Jim Lemoine
Jun 17, 2004, 01:48 am
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/logos/cfdlogo.jpg" align=left border=0 alt="Comics For Dummies logo">By Raul Grau, RJacknite@aol.com
Patrolling the Doomed
DC loves revamps. Absolutely loves them. I'm sure the editors at DC are never happier than when they are refashioning a character with a new, wider audience in mind. However, I'm not talking about the 'Check out my hip new costume' revamps, or even the 'Check out my hip new female sidekick' revamps. I'm talking about the 'To save the village, we have to burn the village' revamps that DC excels at. The latest example of that scorched Earth technique for storytelling is the return of the Doom Patrol.
Now I am sure that quite a few of you could not care less what happens to the Doom Patrol, so let me put it to you this way. What if Marvel decided that Ultimate X-Men would now be accepted as the true continuity, and that no other X-Men stories ever occurred? How would you feel? Ok, now I have your attention.
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-1.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="My Greatest Adventure #80">The Doom Patrol saga began innocently enough. It was the tender and heartfelt tale of four average Americans: a paraplegic Machiavellian scientist, a (literally) giant former movie starlet, a former test pilot with a mummy-fied look, and a race car driver who only had a brain... inside his oversized, orange robotic body. The Chief, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, and Robotman were the Doom Patrol, and, if you happen to take a look at DC's solicitations for June, they are the Doom Patrol again. I'd be ecstatic, if I were not already so disturbed.
My complaint is fairly simple- the team has not comprised of that lineup in over 30 years. In fact, Elasti-Girl has been doing a very reasonable impersonation of a deceased character for precisely that long, so it does seem fairly bizarre to simply resurrect her. It would be like Marvel deciding to bring back together the original members of the X-Men, in an obviously contrived attempt to tap into some sort of nostalgic vein. Certainly contrived, because such a reunion would have to happen regardless of what the individual members had been doing at that time, and whether or not all the members were even still alive. If one of them were dead, Marvel would have to concoct some sort of storyline to revive him... or her, if the dearly departed one happened to be the only female member of that original team. Hmmm...
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-2.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="JLA Year One #5">To make matters worse, the DP is being returned precisely as they were in 1968, completely foreign to the other inhabitants of the DC Universe. That would be entirely forgivable, if not for the fact that the members of the Doom Patrol had previously encountered nearly every major character in the DC Universe (sometimes, it's the little things that matter). Before he became the bandaged Negative Man, Larry Trainer flew test planes with his good friend and friendly rival, Hal Jordan (you may have heard of him). Doctor Will Magnus (now one-sixth of Enginehead) was responsible for several retrofits to the chassis of Cliff Steele (the always tragic Robotman), and for keeping Niles Caulder (The Chief) alive, cryogenically speaking. The entire JLoA was in attendance at the wedding of Patrollers Steve Dayton (the sometimes mentally sound Mento) and Rita Farr (the doomed Doom dame, Elasti-Girl). It is interesting to note that the couple was raising their foster child, Garfield Logan, together at that time. If Gar had just remained a minor character, this revamp might actually go a bit more smoothly.
Regardless of your level of DC fandom, you might have heard of Gar Logan. He's an animated practical joker, and a sucker for pretty blondes. He is also green and possesses the ability to transform into a menagerie of animal life. Beast Boy (I'm sure you all pieced together my huge, obvious hints, right?)... ahem, Beast Boy may be best know as a Titan, but he began as one of the Doom'd, so Gar will need a whole new origin now. Of course, DC could always reintroduce him as a new character as well, if not for the slight hitch of him already appearing monthly in an ongoing title. Sadly, we can't be sure that will ever be enough to keep a character's history intact.
Besides Beast Boy, it can be argued that the greatest contributions the Doom Patrol made to the rest of the DCU were the very concept of the comic book noble sacrifice, and hermaphrodites. Since I'm sure you're all clamoring to hear more about the meaning of heroism, the hermaphrodites can wait.
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-3.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="Doom Patrol #121">The Patrol were always written as the ultimate outsiders, freaks even among other freaks. The members of that original team never chose to be different, and they would have traded their exceptional abilities to be normal again, yet they fought for a world that hated and feared them (that sounds so familiar). In their last stand, they were called upon to make an impossible choice- their lives or the lives of a village of strangers they would never meet. The four persecuted, tortured souls choose to die for those strangers, and every hero since has had to live in their shadow. Of course, this being a DC series, only three of the four remained dead, but Elasti-Girl became the 'dead means dead' poster child, and thankfully never crawled from her grave. To bring her back would completely cheapen the very spirit of that most powerful of stories... and look who's back.
