My Greatest Adventure: Doom Patrol (volume 1) Doom Patrol first appeared in 1963, when the DC title
My Greatest Adventure, an adventure anthology, was being converted to a superhero format. The task, assigned to writer Arnold Drake, was to create a team that fit both of these formats. With fellow writer Bob Haney and artist Bruno Premiani, he created Doom Patrol, a team of super-powered misfits who were regarded as freaks by the world at large. Doom Patrol were announced on the cover art of
My Greatest Adventure #80 (
cover dated June 1963). Drake and Haney devised the plot for the issue together, and then each scripted half the issue independently (Drake the first half, Haney the second). The members of the Doom Patrol often quarrelled and had personal problems, something that was already common among superhero teams published by
Marvel Comics such as
Fantastic Four, but was novel among the DC lineup. Doom Patrol's rogues gallery matched the strange, weird tone of the series. According to the writer, he was replaced with the editor because he had just resigned over a pay dispute and moved to Marvel Comics. He finished the script only out of friendship for Boltinoff. A few years later, three more issues appeared, reprints of earlier issues (#89, #95 and #90 appeared as #122, #123 and #124 respectively). A proper
Doom Patrol revival did not occur until 1977, nine years after the original's demise. Some similarities exist between the original Doom Patrol and Marvel Comics' original
X-Men; Marvel acknowledged the similarity in its humor title
Not Brand Echh. Both include misfit superheroes shunned by society and both are led by men of preternatural intelligence who use wheelchairs. These similarities ultimately led series writer Arnold Drake to argue that the concept of the X-Men must have been based on the Doom Patrol. Drake stated: In an interview shortly before his death in 2007, Drake took a more moderate position, stating that while it is possible Lee took his ideas from Doom Patrol, he could also have arrived at a similar concept independently: "Since we were working in the same vineyards, and if you do enough of that stuff, sooner or later, you will kind of look like you are imitating each other." John Byrne, who has written and drawn all three sets of characters, has written that "I wish someone would ask Arnold Drake about the Doom Patrol's similarities with the Fantastic Four, instead of always bringing up the X-Men comparison." The respected comic book and television writer,
Mark Evanier, disagrees. He notes that the time period between release dates of The Doom Patrol in
My Greatest Adventure #80 and
The Uncanny X-Men #1 was too short for the necessary production time window to produce an imitation comic book series. Furthermore, Evanier noted that there would be no point to attempt such a rushed production to imitate a property that had no guarantee of success prominent enough to justify such efforts: "It was probably a good six months before any reliable sales figures on
My Greatest Adventure #80 were known. No one even started tallying them until the issue went off-sale…in this case, two months later." As it was, sales ultimately proved mediocre for the original concept, so imitating it would have been pointless.
Showcase: Paul Kupperberg's Doom Patrol Writer
Paul Kupperberg, a longtime
Doom Patrol fan, and artist
Joe Staton introduced a new team in
Showcase #94 (August–September 1977). DC was then lining up features for the
Showcase revival—the series was initially an anthology that would debut new characters who could springboard into their own series if they proved sufficiently popular, and
Showcase #94 was the first new issue of the series in almost seven years. Editor
Paul Levitz instructed Kupperberg and Staton to do a Doom Patrol feature. Kupperberg opted to create a new lineup because he wanted to respect the story in which the Doom Patrol met their deaths, and was inspired by
Len Wein and
Dave Cockrum's then-recent "all-new, all-different X-Men". Kupperberg has since said he is not proud of the reboot, remarking that "[I was] missing the point of the Doom Patrol. The original group were outsiders and freaks, while my new guys were just comic-book superheroes. I was young and inexperienced and new to writing, with about two years under my belt before getting the gig." This new version of the team did not receive its own series following its three-issue tryout. Kupperberg said this was most likely due to poor sales, as even in the months prior to the
DC Implosion he heard no word of a new
Doom Patrol series.
DC Comics Presents (teaming up with
Superman in a story which revealed that Vostok's powers had changed to match Larry Trainor's exactly), and
Supergirl. Robotman also appeared as an occasional supporting character in the
Marv Wolfman and
George Pérez era of
Teen Titans, where it was revealed that Changeling, formerly DP associate
Beast Boy, had arranged for Dayton Industries technicians to recreate the Caulder body design for Cliff. His first storyline here had him, the Titans, and a new
Brotherhood of Evil battle
Madame Rouge and
General Zahl, the murderers of the original Doom Patrol, who died in the battle.
