Scan barcode
Reviews
Doom Patrol, Vol. 2: The Painting That Ate Paris by Grant Morrison, John Nyberg, Richard Case
dantastic's review
5.0
The second volume of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run is when the weirdness gets dialed up to eleven and then the knob breaks off and rolls under the fridge. First up are Mr. Nobody and the Brotherhood of Dada on their mad quest for the Painting that Ate Paris, a recursive structure that traps people within. After that, Robotman goes on a journey into Crazy Jane's psyche. The Cult of the unread book are next and finally, Robotman gets a new body, only to have the body gain a consciousness of its own before being attacked by The Brain and Mallah.
I'll say this, Morrison can ladle out the weirdness. I love that Robotman is the most normal member of the Doom Patrol. The villains introduced in this volume are very surreal but would still be right at home in the Doom Patrol's silver age run. While lots of interesting things happened, my favorite would have to be the kiss between Monsieur Mallah and The Brain. Out of curiousity, is it gay if a talking male gorilla kisses a robot that houses a man's brain?
Great stuff from Morrison. I'm looking forward to the next volume.
I'll say this, Morrison can ladle out the weirdness. I love that Robotman is the most normal member of the Doom Patrol. The villains introduced in this volume are very surreal but would still be right at home in the Doom Patrol's silver age run. While lots of interesting things happened, my favorite would have to be the kiss between Monsieur Mallah and The Brain. Out of curiousity, is it gay if a talking male gorilla kisses a robot that houses a man's brain?
Great stuff from Morrison. I'm looking forward to the next volume.
wesleyboy's review
5.0
I like Grant Morrison a lot more when I have a few years to absorb his writing the first time, watch a popular tv show that uses his stories as a basis, and force myself to then re-read it.
jasmiinaf's review
5.0
This volume was even crazier than the first one! When I started reading the first volume I honestly thought I wouldn't like Doom Patrol because it's old and the art isn't something I would usually go for. But the story and the characters are so amazing that I just can't help myself. And I'm starting to enjoy the art too. This second volume was touching, exciting and really beautiful. I also found some new interesting characters and at the ending I laughed a lot because everything was just too crazy.
nickjagged's review
5.0
Probably the coolest thing I've read in the past year. Takes on extremely ambitious high concept adventures and knocks them out of the park. Dialogue is impeccable. New favorite comic franchise for sure.
matt4hire's review
4.0
This volume's got my favorite single-issue story, Soul of a New Machine. It doesn't matter how many times I read it, that story makes me laugh. Also, the first Brotherhood of Dada story is here, and I love that one. Mr. Nobody is probably one of my favorite Grant Morrison creations, and he's just so lovably loopy that it's ridiculous. It's great.
thewaffleymaker's review
MALLAH AND THE BRAIN MAKING OUT AT THE END OF THIS SENT ME TO ANOTHER PLANE OF EXISTENCE
primmiiee's review
5.0
Okay, now that's closer to what I'd expected. Very weird and out there, even for a comic book. However, this weirdness are presented in such a way that it's still very much understandable, even if it takes the readers a while to get. The plot is very fast paced and despite its strangeness, it never gets bogged down in overexplaining or overexposition, however, there were some dialogues that felt way to expository and out of place. The characters were great, once again, Cliff/Robotman and his whole "audience surrogate" role really stole the show. Willoughby Kipling is like a more fucked up version of John Constantine, and I loved it. The way the book portrayed the different versions of Crazy Jane was fascinating and they really delved deep into her character(s?) in this one. The art was actually good too, and I say this as someone who normally doesn't like old school comic book art.
It's definitely not for everyone, but if you're looking for some batshit crazy comic book story starring some very fucked up people, this is for you.
It's definitely not for everyone, but if you're looking for some batshit crazy comic book story starring some very fucked up people, this is for you.
space_gaudet's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
otherwyrld's review
4.0
This second volume of the Doom Patrol stories doesn't have any overarching stories, except maybe how many times can you cram the end of the world into one graphic novel.
