Superman. So Morrison has been playing with this stuff for quite a while now.

SPOILERS!!!

(Forgot to put that in the previous post, you shouldn't read that or this one if you haven't read Seven Soldiers.)

Too bad Morrison didn't manage to make the Sheeda Queen as effective a villain as Neh-Buh-Loh was. To me, his demise in Frankenstein #3 was much more climactic and satisfying (story-wise) than the Queen's death in Seven Soldiers #1.

Maybe all this also relates to Morrison's alleged plan to make the DC universe sentient? With Neh-Buh-Loh he has a character who is our universe, sentient, inside the DC universe. Now he needs to do the opposite: make the DC universe sentient inside our universe.

Oh, goddammit. I accidentally posted this in one (of two!) DP threads on ILE. I meant to post it here, though. To wit, UM:

DOOM PATROL #7
On Sale February 3 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US
Written by Keith Giffen • Co-feature written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis • Art and cover by Matthew Clark Co-feature art by Kevin Maguire
Oolong Island is picking up the pieces after the Black Lanterns’ devastating attack. Former Patrol member Crazy Jane finds the island first, bearing terrifying news of what’s to come... Plus, more Metal Men!

I love Giffen, but he wouldn't be the first person I'd want to write Crazy Jane. From what I've understood DC basically let Jane retire after Morrison's stint on DP ended (her being the only major DP character Morrison created himself), so what purpose does it serve to bring her back after 15+ years?

Maybe Giffen got permish from Morrison directly? They've had a working relationship in the past (and ostensibly still do, if anyone actually believes that Giffen is doing anything more than simply fleshing out Morrison's abandoned plots for Authority: The Lost Year), so it seems like he might have, if only to maintain dece working relations in the future.

very nervous

Very wise approach.

Considering that the first issue of the new DOOM PATROL seemed to miss the point of the old one in a spectacular fashion, as well as reading as a very generic comic, I find indifference the only sane response.

So tell us why you love it.

Me? I love that issue 50 has art by Jamie Hewlett *and* Rian Hughes. And it's insane.

And I'll probably regret starting this thread since I bet there's an older one in here, but I was never good at threadmancy.

Rataplan rataplan!

CROSSING OVER FROM THE "KICKING-ASS" THREAD:

Point I never get tired of making: Is there a better next issue box than "Next Issue: [Weird Squiggle]" towards the end of the run?

Similarly, my favorite bit of "next issue" editorial promo, probably written by Peyer, is the one which enthusiastically points out that virtually every character is dead or incapacitated and promises action-packed fun - the one for 57, I think.

Also enjoyed the Doom Force cover with 'Who will DIE?" and all of the arrows pointing at Shasta the Man-Mountain

finally got around to reading these - on Volume 2. artwork is kinda meh. kinda one-note with the insanity/surrealism/threats-to-reality plotlines but that doesn't really bother me too much. The Constantine knock-off is odd but not particularly egregious. Seems weird to me that Morrison got stiffed twice so early on in his career re: characters created by Alan Moore.