It’s the early/mid 1960s, Marvel Comics are starting to make serious headway with their line of superheroes. They have arguments, squabbles and other personal troubles which go way beyond the bland ‘competent man’ mould of DC’s line of superheroes.
If you’re DC what do you do? Come up with a team of misfits whose powers are almost as much hindrances as help – the Doom Patrol.
The Team
The Doom Patrol is made up of three characters who gain their powers through freak accidents and their leader, the Chief:
Rita Farr – Elasti-Girl
Exposed to unique volcanic gases she gains the ability to shrink to the size of an insect and grow to the size of a multi-story building.
Cliff Steele – Robot Man
A racing car driver who is fatally injured in a devastasting crash. His brain is saved and placed in a powerful robotic body.
Larry Trainor – Negative Man
A test pilot whose body is soaked in mysterious radiation in the Earth’s upper atmosphere! Returning to the ground he finds that not only is he now radioactive, but he can project a negative energy being from himself.
Dr. Niles Caulder – The Chief
Confined to wheelchair, the Chief is nonetheless a genius inventor and founder of the Doom Patrol. He saved each member of the team and helped train them to use their powers.
Hey, That Sounds Familiar!
That all sounds a little bit like the early X-Men doesn’t it? From the bits of 1960s comics history that I’ve picked up, the Doom Patrol (at first published in My Greatest Adventure) were actually on newsstands and spinner racks before Marvel published the X-Men.
Having said that, the timing’s so tight between the two titles, it’s unlikely that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at Marvel would have had wind of the Doom Patrol, so let’s just say that something was in the air in the 1960s.
Irrespective of the background behind the origin of the Doom Patrol, I’ve been reading the paperback collection Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Vol. 1 and it really strikes me that DC almost had a Marvel comic on their hands.
(Aside: I bought this book from the small but perfectly formed comic book shop Gnash Comics in Ashburton – this being a small market town on the edge of Dartmoor! Go for a hike, buy comics. Perfect!)
Was it a conscious effort to emulate the Marvel’s success? Or were the creators simply wanting to add a bit of contrast between the Doom Patrol and the paragons of perfection in the Justice League of America?
I’m not sure, although interestingly Arnold Drake, one of the co-creators of the Doom Patrol went on to script issues of the X-Men in the late 1960s.
Bonjour, Monsieur Mallah!
On the whole, the art is fairly standard for DC at the time, with penciller Bruno Premiani (with some later issues pencilled by Bob Brown) putting out consistently good and solid work. The villains are occasionally fantastically outlandish (Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man!), appeal to the inner 10-year old (Rog the Giant Robot) or simply surreal (Monsieur Mallah, the beret wearing, French speaking super intelligent gorilla).
Meanwhile, the Doom Patrol’s powers and adventures allow the artists to cut loose. Robot Man in particular is continuously getting damaged, in one issue literally being put through the wringer! Elasti-Girl striding over buildings never gets old. Eat your heart out Giant Man!
However, there’s nothing that comes close to Jack Kirby on full blast or Steve Ditko on inter-dimensional duty.
Anyway, About the Book…
Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Vol. 1 is a great way to sample a chunk of 1960s DC comics – even if the Doom Patrol were rather atypical of the time.
It collects:
- My Greatest Adventure #80-85
- The Doom Patrol #86-95
This book is part of a line of fat paperbacks collecting classic comics in the order as they were published. This line also includes Golden Age volumes for Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman along with other Silver Age titles like Green Lantern and the Flash.
These paperbacks are a sister line to a series of hardback omnibuses. Although you don’t get quite as much collected in one volume of the paperbacks as you do in the omnibuses, they are still great value with fun artwork on the cover. In this case by Evan “Doc” Shaner.
Unfortunately, DC has a habit of starting collections of classic comics and then cancelling them a few volumes down the line. The hardback omnibus line seems to be in better health than the paperback, but they are of course much more expensive.
If you want to dive deeper into Doom Patrol comics from the Silver Age, DC is finally going to publish volume two next year. If you prefer everything in one hardback cover, the Doom Patrol Omnibus is still available.
Update: I’ve just double checked and in autumn 2019 DC also published the Bronze Age Omnibus! This covers the Doom Patrol’s adventures in the 1970s and on into the 1980s.
