Who are the Doom Patrol?
They’re the heroes that wouldn’t be invited to the Justice League’s Christmas party. They’re the team that wouldn’t be on the President’s speed dial the next time the world looks to be coming to an end. They’re the flipside to the photogenic Superman or Gotham’s legendary Batman, and they’re drawn together because of it. Created in the early 60s, they’re a team of metahuman misfits whose powers and personality shunt them outside the realm of society. Instead, they band together and make sense of their world on their own terms.
The Doom Patrol series has been launched (and canceled) five times since it’s debut almost fifty years ago, and although Grant Morrison’s run in the late 80s and early 90s had its fans, that was moreso for Morrison’s work than the book itself and was canceled soon after he left. Everyone from John Byrne to Geoff Johns have taken turns trying to spin the team into a successful series but to little success. What Doom Patrol needs is more than a new set of creators coming on-board to reheat the concept, instead it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
DC’s Doom Patrol has often been compared to Marvel’s X-Men, but they diverged early on: X-Men to great heights, and Doom Patrol… not so much. Instead, I would borrow one trick from Marvel’s handbook and drastically revise the team,the way Len Wein and Dave Cockrum did in Giant-Size X-Men #1. I’m talking All-New, All-Different — in their own unique way.
The Concept:
The only Doom Patrol members who’s been a part of every iteration of the team is Robotman, and I’d keep that trend with this — but with a twist. Robotman is a stuffy codename, so instead I’d revert to his real name — Cliff Steele. Cheesy yes, but less so than Robot Man. And keeping with his robotic roots, I’d seperate the mind and the body and take Cliff Steele off the battleground and into an advisory capacity as a disembodied robot brain with his extra-strong robot body in storage somehow. Joining him I would have new blood for the team, recruiting from the diverse universe of DC, Wildstorm and Milestone characters as well as some new creations. I’d leave the exact make-up of the team up to the creators (which I’ll go into in a moment), but one member I’d draft easily — and to play off of Cliff Steele — would be the anarchistic cyborg Ladytron from Wildcats.
The Creators:
Writer – Scott Snyder: If DC had their version of Marvel’s Young Guns, Scott Snyder would be shooting with both barrels. Although he broke in at Marvel, it’s DC that’s been the site of his success — from the creator-owned American Vampire to his arresting run on Batman with Detective Comics and now Batman, and even convincing me that there is life to Swamp Thing after Alan Moore. He’s never done a traditional team book, but Doom Patrol was never a traditional team; much in the same way he balances ensemble casts with American Vampire I’d like to see him develop a style and a substance to a new Doom Patrol series.
Artist – David LaFuente: LaFuente broke through big time with his work on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, but after that was shuttled over for a short run on New Mutants. We hear he’s got a creator-owned project in the works with Jonathan Ross, but regardless he’d be my number one draft pick to remake Doom Patrol and make it a big player (and a big seller) in the DCU. He has all the tools when it comes to a much-needed reboot: excellent storytelling, eye-catching style, and a keen sense of character design to make and remake the team into their own cohesive unit. Plus, let LaFuente do the covers himself — I like all-star artists as much as anyone else, but to establish a new tone for Doom Patrol it needs a cohesive vision that a revolving door of cover artists could fragment.
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How about bring back Ray Terrill you know The Ray and he could join this group along with Robot Man, Elongated Man, The New Phantom Lady, Miss Martian and I say the Atom leaves Frankenstein.
K
Doom Patrol is a title I would kill to get my writer hands on. Such potential for those characters.
Flash923: that sounds like …not the Doom Patrol. Sounds like the Freedom Fighters or something.
At the very least wrap one of those suckers in bandages. 😉
Well I am sorry I forgot about our freind in bandages, that is a absolute!!
K
Doom Patrol are like the kids at school who don’t belong in any social clique, and are thus drawn together. As one of those kids, that’s probably why I love the Patrol so much. Thought Giffen’s run was spectacular.
I think jazzing up things too much would be a mistake, but throwing in some newly-acquired Wildstorm or Vertigo characters might be fun. Great creative choices here too.
I love the creators you picked to reboot the series but I would personally love to see Grant Morrison writing it again.
I recently re-read some Doom Patrol stuff from the early ’60s and it was a really good and interesting series. I’d love to see what Scott Snyder could do with those characters (but frankly, I’d love to see what Scott Snyder would do with any characters).
i’d love to see jeff lemire on this, think his style would really resonate with the whole alienated misfit aspect of the doom patrol? alternatively, it’d be great to see mike allred do his thing with the doom patrol, that would be such a fun book?
Another good pick would be Jeff Lemire (he’s already done great job with a comic book that Grant Morrison had a legendary run on). Art duties is harder to pick but i’d kinda want Scott Kolins on it. He does great job with weird stuff and he already does the Robot Man part of My Greatest Adventure.
Snyder and LaFuente (perfect choice for art) would rock it…… but….
Ben Marra and Declan Shalvey would be my pick.
Pretty much every approach has already been tried with the DP, including the All-New, All-Different approach, and Cliff has rarely been called anything but Cliff. I say just bring back the Keith GIffen version, it was tremendous.
And I wouldn’t say the X-Men diverged to great heights early on – the original DP were long gone before the All-New, All-Different X-Men were a hit. The original X-Men were as relatively unpopular as the DP.
Doom patrol is one of those books that I keep buying and they keep canceling. I love the concept, just wish it would stick around!
With the “dark” group of DC doing so well I’d say now’s a great time for Doom Patrol to make it’s comeback.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they got an arc in “DCU Presents”.