Eclipse Comics published
Doom Patrol: The Official Index with covers drawn by
John Byrne in 1984. The two-part series included all of their appearances from
My Greatest Adventure #80 to their final appearance before their 1980s return.
Post-Crisis relaunch (volume 2, part 1) Kupperberg's enthusiasm for the Doom Patrol remained, and in addition to writing some of the team's post-
Showcase appearances, he eventually wrote a proposal for a new Doom Patrol series. Lightle took on the assignment with reluctance, having read and disliked Kupperberg's new Doom Patrol in
Showcase #94–96, and soon quit due to several grievances, such as not being involved in plotting the comic despite the editor repeatedly promising that he would be. He was replaced by a young
Erik Larsen after issue #5. Kupperberg later commented, "I like Erik's work, but I don't think he was exactly right for the Doom Patrol. To tell the truth, I don't think either Erik or myself were happy with the arrangement, but we did our best to make it work." This incarnation was a more conventional superhero series than the original volume. According to Kupperberg, sales on the series "started out okay, and descended to the point where I was removed from the book and replaced by
Grant Morrison in the hopes he could salvage the title." including Celsius, Scott Fischer, Karma, Lodestone, and Tempest. Morrison used DC's
Invasion crossover to restart the book by "stripping the team down to its roots and returning, as quickly as possible, to the freewheeling weirdness that made the early stories so exhilarating." sentient neighborhood
Danny the Street, and
Dorothy Spinner, an ape-faced girl with powerful "
imaginary friends". They incorporated bizarre
secret societies, elements of
Dada,
surrealism, and the
cut-up technique pioneered by
William S. Burroughs and
Brion Gysin. They also borrowed the ideas of
Jorge Luis Borges and
Heinrich Hoffmann. The original creator, Arnold Drake, said Morrison's was the only subsequent run to reflect the intent of the original series. and
Mike Mignola. Over the course of the series, Morrison dedicated some issues to parody and homage.
Willoughby Kipling led the Doom Patrol on a parody of the Brujería story arc of
Swamp Thing: A Murder of Crows in issues #31–32. Issue #42 featured the origin of
Flex Mentallo, who was supposed to be the character in the
Charles Atlas ad. A belated lawsuit from the Charles Atlas Company showed that DC was protected under
Fair Use doctrine in addition to an expired
statute of limitations. Issue #53 featured a dream sequence that mimicked the
Stan Lee/
Jack Kirby Fantastic Four, borrowing plot points from "
The Galactus Trilogy" (
FF #48–50) and
FF #51, "
This Man... This Monster!". A 1992 special called
Doom Force was released as a one-shot and was meant to mimic and parody the
X-Force book by
Rob Liefeld. Issue #45 parodied Marvel's
Punisher and Alan Moore in a satire called the Beard Hunter, a perpetually clean-shaven serial killer who murders bearded men and targets the Chief. Morrison's villains were extremely unusual and strange, even by Doom Patrol's eccentric standards. For example: •
Red Jack is a near-omnipotent being who thinks he is both
Jack the Ripper and
God. He lives in a house without windows, torturing butterflies to create the pain he needs to survive. • The
Brotherhood of Dada are an anarchistic group who fight against reality and reason. It features members such as Sleepwalk, who can only use her tremendous powers when asleep (she takes sleeping pills and listens to
Barry Manilow before battles), The Quiz, who has "every superpower you hadn't thought of" and a pathological fear of dirt, and Number None, who never materializes but is responsible for everyday annoyances, like bumping into doors that are ajar. • The
Scissormen, a race of alien beings from the dimension of Orqwith that attack non-fictional beings in the "real world" (i.e., the world the Doom Patrol live in) with their large scissor-like hands and cut people out of reality. In issue #57, it was revealed that the Chief had secretly caused the "accidents" which turned Cliff, Larry Trainor, and Rita Farr into super beings. Chief stated he caused them to gain their powers because of his hatred for them. He felt they were spoiled and narcissistic as well as shallow individuals, and that by turning them into "freaks", he could improve them as human beings. He further revealed that he lied about not being married to Celsius (the leader of the second Doom Patrol, who Caulder claimed was insane/lying about being married to him) out of anger. He was upset over how the experiments performed on her (like with Elasti-Girl) only gave her super-powers and did not turn her into a freak. When Tempest and Robotman found out his role in "creating" Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man, Tempest was killed and Robotman paralyzed. Having been exposed as a villain, Caulder planned to unleash
nanobots into the world, hoping to create a