The first story has the Brotherhood of Dada stealing a painting that eats people (and Paris in this case) and which has the fifth horseman of the apocalypse trapped in it to boot. It's up to the Doom Patrol to go inside the painting, stop the brotherhood and the horseman, and rescue Paris. This is actually one of the easier stories to understand, even as the team wanders through layers of Paris illustrated in different ways (such as surrealist, impressionist and symbolist). In the end the story suffers because the Doom Patrol don't really save the day, that is actually achieved by the Brotherhood of Dada. It also establishes that the Doom Patrol are part of the mainstream DC universe of the time as it also features most of the Justice League, who are equally ineffective. It's a good story for all that, though.
The second story focusses on Crazy Jane as she becomes trapped inside her own head as a result of the previous story, and it is up to Cliff Steele to rescue her by going into her mind and leading her back out. Crazy Jane is one of the most intriguing characters to have ever been created in the DC universe - a woman who has hundreds of separate personalities as a result of childhood sexual abuse, each personality now having it's own superpower after a Gene Bomb is set off that activates latent superpowers in people over the world. Though the concept of multiple personality disorder is now generally accepted by the psychiatric community to be not real (or at least a gross simplification of what happens in such cases), Crazy Jane is such a unique look at this disorder, particularly in displaying her different personalities as stations on an underground map. In the end, Jane defeats the monster in the well, the manifestation of her abusive father, but in freeing herself she leaves Cliff behind.
The third story is perhaps the weakest one because it is about something called The Cult of the Unwritten Book which is chasing a boy with the text of a book written on his body and which will lead to the end of the world if the text is read out. The Cult seems to mostly consist of a random collection of weird names and visualisations of characters that have been thrown like mud onto a wall to see what sticks and in the end none of it really does because there are just too many of these weird creatures to make much of an impact. In the meantime Cliff gets a new body, which develops a mind of its own when Cliff is decanted into a brain in a jar, then the body self destructs because another brain in a jar tries to steal it. If none of this explanation makes sense don't worry, because the story doesn't make any sense either.
Altogether a good collection, possibly let down a little bit by the author trying to cram too much in without having enough of a story framework to hang his ideas onto.
The first story has the Brotherhood of Dada stealing a painting that eats people (and Paris in this case) and which has the fifth horseman of the apocalypse trapped in it to boot. It's up to the Doom Patrol to go inside the painting, stop the brotherhood and the horseman, and rescue Paris. This is actually one of the easier stories to understand, even as the team wanders through layers of Paris illustrated in different ways (such as surrealist, impressionist and symbolist). In the end the story suffers because the Doom Patrol don't really save the day, that is actually achieved by the Brotherhood of Dada. It also establishes that the Doom Patrol are part of the mainstream DC universe of the time as it also features most of the Justice League, who are equally ineffective. It's a good story for all that, though.
The second story focusses on Crazy Jane as she becomes trapped inside her own head as a result of the previous story, and it is up to Cliff Steele to rescue her by going into her mind and leading her back out. Crazy Jane is one of the most intriguing characters to have ever been created in the DC universe - a woman who has hundreds of separate personalities as a result of childhood sexual abuse, each personality now having it's own superpower after a Gene Bomb is set off that activates latent superpowers in people over the world. Though the concept of multiple personality disorder is now generally accepted by the psychiatric community to be not real (or at least a gross simplification of what happens in such cases), Crazy Jane is such a unique look at this disorder, particularly in displaying her different personalities as stations on an underground map. In the end, Jane defeats the monster in the well, the manifestation of her abusive father, but in freeing herself she leaves Cliff behind.
The third story is perhaps the weakest one because it is about something called The Cult of the Unwritten Book which is chasing a boy with the text of a book written on his body and which will lead to the end of the world if the text is read out. The Cult seems to mostly consist of a random collection of weird names and visualisations of characters that have been thrown like mud onto a wall to see what sticks and in the end none of it really does because there are just too many of these weird creatures to make much of an impact. In the meantime Cliff gets a new body, which develops a mind of its own when Cliff is decanted into a brain in a jar, then the body self destructs because another brain in a jar tries to steal it. If none of this explanation makes sense don't worry, because the story doesn't make any sense either.
Altogether a good collection, possibly let down a little bit by the author trying to cram too much in without having enough of a story framework to hang his ideas onto.
renee_pompeii's review
3.0
Another classic... I'd give the Brotherhood of Dada five stars easy, same with the robot/ape awesomeness...but the end of the universe eyeball brought the average down slightly.