The Doom Patrol returns in Justice League #32

[icon_uk]

From CBR's preview of Justice League #32


After a couple of creepy, if incredibly cliché, pages of the pregnant Super-Woman singing a lullaby to offspring to be, we get this scene.







Well, technically this is the second appearance of the Doom Patrol, since we saw Karma, Blaze and (off panel) Tempest get killed in a random “ramp up the death count” attempt to make the “Forever Evil” event more interesting....

Niles Caulder is still creepily creepy and skeevily manipulative, Cliff Steele is robot-y, Larry Trainor is Negative and this take on Elasti-Girl is just… unsettling... IIRC in the last iteration she was creepily happy because of a near psychotic obsession with remaining perfect, this seems to be somewhere between Meggan of Excalibur's "empathic metamorph" powers and Odo from Deep Space 9

Dunno about you folks, but if I were Element Woman, I’d turn into whatever element could get me the hell out of there the fastest!

Comments

[freezer]

Has Caulder always been that creeperific?

[silverhammerman]

Since Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, yeah, pretty much. This version isn't very subtle about it though.

[icon_uk]

Grant Morrison introduced the concept that the (presumed dead for many years) Caulder hadn't just "rescued" the people who became the Doom Patrol, he'd actually caused the events that led to them being "freaks" in the first place (sabotaging Cliff's car, Larry's plane and arranging for the chemicals that changed Rita to be dumped where they were).

He went from amoral scientist, coldly carrying out horrible social experiments in metahuman triggering to deeply creepy psychological manipulator, constantly undermining the the DP's self confidence so they would remain dependent on him and view him as their saviour when the whole team was rebooted by John Byrne and when John's used them in the Teen Titans in the "One Year Later" thing.

[cainofdreaming]

His time as a disembodied head didn't help with the creepiness factor either.

[jlroberson]

Which Morrison did well. Because it was a reveal. And it made sense. It gave the characters' full story an arc.

This on the other hand is him being obviously evil from the start.

[gtrout]

I feel like he's scoring several points higher on the run-away-o-meter than I've ever seen him do. Yeesh.

[silverhammerman]

I'd actually be cautiously excited about this if I weren't dead certain that it's just going to lead to more boring hero vs hero stories with the Doom Patrol going after the Justice League. As it is, hero vs hero is DC's main move with the Justice League books and it remains completely uninteresting to me.

[alicemacher]

Caulder seems well-written and very much in character here, and Rita is genuinely disturbing (as she's apparently meant to be here). But Cliff...I don't like his new design, at all. He looks creepy, which I don't think he should...he's always been the heart of the Doom Patrol, the buddy, the "reg'lar guy" of the team. Would Crazy Jane have "come in out of the rain" if he looked like he does here, that is, like someone who'd sooner disintegrate you with eyebeams than befriend you?

[jlbarnett]

that's well written?

[alicemacher]

Eh, relatively speaking. Morrison (or even Pollack, disregarding the horrible art she had to put up with), this ain't. But I've seen worse.

[icon_uk]

With Cliff there should be some dislocation between his menacing appearance and the fact he's a sympathetic human underneath.

And remember that he's in a body designed by Caulder, who has a vested interest in maximising Cliff's self perception as a robotic monster.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

In the last few decades, it seems as though the "patriarch" of every superhero team that has one has been turned into a horrible person to some extent; Dr. Caulder, Dr. Magnus, Dr. Reed Richards, and Professor Xavier. Something about being a comic book writer is either attracting a lot of people who have issues with their fathers, or it's attracting a lot of people who are bitter over not getting a degree.

Who was the last father figure who was a nice, decent person and wasn't either abusive or killed off? Jonathan Kent? (Ok, that's an exaggeration. Fred Danvers seemed like a decent guy, too.)

[icon_uk]

I was about to say RJ Brande of the Legion of Superheroes, but they killed him off didn't they?

Perhaps note should be made of Emma Frost, who had the complete reverse situation; a female mentor who became a better person because her students were killed!

[skjam]

I wonder if the previous New 52 stories of Cliff Steele are still in continuity, or if they're now shoved into the memory hole?

And to be honest, I preferred the Chief who once had an impostor of him spotted because "the Chief would never call Rita by her freak name!"

[icon_uk]

I doubt anything of the past is intact for the Doom Patrol, they'd want to start afresh.

[zapbiffpow]

So apparently Niles Caulder is Dr. Krieger now. Could go either way, then!

Also I like how Cliff's opposed to the good doctor calling him Robotman.

[drtechnobabel]

It might just be the abundance of panels where his front teeth are bared, but to me he looks more like Nigel Thornberry, if he grew a beard and became a child molester.

[espanolbot]

As they've said above... he's kind of been like this for the past thirty odd years.

[icon_uk]

Oh shit it IS about 25 years since Morrison's Doom Patrol came out isn't it?