catastrophe that would improve humanity, regardless of the carnage it would cause. But Caulder's plan was hijacked by the Candlemaker, a violent cosmic horror who is freed by Dorothy in exchange for his resurrection of Tempest (whom Candlemaker re-killed). Candlemaker then decapitated Caulder and sought to use the nanobots to enslave humanity. Dorothy, Crazy Jane, and Robotman (freed by the former two) defeated Candlemaker with help from the new reborn version of Rebis. Rebis briefly left the team to reproduce as part of a cosmic ritual. However, during the battle, Jane was sent flying into a portal and landed in a world without heroes. Forcibly institutionalized for her mental issues in this new world, the final issue of Morrison's run had Robotman locate Jane as she was about to kill herself and take her to live with Cliff within the confines of Danny the Street. The cycle aptly ends with the words "There is another world... There is a better world... Well there must be", from the song "
Asleep" by
The Smiths. A four-issue Flex Mentallo mini-series illustrated by
Frank Quitely spun out from this run.
Rachel Pollack's Doom Patrol (volume 2, part 3) Morrison left the book with issue #63, and
Rachel Pollack took over writing the book the next issue. Pollack's first issue was also the first under the new
Vertigo imprint of DC Comics (although the trade paperback editions of Morrison's work do bear the imprint, the original issues did not). Returning characters for Rachel Pollack's run included Cliff Steele, Niles Caulder (kept alive by the nanobots, but reduced to a disembodied head, usually kept on a tray filled with ice), and Dorothy Spinner. Pollack's run had Dorothy as a primary member of the Patrol; she brought her imaginary friends to her aid in combat. Overall, Pollack's run dealt with issues such as the
generation gap,
humanity,
identity,
transgender issues,
bisexuality, and borrowed elements from
Judaism and
Kabbalah in the last few issues. The angel
Akatriel is used as a major character in the last seven issues. The first story arc of her run was called "Sliding in the Wreckage". Cliff's computer brain started to malfunction, and he regressed into flashbacks from previous storylines. Dorothy was haunted by African spirits while dealing with living alone in the real world. The Chief was given a new body by Will Magnus, but to atone for his sins, Caulder ripped his head off the body and was kept in cryogenic storage. Meanwhile, the entire Earth had been suffering from random outbreaks of weirdness, contributed by the arrival of something called "The Book of Ice". A government agency known as the Builders, similar to the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., were trying to stop the outbreak, which was apparently linked to a race of shapeshifters known as the Teiresias. As the Chief was kept in a cryogenic state, he appeared in the land of the Teiresias as a face carved in a mountain. They warned him that his arrival in this world was causing the craziness in the real world. Throughout the storyline, little people with backward letters for heads had been seen altering people. These people were apparently older version of nanomachines, referred to as "nannos". At the Doom Patrol headquarters, Builder agents attacked, and in the craziness, two of the Teiresias approached Dorothy with a new brain for Cliff, but to insert it she needed the Chief's expertise. In the Teiresias world, nannos "repaired" the Chief so he could live as a severed head. After his awakening, the craziness seemed to stop, and Dorothy, Cliff, and the Chief each realized that they needed to be together. The team relocated to Violet Valley's Rainbow Estates, a house haunted by ghosts of those who died in sexual accidents. There, three new members joined: The Bandage People, George and Marion, who were once two workers for the Builders but managed to escape, and the Inner Child, a manifestation of the ghosts' purity and innocence. Another later newcomer of the team was Kate Godwin, aka
Coagula, one of the first transgender superheroes. A one-time ally of the team called the Identity Addict, who could become different superheroes by shedding her skin like a lizard, integrated herself back into the team while using the False Memory identity to change the team's memories until she was kicked out by Dorothy. Villains that the team fought, besides the Builders, included the Fox and the Crow, two animal spirits whose feud Dorothy and Cliff were subsequently pulled into; the Master Cleaner, a being with a human fetus inside a bubble for a head who began "cleaning" the world by stripping it down to nothing and replacing the stolen items, including people, with a paper ticket; and a group of Hassidic healers who called themselves the False Healers and their leader, the Rabbi of Darkness. A new artist,
Ted McKeever, took over the artwork for most of the final 13 issues. Pollack continued writing the title until its cancellation with issue #87, in February 1995.
