Doom Patrol #1
Recap
In June, DC Comics announced the next major expansion of its Next Level publishing initiative with three new ongoing Team comic book series launches
These team books mark the latest evolution of DC’s Next Level line, following the success of recent launches including Batwoman, Lobo, Deathstroke: The Terminator, Firestorm, Zatanna, Barbara Gordon: Breakout, and The Deadman.
Comic Watch Reviews:
- Next Level: One Shot #1: You Better Run, Better Run, Faster Than My Bullet
- The Deadman #2: Take A Look…It’s In A Book
- Batwoman #2: The Streets Run Red With Bats
- Deathstroke: The Terminator #5: Bad Divorce
- Lobo #5 :Back In The Saddle With A License To Lobo
- Fury Of Firestorm #4: Its 533 Miles To Pittsburgh, We Got An Experimental Matrix Containment Device, &; A Full Tank of Resentment
- Barbara Gordon: Breakout #4: I Think We’ve Seen This Already
- The Deadman #2: Take A Look It's In A Book
- Zatanna #5: All That’s Hidden Is Not Safe
The Doom Patrol is broke. Adopting a heroes-for-hire business model to stave off financial and emotional ruin, the team finds itself responding to a simple case — a missing cat. But when this case proves to be far from simple, the world’s strangest heroes find themselves pulled into a truly out-of-this-world situation! And elsewhere, beyond the view of Robotman, Elasti -Girl, and Negative Man — and perhaps even beyond the veil of our reality — a ghost of the team’s past is preparing to cross into their world.
Review
The Next Level Doom Patrol series takes a step back and stars the core classic members of the team: Cliff Steele aka Robotman, Larry Trainor aka Negitive Man, Rita Dayton aka Elasti-Girl, and Niles Caulder aka The Chief.
The issue begins with the introduction of Niles Caulder, the team’s creator whose motives in the past have not always been selfless, especially when it comes to the fact that the members of The Doom Patrol are the way they are because of his scientific pursuits. However, in the opening sequence Caulder is shown to be more reflective than manipulative and involved in events that will frame the first arc of the run.
Poelgeest also does a solid job of giving new and old readers the origins of Robotman, Negative Man, and Elasti-Girl in a manner that feel organically integrated into the opening events, without the overuse of exposition and retreading of information that casual readers already know about the three.
The team’s overall status quo is also addressed as they are searching for a missing cat, a case that is definitely not the usual Doom Patrol-type mission, until it takes a turn into the weird and strange. The issue is a slow-burn that eases the reader into story with some deep character moments along with the sarcastic wit that the characters have come to embody over the years.
Niko Henrichon’s art style and colorwork works well with the story being told and adds another layer to the overall reading experience. Like the members of the Doom Patrol the art is rough around the edges and a muted color pallette that has been absent in the more recent Doom Patrol appearances in the larger DCU.
It will be interesting to see how the story plays out over the span of future issues of the run to see if it intersects with the other Next Level threads that have been presented in Firestorm and the Deadshot oneshot.
Final Thoughts
Doom Patrol #1 begins this incarceration by returning to the core team and story threads that are both mysterious and pushing the boundries of the norm
Doom Patrol #1
- Writing - 9/109/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 9/109/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10