Doom Patrol, Vol. 3: Down Paradise Way

Doom Patrol (1987)(Collected Editions)

by Grant Morrison

The World's Strangest Heroes continue their adventures in this third volume collecting Grant Morrison's career-launching run on DOOM PATROL. Reprinting issues #35-41 of the series, DOWN PARADISE WAY features the debut of Danny the Street, the first appearance of Flex Mentallo, and, through it all, an incredible saga of cosmic war and super-evolving consciousness!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Dc Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Grant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.

In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume's weirdness was super at the start of this volume introducing the Danny the Street , a trans male sentient piece of urban geography that can merge seamlessly into any environment, the very mysterious Flex Mentallo and the Men from n.o.w.h.e.r.e. whose mission is to 'inflict' normalcy on anything or anyone deemed not... somehow Morrison and Case take the second half of this volume to a war between alien races that look like monsters and spew interesting sounding words that are ultimately trying too hard to be such. Overall, thanks to the first half - 5 out of 12, Three Star read. (Psst.. the TV show is way better!)

2020 read

[Sud666 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The weird and wacky world of the Doom Patrol continues. Grant Morrison's truly strange and bizarre super-hero team isn't the typical super-hero team. Not by a long shot. To use a great quote (and there are a few choice gems scattered throughout this volume) :

"I'm not complaining, but sometimes it might be nice to just stop a bank robbery or foil a criminal mastermind. You know, like the regular super-guys?"
"Nonsense, Cliff! It's essential that we leave such feeble-minded pursuits to the musclebound cretins who enjoy them. OUR work is far more important."

The entire premise is that there are cases so odd and bizarre that only a bunch of complete weirdos like the Doom Patrol can deal with it. That's what they do. If you pick up Doom Patrol thinking that it is a normal super hero comic, you will be confused and disappointed. But if story scenario and the writing appeal to you then, you will appreciate Doom Patrol for what it is. It is Grant Morrison's copious imagination on display.

This volume has a broad range of stories- ranging from the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E (who seek a very normal and banal world) who are trying to kill a sentient street named Danny, who also happens to be a transvestite. Yes. You read that correctly.
The rest of the volume is about Rhea, her pupa stage and her potential metamorphosis into a potential messianic entity for an entire world of religious people who are at war. In a subtle nod to religious history one of the leaders of the divisive religious war is named Huss (John Huss, or Jan Hus, was a Czech priest in the early 1400's and founded Hussitism and was a key predecessor to the Protestant Reformation).

If that is the kind of thing that appeals to you- good prose, truly unique and imaginative stories and strange subtle images-then you are a fan of the Doom Patrol. If I lost you at the sentient transvestite street named Danny, then Doom Patrol is not going to appeal to you. The art is not great, but quite decent for the time and what it tries to accomplish. That is not the point of reading Doom Patrol. This is one of the oddest comics I've ever read. I do enjoy a unique outlook and I respect a well told story. Grant Morrison delivers in Doom Patrol.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This title gets even stranger with the introduction of Danny the Street, a transient, sentient, transvestite alleyway popping up in a new location each day. The Doom Patrol gets involved when the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. try to enforce their desire for normalcy down everyone's throat by murdering the odd. Then Rhea awakes from her chrysalis state and is immediately embroiled in a religious, alien war. While in outer space Robotman gets outfitted with some badass spider legs. No matter how weird this title gets, I dig it.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., a sort of normalcy police, are guided by the most normal man in the world on a quest to destroy Danny the Street, a travelling sentient piece of road who is also a transvestite. Can the Doom Patrol stop them? Where does Flex Mentallo fit into things and where has he been since 1958? And in the second half, Rhea finally wakes from her coma and the Doom Patrol goes to another world to end a war between two alien races. Robotman gets ripped in half and ends up with a spidery lower half. Can the Doom Patrol get the job done and get back home?

In my review for volume two, I said the weirdness knob must have broken off and rolled under the fridge. Well, the broken stem of the knob must still be able to be turned because volume three is even stranger. Rebis has more lines in this one and actually provides a lot of the humor. Robotman continues to feel out of his comfort zone where the weirdness is concerned and provides a little normalcy. Comparatively speaking, of course.

