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Showcase Presents: Doom Patrol, Vol. 1 by Bruno Premiani, Arnold Drake, Bob Brown, Bob Haney
dantastic's review
4.0
My first encounters with the Doom Patrol were years after they had a title and Robotman was guest starring in New Teen Titans. From there, I jumped on Grant Morrison's run on their new series but I never bothered to track down any of the original material. Until now.
The Doom Patrol is comprised of Robotman, a human brain inside a robot body, Elasti-Girl, a former actress who can grow and shrink at will, and Negative Man, a former pilot who can project a body composed of radio waves from his body. Their leader is The Chief, a wheelchair bound scientist from another world.
The first thing I noticed was that the Doom Patrol has to be the Marvel-iest DC series produced during the silver age. Instead of straight up super heroes, the Doom Patrol are a team of bickering misfits whose identities are publicly known. Their dynamic is a bit Fantastic Four-ish. Robotman fills the role The Thing does in the FF, Negative Man the Human Torch, and Elasti-Girl is the peacemaker, ala the Invisible Woman. The weirdest part of their dynamic is the bizarre love(?) triangle between Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, and Robotman.
I was a little surprised that weirdness was with the Doom Patrol even in its younger days. The Chief had the world's largest set of goggles and an air tank built for Elasti-Girl. One of the Doom Patrol's enemies is a brain in a jar called The Brain. Another is Monseur Mallah, a french speaking ape. Crazy stuff.
The art is a notch above other books produced at the time. I'm surprised more people don't talk about Bruno Premiani as a gem of the Silver Age. The only person I've seen mention him is Michael Allred of Madman fame. The stories are less cheesy than a lot of stuff DC and Marvel were putting out at the same time.
Showcase Presents the Doom Patrol is a must have for fans of the Doom Patrol and it will fit comfortable in any budget due to the affordability of the Showcase line.
The Doom Patrol is comprised of Robotman, a human brain inside a robot body, Elasti-Girl, a former actress who can grow and shrink at will, and Negative Man, a former pilot who can project a body composed of radio waves from his body. Their leader is The Chief, a wheelchair bound scientist from another world.
The first thing I noticed was that the Doom Patrol has to be the Marvel-iest DC series produced during the silver age. Instead of straight up super heroes, the Doom Patrol are a team of bickering misfits whose identities are publicly known. Their dynamic is a bit Fantastic Four-ish. Robotman fills the role The Thing does in the FF, Negative Man the Human Torch, and Elasti-Girl is the peacemaker, ala the Invisible Woman. The weirdest part of their dynamic is the bizarre love(?) triangle between Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, and Robotman.
I was a little surprised that weirdness was with the Doom Patrol even in its younger days. The Chief had the world's largest set of goggles and an air tank built for Elasti-Girl. One of the Doom Patrol's enemies is a brain in a jar called The Brain. Another is Monseur Mallah, a french speaking ape. Crazy stuff.
The art is a notch above other books produced at the time. I'm surprised more people don't talk about Bruno Premiani as a gem of the Silver Age. The only person I've seen mention him is Michael Allred of Madman fame. The stories are less cheesy than a lot of stuff DC and Marvel were putting out at the same time.
Showcase Presents the Doom Patrol is a must have for fans of the Doom Patrol and it will fit comfortable in any budget due to the affordability of the Showcase line.
noca_74's review
3.0
3 stars for the stories, 4 stars for the art and zany concepts (how can you not be amused by names like Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, Negative Man, or the Brotherhood of Evil?). Like most Silver Age comics, probably best taken in small doses. Fearing I'd never get back to it if I stopped, I read it cover-to-cover, though. The stories are fun for their cheesiness, but get boring and repetitive after awhile.
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