In the decades that followed, many other heroes may have emulated the model of the noble death that had been put forward by the Patrollers (I'm looking at you, Phoenix), but no other mainstream title can say that they were first with another bold concept- the hermaphroditic hero. Many of you are probably familiar with the work of the pseduoscience-loving evil clone of Grant Morrison, who has recently been spotted on the JLA and X-Men franchise, but in the late 80's, Doom Patrol became the home of the real Grant Morrison, the consciousness-expanding existentialist who was still actively defining the future of what a comic book would become. The title had sunk into a low period of typical heroism-as-usual, when Grant came along, beginning his psychosexual headtrip of a run. He retooled the team's origins (without ignoring what had come before), he radically altered the characters (including the merger of Negative 'Man' with his very female doctor, to produce Rebis, a hero greater than the sum of his/her/its/their parts), and most importantly, he told wonderful stories. Apparently, you can be bold and different, without steamrolling over the past... who knew?
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-4.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="Doom Patrol (Vol. 2) #19">Now this is certainly not the first time that DC has thrown the baby out with the bathwater, as far as continuity goes. Superboy and Supergirl were erased from existence during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, taking all their past adventures with them, only to have both return during the 90's. However, the new Boy and Girl of Steel were not the Kryptonian youths of old, but wholly original characters, with the only similarities to their forebears being their codenames and hair colors.
A very similar approach had been applied decades earlier, with the initial introductions of the Silver Age set of DC heroes. This new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist, not Jay Garrick, another kind of forensic scientist. The new Atom was Ray Palmer, a researcher, not Al Pratt, a... it's odd, but most Golden Age heroes had no day jobs. This new Green Lantern was Hal Jordan, a test pilot, not Alan Scott, a radio announcer (finally, a real contrast), and so on. Clearly different characters, only linked by names and (occasionally) similar powers. That type of revamp cam be very troubling for fans of the original incarnations, but at least the new creations are... well, new.
A much more frustrating approach is to remove some (or even all) of a character's history, yet keep the character fundamentally intact. Following Crisis, the origin of Superman was radically rewritten by John Byrne (make a mental note of that name), resulting in an indeterminable number of Supes stories which may not have occurred (indeterminable, because we were left to guess which ones to keep). Another continuity-crushing crossover led to the complete removal of over 30 years of Legion of Super-Heroes tales, but at least we could all take some comfort in the knowledge that the Legion inhabited a future timeline, and future timelines are wont to vanish. Yes, the team I had followed for years were suddenly and completely gone, but at least fictional characters were just as confused and frustrated as I was (read the Legion members' trip to the modern era during the late 90s to see several confused expressions on Superman's face).
Compared to the current Doom doings, there is only one revamp in the whole of DCs checkered past that came as more of a slap in the face to the fans, and that was the final fate of the Earth-1 Wonder Woman (I'm sorry, I meant the Earth's one Wonder Woman... silly me, how could there have be an Earth-1, if there was only ever one Earth?). During the oftmentioned Crisis, the modern age Wonder Woman was killed, but we soon learned that meant she had never existed in the first place. Soon after, she finally made her 'debut,' but none of her earlier tales had ever taken place (of course, no one missed the Egg Fu saga... ask your parents).
For some strange reason, a seemingly minor change (like taking one of the longest-running comic characters out of existence) had far reaching ramifications. Wonder Woman was no longer on hand for the founding of the JLA, so the younger Black Canary was picked to fill her place in heroic history. (The Golden Age Wonder Woman had also fallen through the cracks of comic time, but a decade later, she would be retroactively recreated by a writer known as John Byrne... remember him?) In addition, every character in the DCU now predated the modern Wonder Woman as a character, including her former sidekick, Wonder Girl (the very confused Donna Troy). It would take many years for Donna to receive a new (and stable) origin, and that happened mere months before she was finally killed off. Why does Beast Boy have to become another Donna Troy?
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-5.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="The new/old Doom Patrol from JLA and the new series">Now, of course, I am being just a wee bit reactionary, venting about an alteration that is still in the midst of being explained. We have only seen glimpse of this 'unknown' Doom Patrol, and the monthly title that will (hopefully) explain these changes is still a month away. Perhaps the series will come with a logical and calming rationale for why years of stories are now being ignored. Perhaps it will all be a hoax, or an imaginary story. Perhaps John Byrne will appease... oh, that's right, I had not mentioned that. Byrne is the writer of this fourth volume of the Doom Patrol saga... worried yet?
Doom Patrol is a truly unique team with a very rich and complex past. It has survived the deaths of nearly every member (some more than once), and three previous and nearly forgotten series. Perhaps someone will find a way to incorporate that past into this new present, and weave tales which appeal to both old and new fans alike. However, for now, it seems like DC believes that to save the team, they have to Byrne the team.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau doesn't understand why this team of weirdoes and freaks led by a know-it-all in a wheelchair did not become as popular as that other one. He is most afraid that this revamp may mean that Coagula, the greatest transgendered heroine, may never get her own series.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of ComiX-Fan or its other staff in general.