John Arcudi's Doom Patrol (volume 3) In December 2001, writer
John Arcudi and artist
Tan Eng Huat launched a new
Doom Patrol series. This relaunch was not under the Vertigo imprint and returned the title to the mainstream DC universe. The series lasted for 22 issues before it was cancelled. Arcudi's run largely ignored Morrison and Pollack's runs at first; Arcudi stated in interviews at the time, that the disconnect with the Vertigo run was due to DC editorial having an agreement in play banning writers from using characters and concepts from his run; most notably Rebis/Negative Man and Crazy Jane. However, due to negative fan response to the run; Arcudi was allowed to make reference to the Vertigo series to explain what had happened to the characters from the Pollack run. The run featured two Doom Patrols: a corporate run Doom Patrol employed by Thayer Jost for Jost Enterprises featuring existing DC characters (Metamophoro, Elongated Man, the second Doctor Light and Beast Boy) and a second "underground" Doom Patrol, run by Robotman and featuring new characters: Fast Forward who could look 60 seconds into the future, Kid Slick who could become entirely frictionless,
Fever who could set herself alight, and Freak who possessed mysterious powers from a parasitic entity in her soul. The later Doom Patrol were the main characters of the run, with the Jost owned group disbanding when it is revealed by Metamorpho that Robotman had reportedly died four years earlier which results in the 'imposter' Robotman in the team to vanish into nothingness. The Doom Patrol later rebuild the real Robotman once they recover his head and come to an agreement that Thayer Jost will fund the group so long as Jost has the distributing rights to the Doom Patrol which he uses to create a Doom Patrol TV series based on the Silver Age Team. Over the course of the run Fast Forward loses control of his powers when he tries to look beyond 60 seconds into the future and has to suppress them with medicine to function while Kid Slick and Fever start a relationship with one another despite the latter accidentally hospitalising the former with her powers. It is later revealed that part of Robotman's agreement with Jost involves Jost funding for Dorothy Spinner's healthcare as she has been in a coma for the last four years, Cliff deduces that the 'imposter' Robotman was an imaginary Cliff that Dorothy had subconsciously manifested. Visiting Dorothy, Cliff regained his lost memories about how Dorothy became comatose. Deciding to end the Doom Patrol, Coagula and Cliff took Dorothy to Kentucky to meet her previously unknown birth mother to offer Dorothy a chance at a more 'normal' life, but fearing that Coagula and Cliff were abandoning her, Dorothy had an explosive psychic outburst that reportedly killed Coagula and Cliff, and left her comatose. After finding out that Dorothy was permanently brain dead, Cliff gave the doctors permission to turn off her life support. The death of Dorothy ended Robotman's contract with Jost resulting in Fast Forward, Fever, Kid Slick and Freak being evicted and striking out together with royalty money that Jost gave them from his Doom Patrol TV series, while Cliff set off into the world once again alone. Arcudi's characters have made few subsequent appearances, mainly constituting cameos.
John Byrne's Doom Patrol (volume 4) In August 2004, DC launched a new
Doom Patrol series after the new team debuted in
JLA.
John Byrne wrote and illustrated this series, with inks by
Doug Hazlewood. Touted as "Together again for the first time!", Byrne rebooted the series, eliminating all previous Doom Patrol continuity. The series debuted as part of a six-part storyline that ran in
JLA #94–99 as "The Tenth Circle", though Byrne only drew this arc as it was written by Chris Claremont. This team introduced several new members such as Ava, Grunt, Nudge, and Vortex alongside the 1960s heroes. This reboot was both controversial and short-lived. Besides the removal of the popular Morrison run (and its characters) from canon and the
butterfly effect it had on the Teen Titans (which did its best to limit references to Beast Boy's past and avoided using the Brotherhood of Evil until the Byrne run was canceled and Geoff Johns could restore the previous lore), the series garnered controversy over a scene where Robotman and Elasti-Girl are sent back in time and inhabit their younger selves' bodies. During their time in the past, Robotman declares his love for Elasti-Girl. However, due to an age gap between the two heroes, Rita is trapped in her twelve-year-old self's body when the adult Cliff reveals his romantic feelings and kisses her. DC canceled Byrne's series with issue #18.