GET OFF MY LAWN YA YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPERS!

[wizardru]

LALALALALALALALALALA

I CAN'T HEAR YOU TIME GHOST! GO AWAY!

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

So, a creepy Chief leading Doom Patrol.

Still original after four...five times now?

*cough*

[donnblake]

So, there are certainly valid criticisms to be leveled at this, but "Consistent with some previous depictions of the character," seems like an odd choice.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Fair point.

My complaint, poorly stated, is that we're reading the same story we've read so many times before. But instead of building on what's come before, it's retread material.

[jaybee3]

Isn't it supposed to be Rita Farr? Not Rita Starr? And I think I might have preferred Rita to remain dead (though I guess with a reboot all bets are off), since Byrne's reboot and then the Geoff Johns re-reboot and now this version they just make Rita's existence worse and worse and yet she was supposedly the nicest of the bunch and the glue that held Mento, Larry, Cliff, Beast Boy and yes the Chief together.

No comment on the Chief beyond what others have said. One thing about the reboot - if you thought the old DCU wasn't subtle then the DCnU REALLY isn't subtle from EV.IL. Niles Caulder to EV.IL. Sam Lane to possibly or worse Dr. Magnus to Jim Gordon behind bars, they really don't want us to root for anyone in authority do they?

[philippos42]

Remember what they did to Max Lord?

Older male, wears a suit, in authority over the costumes? Must be evil. It's a theme with Geoff, I think.

[mrstatham]

The only difference is that Jim Gordon has been pretty blatantly set up in what happened to him and I'm actually interested to see that resolved, the others are just victims of dull or bad writing, and I have no real interest in this dirtbag pushing the Doom Patrol members around.

It's like.. It's pretty much 'we can't have nice things'. That issue where the Justice League did that little membership drive and Element Woman and others featured there, why couldn't that just lead into a JLU-type situation, rather than this?

[agharta75]

Rita has to remain alive. There's that little matter of The Incredibles licensing her codename ...

[thezmage]

When did new 52 Dr Magnus become creepy? He seemed nice from the Metal Men origin story.

[cypherfdp]

What about those two who got killed off by the Injustice League or whatever?

[espanolbot]

Not core members of the original team, so they're expendable. Like Pantha and the other Teen Titans who died in Infinite Crisis.

[icon_uk]

As I mentioned in the OP, Blaze, Karma and Tempest all bought the farm. No mention made of Lodestone or Celsius though...

[philippos42]

I am impressed that Geoff managed to make Caulder even more of a blatant creep than I remember. I didn't read the Byrne version, though.

Oddly enough, I think in the original stories he was a nice guy.

[icon_uk]

He was, it wasn't until Morrison made the big reveal that he was the mastermind behind the "accidents" (And let's not dwell on however many poor bastards he killed who DIDN'T manifest powers) that the nice guy image was shattered.

[protogarrett]

She was with the league for, what, two issues? Does that count? O.o

[starwolf_oakley]

There was something like this in the ONE YEAR LATER version of the TEEN TITANS. Caulder was hoping Edie/Red Devil would join the Doom Patrol, and tries this whole "They don't like you because of how you look." Both the Teen Titans and the Doom Patrol hear this and are FURIOUS with Caulder.

The Doom Patrol keeping Caulder around so *he* won't hurt anyone *else* makes more sense to me.

[shadowpsykie]

yeah. i would Vape myself OUT Of there.....Caulder always gave me the creeps...

[halloweenjack]

I usually like Mahnke's work, but this reminds me strongly of a lot of the stuff that Johns has done recently with Gary Frank, and not in a good way. (For that matter, Frank's recent work is far from his best--I liked him a lot more when he was working on the Hulk with PAD.)

[icon_uk]

I confess I thought this WAS Gary Frank, perhaps with a different inker from usual, until I checked the credits.

[crinos]

You know when I clicked on this, I was wondering "Okay, how did they fuck up the Doom patrol."

But hey, they seem pretty true to the core on this one. Good for them.

[silverhammerman]

Well the Doom Patrol are a bunch of fucked up, self-loathing weirdos to begin with, so they slot into the New 52 paradigm pretty comfortably.

Maybe it's just me but...

[7dialsmystery]

Did anyone think that Blaze and Karma looked a little like Johnny Storm and Daken when Doom Patrol was busy getting killed by Atomica and Johnny Quick during Forever Evil?

http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/4604318.html

Re: Maybe it's just me but...

[icon_uk]

Heh, me being an old fart thought the exact opposite, that Daken had a Karma vibe when I first saw him! :)

Re: Maybe it's just me but...

[7dialsmystery]

I think someone noticed that Daken looked like Karma and made Blaze, oh, pardon me it's Scorch now, look more like the Human Torch.

Old:

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Scott_Fischer_(New_Earth)

New:

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Scott_Fischer_(Prime_Earth)