[Buddy Scalera · Rating 1 out of 5]

This series started off with so much promise, but simply fell apart under the weight of its own weirdness. In Vol. 3 of these Doom Patrol reprints, the story and ideas are flying by so fast that there appears to be no story. It's just a non-stop flow of concepts, which sounds great, but it's not enjoyable to read.

Vol 1 "Crawling From The Wreckage" was fascinating and controlled. Grant Morrison took over the run on Doom Patrol with a surreal twist. That said, it was still rooted in enough traditional storytelling that it was a good read. There was a solid narrative that anchored the surreal high concepts.

By Vol. 2 "The Painting That Ate Paris" was an extension of Vol. 1 with a greater attention on inner character conflicts. The stories meandered, but mostly stayed on the rails.

Now in Vol. 3 "Down Paradise Way" the narrative is completely off the rails. It's disjointed and difficult to follow. It feels more like an experiment in the medium than an actual story. It's great to push the boundaries of the medium, but this was just confusing and, sad to say, kind of boring.

There may be a narrative, but it's so difficult to find that this became a chore to read. It was something that I was "trying to get through." So I stopped read it.

The entire run started off well, but it fell apart by these issues.

[Wing Kee · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was super weird!

World: The art is great. I don't like dated art but the expressions, the creativity, the splash pages just inform the story and sets the tone for such a fun and weird book. The world building is also absolutely phenomenal. It really is hard to describe without spoiling it for the reader. It's strange but we'll thought out, it's absurd but makes sense and it's so unexpected that you expect to be surprised.

Story: The first story with Danny the street was fairly in your face with its message of point of view and normalise. However it was wrapped in a crazy out there story with strange characters and a living street that I was engaged. The second tale with the war was absolutely nuts and hard to explain. It's so creative that it needs to be experienced. The ending was expectedly absurd and the cast of characters just...just read it.

Characters: Nuts. The main characters are pretty much locked in and they pretty much react to the craziness of the books this arc. However Rhea was spectacular, what Morrison did with her is genius. The Mesh and the Kaleidoscope wow.

Just read it. It will entertain you with its absolutely absurdity and strangeness.

Onward to the next book!

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a two-part story in Vol. 1 of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol that is so bizarre, undeveloped and confusing that it's hard to remember it even happened. In it, a creature called the Red King, that lives in a magical palace (or something) full of butterflies that give it energy (or something), that thinks it is either Jack the Ripper or God (yes), kidnaps the unconscious body of Rhea Jones, a member of a previous incarnation of the Doom Patrol. Rhea's teammates save her, but instead of bothering to try and figure out who the Red King is or what he was trying to do, they just kill him.

And they leave.

And that's that.

This is an incredibly important aspect to the eerie nihilism of the entire series. There are moments in which you could almost get away with framing Doom Patrol as a sort of X-Men-by-way-of-Dr-Who, in which weird aliens are encountered, problems are sorted, and the adventurers go on their way. However, most of the time, in most of these stories, the unknown is never fully explored. The Doctor does not sit down over tea and smile sagely and explain the reasoning behind the mess.

Instead, the DP team probes the abyss long enough to close the wormhole, save the damsel, kill the demon or whatever -- and then they just bail. Partially because they live in a world in which shit is just insane, all the time, and the truth is that whatever the Whatzawhozit is doesn't really matter, because it will just be replaced by something larger and weirder.

But also because the Doom Patrol is not a batch of emotionally fit, curious, excited people. The Doom Patrol is decidedly unwell. Their real powers are that they are already so damaged that they can't possibly be further damaged by exploring unearthly horrors. But because they are so damaged, they also lack wonder. They fling themselves into danger because they must, and extract themselves when they are able in order to prepare for whatever's next.

It's a depiction of trauma, and that is what is so strange.

Down Paradise Way contains two major storylines: in the first, a sentient street named Danny with the powers of teleportation (sure) is besieged by a dowdy family man named Mr. Jones -- not because of the street's otherwordly powers, but because Mr. Jones has realized that Danny is a transvestite, which Jones finds offensive to 'normalcy'. Mr. Jones himself has quite an arsenal, including extradimensional soldiers and something called a 'delirium box' which is, for all intents an purposes, a piece of origami that drives people insane.

