Big Bad revealed

[superboyprime]

Those of you who have been reading Doom Patrol know about the running subplot where Thayer Jost, the Doom Patrol's leader during the Arcudi run, has been forming a new incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil. We also know that he's not doing so entirely of his own will and that someone's possessing his body.

This issue (#11), the puppetmaster finally stands revealed.

See if you can guess who it is before the final page reveal...





He goes on a bit about how the only people who have ever changed or affected the world were somebodies.




I wonder why they didn't just go for a hat trick and include a villain from the Byrne run in the roster as well? Then you'd have every era of the Doom Patrol represented in the group.

tags:
title: doom patrol, publisher: dc comics, group: doom patrol

Comments

[kamino_neko]

Did Byrne's DP HAVE any unique villains? (I only read one issue...it was bad, so, I don't know.)

[jaybee3]

Well after gratuitously killing little Nudge in issue #1, Giffen left that other Byrne-creation Grunt (aka the big ape with a kid's brain) flee into the forest with Nudge's body while the other DPers could care less (just to clarify both Nudge and Grunt were classified as kids in Byrne's body and here we have Rita, Cliff and Larry going all "eh" at their demise/possible demise).

So Grunt could come back to haunt them.

[kamino_neko]

Heh - I had actually thought that happened when AMVMan attacked in gorilla form - until I noticed that he spoke and had a crystal formation on his head.

[bruinsfan]

Well, there was that head honcho vampire Crucifer that monologued for about 10 issues and somehow smacked down Wonder Woman like she was a brownie scout, but I doubt anyone's clamoring for his return. (Seriously, I can see an ancient vampire getting the drop on Superman what with his weakness to magic and all, but Diana fights witches and mythological beasts and gods all the time, and Bryne spent years trying to restore her to her place as DC's most powerful and iconic heroine. WTF?)

[kamino_neko]

Also...heck with the villains...I want to see some Jost-era DP members return. (We can pretend Fever didn't die in Terror Titans, since she didn't come back during Blackest Night!)

[silverzeo]

"You Lost me at windmills you crazy SOB."

Ahh, the retro-outfits of the 80s, before they had EXTREME!!! 90s outfits, 80s style was... wierd stuff? Go for it!

[foxhack]

So...

He's being possessed by a Stand from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure?

[silverzeo]

Abridged?

No, it some guy name nobody, I remember coming across him in the official encyclopedia, he sort of like the ShadowThief and 2D-Man.

[foxhack]

I know.

Man, why don't people take my dumb "this comic is referencing another comic without meaning to" comments as jokes. :(

[neuhallidae]

Did he stab his fingers through her brain, or squish her head?

[darkknightjrk]

Squish her head. We don't see it, per se, but it's just off panel.

[thanekos]

it's Mr Brightside, of The Killers fame!

[pepperspray101]

okay, I chuckled...XD

[fleur_de_liz]

Having not actually read much Doom Patrol, I looked at these scans and said, "...Is that Max?"

And then my brain broke a little at all of the crossovers Keith Giffen could potentially issue forth. MAXWELL LORD IS EVERYWHERE. NO MIND IS SAFE.

[kamino_neko]

Jost and Max are rather similar, actually.

Jost lacks the superpowers to help his manipulations, but they're both morally grey rich men who decided to back a superhero team.

Max chose the Justice League, and Jost chose the Doom Patrol.

Max had more luck with it. Jost's Doom Patrol was a disaster. (For him. As a series, it was my favourite incarnation of the Doom Patrol.)

[cmdr_zoom]

It's never just you.

[ian_karkull]

Mister Nobody, no! Don't give up your ideals! The Brotherhood Of Dada was the group that ever accomplished anything.
Don't be a lame everyday villain, get back on that Magic Bus and bring truth to the land!

Art for breakfast! Art for lunch! Nobody for President!

[fungo_squiggly]

So much motto.

[okkult3000]

You're nobody until somebody loves you.

[theanswer]

Byrne's run on Doom Patrol was hated with a passion, which is why I imagine they killed some of his characters off at the start of this series.

[icon_uk]

For heavens sake, the Toy appeared for something like two panels in Morrison's run, she was a deliberate joke, did we need her to be graphically murdered?

And Mr Somebody will have to work damned hard to be one tenth as awesome as Mr Nobody was.

[theanswer]

I think her being killed is a joke reference to her first appearance where she was late to the Brotherhood meeting in which everyone was killed.

[polarisnorth]

That is... kind of a horrible reason to kill someone.

[theanswer]

They promised to have every character in all versions of the Doom Patrol make an appearance sooner or later.

She wasn't a character so much as a perverse joke by Morrison.

[icon_uk]

Not even that perverse.

[arbre_rieur]

Or you could approach the issue from the opposite direction and ask if anything's been lost with her death? She wasn't a character; as you yourself said, she was just a joke. I fail to see how the DC Universe is poorer for her absence.

[icon_uk]

Another pointless gratuitous bloody death is hardly something the DCU was lacking.

[cmdr_zoom]

This.

[arbre_rieur]

It symbolizes Mr. Nobody/Somebody's rejection of his old values. He wants to erase evidence of what he sees as the embarrassments of his youth.

[icon_uk]

I'm not sure I'm interested in a Mr Nobody, patron saint of the absurd, who is embarrassed by his past actions. The whole point of him was that whilst Morden the criminal wanted to be a somebody, he became the perfect encapsulation of the opposite.

Plus there seems to be a differentiation between Jost and Somebody, since he seems to kill him as he emerges and refers to him in the third person, so I think the murder was committed Jost not Nobody/Somebody.

[arbre_rieur]

The idea is that, like many radicals before him, he became jaded as he got older and is now part of the system he once stood apart from.

"Plus there seems to be a differentiation between Jost and Somebody, since he seems to kill him as he emerges and refers to him in the third person."

He was possessing him earlier, and he vacated the body on the final page. The death happened on the preceding page.

[jlroberson]

It's kind of doubling back from a reversal, like Zibarro in ALL-STAR.

Personally, I can see it. Think of Jerry Rubin. Or Apple. Or Stalin.

[buttler]

I'm just glad that you've clarified that it's not Lady Quark. Because that would just be messed up.

[mistersandman]

Superman Blue/Red was only the beginning. Apparently, if you want to add a new character, just bring in a similar character in a different color. Blue Lanterns, Yellow Lanterns, Red Arrows, White Canaries, Red Hulks. Isn't Johns opening up for the possibility of multicolored Flashes?

Or is this still Mr. Nobody with a new suit?

[theanswer]

Superman Red/Blue were hardly the beginning.

Multi-colored Flashes have been around since the silver age.

[cmdr_zoom]

And Rainbow Batman!

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

Hey, the entire Sonic franchise is based on palette swaps. Why not superhero comics?

[kamino_neko]

It's Mr Nobody. His entire rant just before killing Toy (who had to die as a remnant of his past) is an explanation of his rejection of his old values and moving on to new ones.

It's not even entirely clear if 'Mr Somebody' is a name change, or just a pun.

[darkknightjrk]

"Isn't Johns opening up for the possibility of multicolored Flashes?"

Sorta--between Thawn and Zolomon deciding to work together at the end of Rebirth and the teaser for Flashpoint in Flash #1, it looks like he's going to introduce a Reverse Flash Family.

[jlroberson]

>>I wonder why they didn't just go for a hat trick and include a villain from the Byrne run in the roster as well? Then you'd have every era of the Doom Patrol represented in the group.

Because Byrne's run never happened. It was just a bad dream.

Don't argue. That's how I'm looking at it. I hated it and I hate what he did to it.