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by **Victorian Squid** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:59 pm

Well, may as well get this over with.

Doom Patrol #1

Where to start. And does it matter?

At the beginning. The new logo with the lower-case d and the upper-case P is cheap looking and I notice whatever the little glowing disks with it are, Cliff isn't wearing one on page 2 or 3 but one appears on him on page 4. The editor in me will never die.

So, this is a continuation of the DP from Geoff John's TT, which was an extension of Byrne's awful reintroduction of them into the modern DCU with further alterations in their history due to the Superboy Punch Effect. Which means we are off to a bad start, as I am supposed to believe Rita is a clone grown from protein cells on her skull following her death in DP V1, and all the other DP incarnations are sort of in continuity, sort of not. It's the Superboy Punch Effect, what are you going to do?

Which also means Cliff should have his world-weary heart and soul back, and not just be a snappy robot with a bad temper. But that's the number one reason this Patrol fails in this first issue. They are horribly unpleasant people. They aren't tragic figures who mask their inner turmoil by acting glib, or cranky--they are special ops jerks whose cold outer personas barely hide what assholes they are. Even the Chief, whose files I'm referring to here, admits to caring nothing for the members of the Patrol and considers the members dissolution an asset. This isn't the family of misfits Arnold Drake created who were reinserted into continuity via the Magic Punch, this is like Grant Morrison's final turn on the Chief taken to a dry, bureaurocratic extreme. The Chief has a Bluetooth in his ear, and is wearing a turtleneck and vest--this isn't even my Chief.

I don't know who this churchy guy in the Hawaiian shirt is either, or why Niles would consider him an asset at all. After a couple of Byrne's lousier creations are dispatched, the rest of the Patrol are shown to be uncaring and cold to the extreme. This definitely isn't the Patrol I know. And I wonder, with Nudge's body shot to hell and a semi-intelligent Gorilla, if we aren't seeing what Giffen intends to be the beginnings of a few Brotherhood of Evil.

Much of this issue is taken up with emails, transmissions, laptops, etc. It is truly sad how cheap Super-Science has become in this modern age of wonders. So boring and unimaginitive. I'm not even going to bother mentioning Bumblebee living in the dollhouse.

The great runs of Doom Patrol captured the zeitgeist of their times--for me, those are Drake's initial run in the '60s, and Grant Morrison's post-modern '80s meltdown, where the world was going to end any day now anyway, so why couldn't it go out with a surreal art-explosion?

What Giffen crafts here is a soulless Patrol, inserted into the DCU of government-sanctioned special ops and Checkmates. I can't imagine what this has to offer the casual DC reader, or reader looking to pick up a new book.

PS I don't like their uniforms.

I guess they saved all the fun and whimsy for the Metal Men backup--is Giffen's intent to contrast the two? The backup feature is sort of fun but it can't make up for the feature I just read, or Cliff's surfer shorts.

5

by ****** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:33 pm

Punchy wrote:When did the Review Group become the Ebay Thread?

FFS

Hmmm... if there was only some type of announcement you could make that could maybe put the thread back on course. :smt017

by **Punchy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:34 pm

amlah6 wrote:Hmmm... if there was only some type of announcement you could make that could maybe put the thread back on course.

Is Midtown's full list up?

by **Kerny** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:35 pm

I didn't care for this at all

Doom Patrol # 1

I don't know the characters, and after this I don't want to take the time to

I know Giffen does comedy well, but to me, this read as every character being a sarcastic asshole. And hey I love these types, Guy Gardner, Batman when his Bat-Dickness level is high, but a whole team of this? Nah. The robot guy seems like Bender from Futurama to me. Again, don't know the characters, so it's possible the robot dude could have been a major influence on Bender, so IDK

Naturally, I was liking the gorilla, so they kill him off

I don't think this issue was very n00b friendly either, which usually I don't have a problem with as I can pick up on things, but I honestly don't know whats going on here.

The art....not to my liking. It's 90ish to me, but not that bad, as he does proportions and backgrounds and everything else Liefeld does not. I guess I just don't like his actual character designs,

Story 3
art 4

I won't be reading any more of this series.

by **Kerny** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:37 pm

House of J wrote:

I can't imagine what this has to offer the casual DC reader, or reader looking to pick up a new book.

Totally agree.

by ****** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:43 pm

Punchy wrote:Is Midtown's full list up?

by **Victorian Squid** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:43 pm

Kerny wrote:Totally agree.

Your review was exactly what I would expect from a new reader. It ain't you, it's the book. If you ever come across the collected Arnold Drake stories or the Grant Morrison trades, don't let this book deter you. This was not the Doom Patrol.

Also, the art was thoroughly unspectacular. Grant Morrison's run succeeded in part because of the great Richard Case's contributions to the artwork, as well as some other folks. Not to mention the stunning covers by Case or Dave McKean. The McKean covers, especially, were so visually different from anything else out there at the time.

by **Punchy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:45 pm

Then I choose...

Ultimate Comics Avengers #1!

by **GLX** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:46 pm

Punchy wrote:Then I choose...

Ultimate Comics Avengers #1!

WOOHOO! Good call.

*high fives*

by **Kerny** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:50 pm

House of J wrote:Your review was exactly what I would expect from a new reader. It ain't you, it's the book. If you ever come across the collected Arnold Drake stories or the Grant Morrison trades, don't let this book deter you. This was not the Doom Patrol.

Also, the art was thoroughly unspectacular. Grant Morrison's run succeeded in part because of the great Richard Case's contributions to the artwork, as well as some other folks. Not to mention the stunning covers by Case or Dave McKean. The McKean covers, especially, were so visually different from anything else out there at the time.

I'll get to the Morrison stuff eventually.

by **Punchy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:50 pm

GLX wrote:WOOHOO! Good call.

*high fives*

Yeah, I'm awesome.

by **Kerny** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:51 pm

Punchy wrote:Then I choose...

Ultimate Comics Avengers #1!

Good choice, IMO

Hopefully, he can redeem himself, cuz I just read FF 569, and that didn't even make sense.

And not in the good (re:bad) Loeb not making sense way!

by **Punchy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:52 pm

Kerny wrote:Good choice, IMO

Hopefully, he can redeem himself, cuz I just read FF 569, and that didn't even make sense.

And not in the good (re:bad) Loeb not making sense way!

Millar didn't even write that issue! Believe in him!