Who or what, we ask, is Danny the Street? Who is Mr. Jones and what is the nature of their--

WHO CARES, says the Doom Patrol. KILL THE GUY AND SAVE THE STREET BECAUSE THE STREET IS ON FIRE.

In the second story, Rhea Jones (from vol 1, remember; no relation to Mr. Jones) is kidnapped, again, by feuding alien races whose war must be mediated by the DP in order to...well, not exactly to save the world, since the war is happening in the depths of space. Maybe to save Rhea, except that Rhea has awakened and become a sort of omnipowerful god-being who no longer needs protection. It might be that the DP have to save themselves, except they don't much care about that either.

"This war doesn't make any real sense," says Cliff Steele the Robotman, shortly after the army of the Insect Mesh has refashioned his legs into that of a giant cyborg spider, right before he is attacked by monstrous Smoke Dog. And when the war is finally revealed to have solely existed in the imagination of a fallen angel, Cliff is that last to care.

"Screw symbolism," he says, "And let's go home."

In the final issue of Morrison's Animal Man (which was originally published concurrently with Doom Patrol), he laments that one of his worst flaws as a writer is that while he is quite good at building tension in his stories, the stories themselves never go anywhere -- that his narratives almost always amount to nothing, despite whatever they may promise. But Doom Patrol promises nothing -- it is just sort of always screaming and laughing into the void, and punctuated by occasional bouts of collapse.

If you are already feeling bad, reading it might make you feel worse. But if you already worse, there's not much point in reading something else.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first story in this volume has more of what I've come to expect from Morrison: fascinating, over the top weirdness with a weak storyline. Danny the Street is fantastic, though, and I'd love to see more of him. The second storyline is rather more coherent, featuring Rhea's Jean Grey-esque (why yes, she is a redhead) metamorphosis into some sort of superpowered otherworldy being. Not sure why she had to be naked to do it, though. Overall, not quite as solid as the previous volume, but something that simply begs to be read, just so you can see what Morrison was up to back in the day.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the volume is perfect Grant Morrison -- heaven or hell depending on the reader's POV -- introducing the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., Danny the Street, and Flex Mentallo, and featuring fantastic guest art from Kelley Jones, who I hope reappears in later volumes.
Five stars.

The second half is the kind of story that justifies Morrison's fear that their tombstone will be engraved "incomprehensible." An interdimensional war sort-of rages between two bizarre species, their weapons and aims indescribable in this space. As packed with fresh concepts as the volume's first tale, but somehow the elements fail to gel into an appreciable narrative.
The problem may lie in the lack of character moments for the Doom Patrol, ostensibly the stars of this title. Cliff and Rebis each get one or two "cool" bits of business; a transformed Rhea Jones is central but seems to be walking through someone else's dream.
Two stars.

Richard Case steps up his art game in this volume, fleshing out Morrison's most outre ideas with imagination to spare. But for good and ill, the author is the star of this book.

This is my first read-through of Doom Patrol. I'm finding it rich in the big ideas and sharp character insights I love from Morrison, but also dotted with some of the descents into self-indulgence that I have come to tolerate from them. At the halfway point in their DP run, the good more than outweighs the bad.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Down Paradise Way (#35-36). The introduction of Danny the Street and the Men from NOWHERE is another bit of greatness from Grant Morrison, and it's surprising this story is just two issues long. Unfortunately, it doesn't attain greatness because it descends into overused Morrison tropes: people speaking weirdly (Not Only Weird, Here Everything's Really Exotic) and strangeness for its own sake [4+/5].

Lost in Space (#37-41). This arc has a lot of cool elements: the Doom Patrol in spaaace; beautiful alien races designed by Richard Case; and the return of Rhea. Oh, Rhea's a bit of a plot device without too much respect paid to her previous character, but at least she gets a post-Invasion finale. Putting the Patrol members on opposite sides of a war is also interesting and pays off well. The only problem with this arc is that it runs a bit slow throughout [4/5].

[Otherwyrld · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume 3 of the series starts strongly with the introduction of Danny the Street, a sentient street that can teleport itself into anywhere in the world. The idea of a magical shop (or street in this case) isn't new - TV Tropes calls it The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...) but this story is deftly handled, with the exception of some weird artwork where the artist seems to have forgotten that Robotman has an immovable metal face.

