The Doom Patrol Archives Vol. 2

April 13, 2004 | Trades

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The Doom Patrol Archives Vol. 2
Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani, Bob Brown
DC Comics
$76.95/$49.95 US (Hardcover)
*** ½ (out of five)

The Doom Patrol have always been more of a cult title when compared to other team books from DC, like the Justice League of America, the Legion Of Superheroes and even the Teen Titans.
That’s probably why this title has been killed and brought back so many times over the past 40 years.
They are a weird collection of misfits: the brilliant, wheelchair-bound Chief; the bandage-covered, mummy-esque Negative Man; the beautiful Elasti-Girl, with the ability to shrink and grow as will; and the man’s brain in a robot body, aptly dubbed: Robotman.
But when these characters were first brought together in 1963 the angst of being freaky in a straight-laced world hadn’t been done to death yet in comics such as Marvel’s X-Men and it really worked.
When Superman would show up at the scene of a bank robbery or bomb threat in Anytown, U.S.A, everyone knew that the hero was here. He would save the day.
When The Doom Patrol arrive at the same situations and offer to help, they are regarded with much more suspicion, because, let’s face it, they look bizarre!
The villains they faced were equally weird. The clock-faced Mr. Tyme, Monsieur Mallah, the giant talking gorilla and The Brain, simply an evil scientist’s brain in a jar.
This second collection of Doom Patrol adventures from 1964-65 contains eight offbeat tales reproduced at the very high standard we’ve come to expect from DC’s Archive Editons and includes an introduction by legendary comic writer Roy Thomas.
The Doom Patrol Archives Vol. 2 is a very fine and often-neglected piece of Silver Age comics worth exploring.

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