A review by nigellicus
The Doom Patrol Omnibus by Malcolm Jones III, Ray Kryssing, Duncan Fegredo, Steve Yeowell, Ian Montgomery, Duke Mighten, Phillip Bond, Mike Dringenberg, Grant Morrison, Sean Phillips, John Nyberg, Scott Hanna, Mark Badger, Kelley Jones, Rian Hughes, Kim DeMulder, Ken Steacy, Stan Woch, Brad Vancata, Doug Braithwaite, Walt Simonson, Vince Giarrano, Paris Cullens, Doug Hazlewood, Simon Bisley, Jamie Hewlett, Michael S. Kane, Paul Grist, Steve Pugh, Carlos Garzon, Richard Case, Brian Bolland

5.0

At the one end of the Vertigo spectrum you had Sandman: brooding, gothic, sensitive, chilling, frightfully clever. At the other end you had this: brash, bawling, loud, surreal, probably deserved to be called a word with -punk added at the end but never was, thank God. Mental illness defines these characters as well as physical disabilities or deformities. Depression, dissociation, multiple personalities, schizophrenia, fugue states, mood swings - hardly the stuff of a heroic superteam, unless you're fighting, or befriending, the bizarre, irrational characters and situations Grant Morrison dreams up for the Doom Patrol. Strange and horrible, but also at times rather wonderful, their ultimate enemy is normality itself as enforced by a rigid beaueaucratic system weirder than anything it wants to destroy. The Brotherhood Of Dada! Danny The Street! The Real Men From NOWHERE! Wonders and terrors abound! (And I wonder if the TV series, which is quite good too, will also come round to the fact that Mr Nobody is actually the Good Guy in all thils.) It's all very silly and weird and melodramatic, and the last issue of the run was very first comic that ever made me cry, and hey, guess what, it did it again.