It starts to fall apart almost immediately though, as the Danny the Street story is left hanging in favour of the story of the reawakening of Rhea Jones, who has been in a coma for a while but has now emerged as a mysterious being of undefinable power. This draws the attraction of two warring parties who both want her power for themselves, and this is where it loses me completely, because the whole section is an almost incomprehensible mess. There are some interesting ideas in here, but far too little context for them to be hung onto, so it ends up being just a lot of weird characters in search of a story.

As with other stories in this series, The Doom Patrol often finds itself as bystanders in their own comic, as Rhea stops the war by planting a flower from the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden, which was stolen by an Angel and taken to another planet.

The story pretty much just stops, with Rhea heading off to the stars and Robotman declaring that it was time that the Doom Patrol goes home, without making it clear just how they were expected to get back, considering they are still on another planet at this point.

So, probably 4 stars for Danny the Street, and 2 for the rest. Hopefully we will get back to more interesting stuff in the next volume, even if we can confidently say it won't be anything like normal (whatever that is).

[James DeSantis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just when I thought this could be the next Morrison series I love this volume is almost unreadable. Strip away all good character moments, every other turn and event is fucking weird to point I don't care and worst of all...it's boring.

[Tony Laplume · Rating 5 out of 5]

So. If you're one of those people who still haven't figured out Grant Morrison's basic style, I think this collection might make it clearer. And here's my attempt to explain it.

Down Paradise Way in the third collection of Morrison's Doom Patrol material. It follows the events of The Painting That Ate Paris. I haven't yet read the first one, Crawling from the Wreckage, although I suspect his wilder ideas only started becoming apparent with the latter two. And wild Painting indeed was. And yet Paradise is wilder still.

But not unrecognizably wild. You may not have realized it, but Morrison's brand of wild has been seen elsewhere. The TV programs Lexx and Farscape, for instance. But these are still fairly niche examples. But there's also Futurama for comparison. In fact, to make it more obvious, I believe Morrison has been translating Doctor Who for American audiences for years.

Now, obviously Morrison doesn't have a central figure like the Doctor running around his stories. But then, even the Doctor always has a companion or two, and it's as much the dynamic between these characters as the wild adventures they share that define some five decades of the famous British sci-fi franchise. And in a lot of ways, that's exactly what Morrison's Doom Patrol is all about, and it becomes a little more obvious in Paradise.

The title of the collection comes from the opening story, which features Danny the Street. Danny the Street is literally a street, albeit a sentient one that has the ability to relocate itself at a whim, sort of like how the wizarding world of Harry Potter is able to fold away the necessary elements from muggle perception, if you will, just a lark of location.

Anyway, Danny's main nemesis is a crazy person who's convinced he's the most normal man in the world (he's not), who has dedicated himself to eradicating all forms of oddity. Of course, the Doom Patrol is itself an embodiment of oddity, and that's all the excuse Morrison ever needed to spin them off in the wildest ideas he could conceive.

There's less overt character work in this volume than in Painting, though the major development does involve Rhea Jones in her evolution to something-hood, a bit like Jean Grey becoming the Phoenix in the X-Men tales. Jones sat out the last volume, but stirs early in this one. She's naked and has a giant eye on her chest and small of her back, and has a blank face. (Though she's not a slave of Mickey Eye, it should be noted for fans of Seaguy.) And yes, the nipples show (most of the time). Pretty subversive for a quasi-mainstream comic. Anyway, we don't spend a lot of time exploring her so much as following her, as the rest of the team follows events as they unfold, far moreso than in Painting.

Morrison concludes the stories in the collection trying to figure out the nature of war, coming to conclusion you may have previously seen in Star Trek. But as always, it's the way he tells his stories that defines Morrison's writing. Often, members of the Doom Patrol make the very comments Morrison's critics have long charged against him, that all of it is very hard to follow. But it's not really so bad.

It's not hard to see why Morrison periodically jumps to a new platform, because he doesn't pick small fights. He goes cosmic, as big as he can think, every time. It's what fans of his JLA run loved most about it, that he was finally unleashing the Justice League in stories that were big enough for DC's biggest stars. And he had the same impulse earlier with Doom Patrol, as is plainly evident here. And he had it again with his own version of the X-Men. No wonder the writers who followed him there had to deconstruct everything he did. His X-Men was the Claremont era times five.