"Infinite Crisis" and "One Year Later" DC editorial used the events of the "
Infinite Crisis" storyline to restore the Doom Patrol's continuity. In escaping from the paradise dimension they had inhabited since the end of
Crisis on Infinite Earths,
Superboy-Prime and
Alex Luthor created temporal ripples which spread throughout reality, causing overlaps on parallel timelines of certain events (
Hypertime), such as restoring
Jason Todd to life. In the reprinted edition of
Infinite Crisis, additional scenes added to the collection showed Fever, Kid Slick, Ava, Nudge, Grunt, and Vortex among a two-page spread of heroes. While assisting the Teen Titans in battling Superboy-Prime, members of the Doom Patrol had flashbacks to their original history. Robotman and Niles Caulder regained memories of the previous Doom Patrol teams with which they had worked. This battle apparently undid some of Superboy-Prime's timeline changes and resulted in a timeline incorporating all previous incarnations of the Doom Patrol, but with Rita Farr and Larry Trainor still alive. The Chief confirmed that Rita was indeed killed by Zahl's explosion. The Chief claimed that he later found her skull and treated it with synthetic proteins until her malleable body was regrown from it. Steve Dayton is again using the
Mento helmet and he is mentally unstable; however, he remembers his time as the villainous Crime Lord. The Chief appears to be manipulating the Doom Patrol members once again; he claims to wish to return them to normal so "maybe one day [they] won't be freaks anymore". After the Doom Patrol encounters the Titans, the Chief tells them that
Kid Devil should be a member of the Doom Patrol instead of the Titans, since his unique appearance and nature will always separate him from others. However, Beast Boy, Elasti-Girl, and Mento all stand up to the Chief and force him to step down as the Doom Patrol's leader, with Mento taking over that role. Two former members of the Teen Titans were dramatically altered during the course of the "Infinite Crisis".
Mal Duncan, now code-named Vox, and his wife (
Bumblebee) now reside in the Doom Patrol's castle headquarters. The Doom Patrol later appear in
The Four Horsemen series (2007), with Caulder back in charge. According to
Titans (vol. 2) #1, Beast Boy has recently become the team leader. In
DC Universe: Decisions, Robotman has a supporting role while Mento appears in issue #4.
Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol (volume 5) On February 7, 2009, it was announced at the
New York Comic Con that
Keith Giffen would be spearheading a revival of Doom Patrol, a title which he has long said he wanted to write. He was joined by artist Matt Clark, who has also long expressed a desire to work on the team. The new series focused on the core members Elasti-Girl, Negative Man, Robotman, and the Chief, while other members such as Mento, Bumblebee, and Vox were to be seen later. The title launched with a 10-page ongoing
Metal Men co-feature written by
J. M. DeMatteis. In the first issue, Rita takes on the alias "Elasti-Woman", and according to the team shrink, she's "mothering" Bumblebee, who's now eight inches tall after being shrunk to the size of a bee in
Infinite Crisis. Nudge, Byrne's addition to the team, was killed in the line of duty and Grunt took off with her corpse. The current team is working out of Oolong Island (from
52), which has been turned into a resort town while still maintaining a large super-science background. The
Challengers of the Unknown's Rocky Davis is also working closely with the team for spiritual support. Former member Crazy Jane appears in issue #7. Danny the Street, in a reduced aspect, appears in issue #8.
Ambush Bug joined the team at the end of issue #9. The series was canceled, due to a decrease in sales, with issue #22 in May 2011.