Patrolling the Doomed
DC loves revamps. Absolutely loves them. I'm sure the editors at DC are never happier than when they are refashioning a character with a new, wider audience in mind. However, I'm not talking about the 'Check out my hip new costume' revamps, or even the 'Check out my hip new female sidekick' revamps. I'm talking about the 'To save the village, we have to burn the village' revamps that DC excels at. The latest example of that scorched Earth technique for storytelling is the return of the Doom Patrol.
Now I am sure that quite a few of you could not care less what happens to the Doom Patrol, so let me put it to you this way. What if Marvel decided that Ultimate X-Men would now be accepted as the true continuity, and that no other X-Men stories ever occurred? How would you feel? Ok, now I have your attention.
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-1.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="My Greatest Adventure #80">The Doom Patrol saga began innocently enough. It was the tender and heartfelt tale of four average Americans: a paraplegic Machiavellian scientist, a (literally) giant former movie starlet, a former test pilot with a mummy-fied look, and a race car driver who only had a brain... inside his oversized, orange robotic body. The Chief, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, and Robotman were the Doom Patrol, and, if you happen to take a look at DC's solicitations for June, they are the Doom Patrol again. I'd be ecstatic, if I were not already so disturbed.
My complaint is fairly simple- the team has not comprised of that lineup in over 30 years. In fact, Elasti-Girl has been doing a very reasonable impersonation of a deceased character for precisely that long, so it does seem fairly bizarre to simply resurrect her. It would be like Marvel deciding to bring back together the original members of the X-Men, in an obviously contrived attempt to tap into some sort of nostalgic vein. Certainly contrived, because such a reunion would have to happen regardless of what the individual members had been doing at that time, and whether or not all the members were even still alive. If one of them were dead, Marvel would have to concoct some sort of storyline to revive him... or her, if the dearly departed one happened to be the only female member of that original team. Hmmm...
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-2.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="JLA Year One #5">To make matters worse, the DP is being returned precisely as they were in 1968, completely foreign to the other inhabitants of the DC Universe. That would be entirely forgivable, if not for the fact that the members of the Doom Patrol had previously encountered nearly every major character in the DC Universe (sometimes, it's the little things that matter). Before he became the bandaged Negative Man, Larry Trainer flew test planes with his good friend and friendly rival, Hal Jordan (you may have heard of him). Doctor Will Magnus (now one-sixth of Enginehead) was responsible for several retrofits to the chassis of Cliff Steele (the always tragic Robotman), and for keeping Niles Caulder (The Chief) alive, cryogenically speaking. The entire JLoA was in attendance at the wedding of Patrollers Steve Dayton (the sometimes mentally sound Mento) and Rita Farr (the doomed Doom dame, Elasti-Girl). It is interesting to note that the couple was raising their foster child, Garfield Logan, together at that time. If Gar had just remained a minor character, this revamp might actually go a bit more smoothly.
Regardless of your level of DC fandom, you might have heard of Gar Logan. He's an animated practical joker, and a sucker for pretty blondes. He is also green and possesses the ability to transform into a menagerie of animal life. Beast Boy (I'm sure you all pieced together my huge, obvious hints, right?)... ahem, Beast Boy may be best know as a Titan, but he began as one of the Doom'd, so Gar will need a whole new origin now. Of course, DC could always reintroduce him as a new character as well, if not for the slight hitch of him already appearing monthly in an ongoing title. Sadly, we can't be sure that will ever be enough to keep a character's history intact.
Besides Beast Boy, it can be argued that the greatest contributions the Doom Patrol made to the rest of the DCU were the very concept of the comic book noble sacrifice, and hermaphrodites. Since I'm sure you're all clamoring to hear more about the meaning of heroism, the hermaphrodites can wait.
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-3.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="Doom Patrol #121">The Patrol were always written as the ultimate outsiders, freaks even among other freaks. The members of that original team never chose to be different, and they would have traded their exceptional abilities to be normal again, yet they fought for a world that hated and feared them (that sounds so familiar). In their last stand, they were called upon to make an impossible choice- their lives or the lives of a village of strangers they would never meet. The four persecuted, tortured souls choose to die for those strangers, and every hero since has had to live in their shadow. Of course, this being a DC series, only three of the four remained dead, but Elasti-Girl became the 'dead means dead' poster child, and thankfully never crawled from her grave. To bring her back would completely cheapen the very spirit of that most powerful of stories... and look who's back.