And the biggest news! As far as Morrison's own emerging legacy goes, is the debut of Flex Mentallo! The so-called Man of Muscle Mystery would go on to star in one of Morrison's first mainstream deconstructions of the classic superhero archetype (whereas Doom Patrol contemporary Animal Man was merely a metaphysical look, although certainly a famous one for his career). Here we're just barely saying hello, but it's still a start.

[Wes Benchoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introduction of Danny the Street and the Men from N.O.R.M.A.L. was very fun and a great run of issues, however this is followed by my least favorite arc of the series so far and possibly my least favorite issues of anything Grant Morrison has touched. It's a silly alien kidnapping/war story that spends most of the time describing (nonsensical) regions and customs before immediately depicting them on the page. The effect is dull and repetitious, like a kid's book with too many words written by someone in an acid delirium. Sure, that sounds great initially, but in practice I really couldn't wait for it to end. For every great choice, like Cliff's sick spider legs, there is a terrible one, like Jane's hideous puzzle hat. Once it wraps up Rhea flies off into space like Poochie the Dog and Cliff announces his intentions to return to Earth as soon as possible. For the love of god, let's get off this rock!

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

The weirdest of the 3 volumes I've read so far. And not the weird that I can enjoy. It's more the weird of "I don't know what's going on at all but people are saying and doing stuff".

[Mike E. Mancini]

Richard Case, the artist responsible for most of the issues in this volume, receives some negativity from me for his work on Doom Patrol. Half way through reading this volume I googled images of some of his original art work for the very pages contained within. Unsurprisingly I was blown away by how awesome they were. Dark and moody, a touch of the macabre distilled in every panel, the black and white drove home the creepiness (rather than pretentious) of the places and beings the Doom Patrol interact with. It made me realize how unfair it is to criticize Case when the color and paper are doing absolutely nothing to enhance his art, and everything to give it an undefined, seemingly rushed, blandness to the whole work.

With all that in mind, I read through this volume with fresh eyes, looking past the vomit-like color, and filling in my mind's eye with heavy black inks and stark white contrast.

These are great fun, written by a young Morrison well in control while still finding his voice. Dull exposition attempts to fill in unnecessary back stories only a couple of times in this volume. Grant allows his dialogue to move the plot along, and the stories benefit from that.

Watch the TV show if you can't be bothered to read the comic. But-ahem-the (comic)book is better.

[Carl Waluconis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lately many people are trying to introduce new weird heroes into the realm of super-heroes. Well, here are among the first and among the best. With an epic scope, the seven issues (1990-91) reprinted here form one story arc. A lot of the drawing is abstract, surreal, and still stunning. Grant Morison keeps the characters crisp and sardonic, somehow matching their consistently mind-bending encounters. One of my favorite lines was "I hope you guys are superheroes because we're out of our depth here." Cliff, trapped in an old robot body, has the final line. This long tale really set the goal for weird superheroes.

[James Hynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grant Morrison just came out as non-binary, so it's worth remembering that the 1987 Doom Patrol is full of non-binary representation and everyone should read it.

[¸.•*¨*•Gina *A Bookwyrm in Belgium*•*¨*•.¸ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another weird and wacky mission for the Doom Patrol.

[Ronald Esporlas · Rating 3 out of 5]

With witty dialogue and super weird storylines sometimes I dont know what's happening.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Joseph Domingo · Rating 3 out of 5]

[2.5/5]

I think the art is on point and the prologues are cool, but the mesh/kaleidoscape story dragged on way too long imo

[Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grant Morrison continues his absurdist romp through superhero comics in this third volume of his Doom Patrol run.

While, in my opinion, the series continues to get more weird, we also see more observable themes emerging, and themes that are more in line with what Morrison goes on to produce in future works.

The concept/character of Danny the Street is awesome and many (including myself) have said that they don't know how he even concieved of such a concept. Brillant Morrisonian stuff.

The larger story arc which takes up most of the book is a bit out there, but also shows a nice journey with our protagonists as they are split up and journey in a most rewarding way to find each other. The idea that this arc puts forth is both something Morrison wants to tell the reader and a genius execution of such an idea. (It deals with certain themes that Morrison has been building upon since the beginning of his takeover on the title, but I'll let you read to figure it out.)