The New 52 In September 2011,
The New 52 rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, the Doom Patrol is briefly mentioned in issue #24 of
Justice League. The team is depicted to be identical in appearance to
Paul Kupperberg's 1977 Doom Patrol, consisting of members
Celsius,
Joshua Clay, and
Negative Woman, with additional members Karma and Scott Fischer. During the "
Forever Evil" storyline, Valentina Vostok, Karma, and Scott are killed during a confrontation with
Johnny Quick and Atomica of the
Crime Syndicate, while Celsius and Joshua Clay are presumably killed. Upon learning of his team's demise, the Chief sets about assembling a new Doom Patrol. Following the defeat of the Crime Syndicate, the newly created Doom Patrol is introduced in issue #30 of
Justice League. The team includes Robotman, Elasti-Girl, Negative Man and M.I.A. Justice League member Element Woman, whom Caulder refuses to let leave the group and tricks into thinking she was abandoned by the Justice League. The team attempt to capture
Jessica Cruz, the new Power Ring, to force her to join the team. During their attempt to capture her, Caulder demands the team refuse to save civilians in a collapsing building to allow him to lobotomize Cruz and force her to serve him. The Justice League save the people in the building and Lex Luthor manages to hold Caulder back so Batman can convince Cruz to go with the League instead. During their fight, Luthor reveals that Caulder (as he did in the Morrison run) was responsible for causing the "accidents" that gave the Doom Patrol their powers and that both Celsius and Joshua Clay used the chaos of the events of
Forever Evil to fake their deaths and escape from Caulder. It is also revealed that Caulder poisoned an entire fishing village as part of an experiment, and cured the residents only after Luthor discovered the truth and threatened to expose him.
Gerard Way's Doom Patrol (volume 6) A new Doom Patrol series written by
Gerard Way and drawn by Nick Derington was created as part of the
Young Animal imprint. The first issue was published on September 14, 2016. The series has created a multitude of original characters as well as some taken from former team rosters. Casey Brinke, a fictional character that
Danny the Street created to communicate with people through comic books, was contacted by Danny when he became threatened by a group of aliens known as Vectra. They wished to profit from his power to create life by turning his fictional people into cheap meat at a fast food restaurant. Danny reached out to Casey, hoping that she could find and join the Doom Patrol after explaining her origin story, both the fictional origin story he had created for her and how she had become a real person. Casey agreed to help. She piloted Danny, currently taking the form of an ambulance, into his attackers' headquarters, discovering that the leader of the organization was none other than her fictional father Torminox, accidentally brought to life when Vectra had tortured Danny. Alongside Torminox was an evil version of Casey, known as Doodle Bug. She was also created when Danny was tortured and reflects his concern regarding how Casey would become in the real world. Despite the family drama, Casey and the Doom Patrol defeated Vectra and freed Danny from Vectra's clutches. Afterward, the team sets out to find
Crazy Jane, who was running a cult under the influence of her current dominant ego Dr. Harrison. Harrison wished to purge the 63 other personalities within Jane's mind by distributing them among the mind-controlled cult members using a gene bomb. After the process, she would kill them all. Jane and the team managed to stop this plan and save the cult members while also killing the Dr. Harrison personality within Jane. Other characters introduced in Way's run included Terry None, Casey's roommate, eventually revealed to be Mr. Nobody's daughter; Lotion, Casey's cat, who Terry mutated into an anthropomorphic form; and the Reynolds family (paramedic Sam, his wife Valerie, and their magic-wielding son Lucius). and came to a conclusion with its seventh issue in July 2020.
Infinite Frontier Following the cancellation of their series, Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man were reintroduced to the main DC continuity, alongside Niles Caulder, in issue #1 of ''Batman/Superman: World's Finest''. The team helped the titular superheroes defeat
Metallo and later performed surgery on Superman to cure him of red
kryptonite poisoning.
Unstoppable Doom Patrol (volume 7) The seven-issue
Unstoppable Doom Patrol series by writer Dennis Culver, artist Chris Burnham, and colorist Brian Reber launched March 28, 2023. It portrayed the Doom Patrol with a new mission: saving, protecting and training
metahumans. The series had a primary team consisting of Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Woman, and led by a new personality of Crazy Jane calling herself "The Chief". New team members included Degenerate (who gained strength from negative emotions) and
Beast Girl (who could encourage or discourage "primal instincts" in others). This team was pursued by US government forces led by
Peacemaker and fought a new version of the Brotherhood of Evil, led by General Immortus, who sought to gain the power of the Candlemaker. ==Enemies==