In the decades that followed, many other heroes may have emulated the model of the noble death that had been put forward by the Patrollers (I'm looking at you, Phoenix), but no other mainstream title can say that they were first with another bold concept- the hermaphroditic hero. Many of you are probably familiar with the work of the pseduoscience-loving evil clone of Grant Morrison, who has recently been spotted on the JLA and X-Men franchise, but in the late 80's, Doom Patrol became the home of the real Grant Morrison, the consciousness-expanding existentialist who was still actively defining the future of what a comic book would become. The title had sunk into a low period of typical heroism-as-usual, when Grant came along, beginning his psychosexual headtrip of a run. He retooled the team's origins (without ignoring what had come before), he radically altered the characters (including the merger of Negative 'Man' with his very female doctor, to produce Rebis, a hero greater than the sum of his/her/its/their parts), and most importantly, he told wonderful stories. Apparently, you can be bold and different, without steamrolling over the past... who knew?
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-4.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="Doom Patrol (Vol. 2) #19">Now this is certainly not the first time that DC has thrown the baby out with the bathwater, as far as continuity goes. Superboy and Supergirl were erased from existence during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, taking all their past adventures with them, only to have both return during the 90's. However, the new Boy and Girl of Steel were not the Kryptonian youths of old, but wholly original characters, with the only similarities to their forebears being their codenames and hair colors.
A very similar approach had been applied decades earlier, with the initial introductions of the Silver Age set of DC heroes. This new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist, not Jay Garrick, another kind of forensic scientist. The new Atom was Ray Palmer, a researcher, not Al Pratt, a... it's odd, but most Golden Age heroes had no day jobs. This new Green Lantern was Hal Jordan, a test pilot, not Alan Scott, a radio announcer (finally, a real contrast), and so on. Clearly different characters, only linked by names and (occasionally) similar powers. That type of revamp cam be very troubling for fans of the original incarnations, but at least the new creations are... well, new.
A much more frustrating approach is to remove some (or even all) of a character's history, yet keep the character fundamentally intact. Following Crisis, the origin of Superman was radically rewritten by John Byrne (make a mental note of that name), resulting in an indeterminable number of Supes stories which may not have occurred (indeterminable, because we were left to guess which ones to keep). Another continuity-crushing crossover led to the complete removal of over 30 years of Legion of Super-Heroes tales, but at least we could all take some comfort in the knowledge that the Legion inhabited a future timeline, and future timelines are wont to vanish. Yes, the team I had followed for years were suddenly and completely gone, but at least fictional characters were just as confused and frustrated as I was (read the Legion members' trip to the modern era during the late 90s to see several confused expressions on Superman's face).
Compared to the current Doom doings, there is only one revamp in the whole of DCs checkered past that came as more of a slap in the face to the fans, and that was the final fate of the Earth-1 Wonder Woman (I'm sorry, I meant the Earth's one Wonder Woman... silly me, how could there have be an Earth-1, if there was only ever one Earth?). During the oftmentioned Crisis, the modern age Wonder Woman was killed, but we soon learned that meant she had never existed in the first place. Soon after, she finally made her 'debut,' but none of her earlier tales had ever taken place (of course, no one missed the Egg Fu saga... ask your parents).
For some strange reason, a seemingly minor change (like taking one of the longest-running comic characters out of existence) had far reaching ramifications. Wonder Woman was no longer on hand for the founding of the JLA, so the younger Black Canary was picked to fill her place in heroic history. (The Golden Age Wonder Woman had also fallen through the cracks of comic time, but a decade later, she would be retroactively recreated by a writer known as John Byrne... remember him?) In addition, every character in the DCU now predated the modern Wonder Woman as a character, including her former sidekick, Wonder Girl (the very confused Donna Troy). It would take many years for Donna to receive a new (and stable) origin, and that happened mere months before she was finally killed off. Why does Beast Boy have to become another Donna Troy?
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/cfd/cfd1-5.jpg" align=right border=0 alt="The new/old Doom Patrol from JLA and the new series">Now, of course, I am being just a wee bit reactionary, venting about an alteration that is still in the midst of being explained. We have only seen glimpse of this 'unknown' Doom Patrol, and the monthly title that will (hopefully) explain these changes is still a month away. Perhaps the series will come with a logical and calming rationale for why years of stories are now being ignored. Perhaps it will all be a hoax, or an imaginary story. Perhaps John Byrne will appease... oh, that's right, I had not mentioned that. Byrne is the writer of this fourth volume of the Doom Patrol saga... worried yet?
Doom Patrol is a truly unique team with a very rich and complex past. It has survived the deaths of nearly every member (some more than once), and three previous and nearly forgotten series. Perhaps someone will find a way to incorporate that past into this new present, and weave tales which appeal to both old and new fans alike. However, for now, it seems like DC believes that to save the team, they have to Byrne the team.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau doesn't understand why this team of weirdoes and freaks led by a know-it-all in a wheelchair did not become as popular as that other one. He is most afraid that this revamp may mean that Coagula, the greatest transgendered heroine, may never get her own series.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of ComiX-Fan or its other staff in general.