All-in-all, again, another offering in Morrison's run on Doom Patrol that's not going to be your cup of tea if you're into straight forward, one read, easily digested superhero comics, but a true gem if you're into poring over the pages, looking for multiple meanings, and seeing what such a talent can do if he wants to push the envelope of the medium.

[Nate]

Danny the Street. I’ve heard about this character, and now that I’ve read his first appearance, I can say he surpasses my expectations. An actual sentient street who can appear anywhere in the world and communicates through decal signs and letters? And who happens to be a transvestite? Amazing. He’s introduced when a man obsessed with normalcy and 1950’s sensibilities goes after Danny, trying to eliminate him with the help of his N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Agents (guys in overcoats with crane heads who speak only using acronyms of “nowhere”). The Doom Patrol gets wind of this and works to stop them. When I think about this story, I just smile.

But if Danny the Street is off-the-wall, he's nothing compared to the following arc. After Rhea’s awakening and transformation, the Doom Patrol gets involved in a war between two alien races who exist beyond space. I think. Truthfully, I’m not sure exactly what happens here. It’s stories like these that make me think Morrison is either a genius and an overblown crackpot. I’m leaning towards the former, but still undecided. While some of the ideas Morrison presents here are intriguing, the tedious exposition doesn’t help this arc's scrutability. That’s common with Morrison: out-of-this-world concepts, so-so storytelling. Doom Patrol has *mostly* bucked that trend, thankfully.

[Patrick Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still fun but beginning to slide off into ironic 90s silliness. While it's inventive and certainly new for the times it hasn't aged that well. There's a bit too much lippy young person desire to shock which leads to a degree of disengagement. It's fun in small doses but over the long run it's difficult to care all that much. Robotman seems to be the only character that has something interesting underneath, but Morrison shies away from this in favour of 'hey young fascist virgin super hero fan! Gays! Does that shock you?'. It's the same poorly judged and condescending attitude that made his 2000AD work so awful (ok, except Zenith).

In Super Gods Morrison discusses a change in his attitude to the genre, from being a missionary to being an anthropologist. This is him in full on missionary mode. Better than almost anyone else at the time (Not Moore, how was flourishing in this period) but unworthy of the Morrison we've come to know since.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love strange stories and bizarre plots, but I can't get into this after reading the first three volumes. There are some really neat ideas wedged into nonsensical plots, dialogue, and art. I think at the time Morrison was writing this, he was going for the shock factor and completely ignoring a rational, cohesive plot. The only reason I will be reading volume four is because I was stupid enough to buy the first four sight unseen. Iam kicking myself now for that.

I'll describe the book. And this description can be used interchangeably with every volume that Morrison wrote for Doom Patrol. In a nutshell: art is subpar, but gradually getting better with time. Nature of all the plots are meaningless. The characters are so bizarre, that the only one with a remotely human personality is Cliff Steele.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A step down from previous volumes, but still a fine slice of insanity. This time around the Doom Patrol deals with one of my favorite concepts thus far, a sentient street named Danny. I just wish more time had been spent with "him," as that 2-issue storyline was much funnier and better planned than the longer story of two alien races waging the most heightened possible war against each other. The Doom Patrol's presence barely matters as the two alien species wield abstract ideas and multidimensional realms as weapons. It's a cool concept, but didn't seem to get much past the conceptual phase, and ended pretty abruptly with little explanation.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite bit comes from the villain plotting against the Doom Patrol's newest member, Danny the Street: "What we're talking about here is a sentient street. A street that can think for itself. Not only that, but it can also travel. It infiltrates itself into other cities and they just kinda shuffle a little to make way for it. It usually does it at night when no one's looking. Sometimes it's an alley in Peking, sometimes a backstreet in Toronto. And as if all that isn't peculiar enough, the whole street is lined with good macho stores, okay? Except that Danny has them all dressed up in fairy lights and lace curtains. Gentlemen, this street is a shameless transvestite."

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird and fantastic! The cover art is so utterly gorgeous, it certainly puts the current T+A bozos to shame. (Though the 2005 rerelease cover is, of course, a T+A shot, which is so lame considering all the gorgeous art within. Idiots. Simon Bisley's work is a million times better than that smarm. *sighhhhh*)

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

not as good as the first two volumes. get's a little too "cosmic" in scope.