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The Doom Patrol Archives #3
The Doom Patrol Archives, Vol. 3
The DOOM PATROL was certainly one of the more unusual and most fondly remembered of DCs 1960s titleswith more of a focus on the personality of the characters themselves. In this third volume we see a new unofficial member, a wedding and a very early DC crossover with The Challengers of the Unknown!
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
2 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Arnold Drake
323 books10 followersArnold Drake was an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating the DC Comics characters Deadman and the Doom Patrol, and the Marvel Comics characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, among others.
Drake was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.
Drake was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 2, 2023
Nice collection of Silver Age stories. THE DP was basically DC"s version of the X-Men in a twisted way. Nice fun read of these classics. Recommended
October 14, 2022
Tengo que explicar por qué estoy leyendo estos comics, aunque no me están gustando nada. Hace mucho leí un número suelto de la etapa de Grant Morrison (posterior a esta), y me pareció interesante, aunque no sabía nada de sus protagonistas, sus orígenes, su historia... Por eso, muchos años después, he decidido leer todos los comics de The Doom Patrol desde el principio.
Lo cierto es que me estoy llevando una gran decepción. Incluso teniendo en cuenta que los comics de esta primera etapa están escritos y dibujados en los años 60 del siglo pasado, me producen auténtica vergüenza ajena. Empecé siendo algo indulgente con ellos, incluso concediéndoles cierto encanto kitsch. Pero he llegado a un punto en el que la pésima calidad de sus argumentos y de sus diálogos, incluso el tufo rancio machista que desprenden en muchas ocasiones, han hecho que solo siga leyendo estos comics por encima, por si hay algún episodio de su historia que sea importante para entender bien los que me interesan, que son (como ya he dicho) los de Grant Morrison. Aún me falta para llegar a eso, y espero que cuando llegue no me decepcionen, porque el suplicio que está suponiendo para mí ojear esta primera etapa, aunque sea por encima, va a requerir una buena compensación.
Lo cierto es que me estoy llevando una gran decepción. Incluso teniendo en cuenta que los comics de esta primera etapa están escritos y dibujados en los años 60 del siglo pasado, me producen auténtica vergüenza ajena. Empecé siendo algo indulgente con ellos, incluso concediéndoles cierto encanto kitsch. Pero he llegado a un punto en el que la pésima calidad de sus argumentos y de sus diálogos, incluso el tufo rancio machista que desprenden en muchas ocasiones, han hecho que solo siga leyendo estos comics por encima, por si hay algún episodio de su historia que sea importante para entender bien los que me interesan, que son (como ya he dicho) los de Grant Morrison. Aún me falta para llegar a eso, y espero que cuando llegue no me decepcionen, porque el suplicio que está suponiendo para mí ojear esta primera etapa, aunque sea por encima, va a requerir una buena compensación.
August 28, 2014
Another fun-filled Doom Patrol Archive. In this volume, we are introduced to Beast Boy, the green skinned boy who has been a mainstay of the DCU since his re-introduction as Changeling with the New Teen Titans.
The stories are fast paced and the characterizations are consistent throughout. We get to know more about the background for Robotman in this volume, as well.
Rita Farr, Elasti-Girl, tends to spend most of her time in a will-she-or-won't-she dalliance with Steve (Mento) Dayton, but ends up marrying him in the end. She's still a big part of the team (pun intended) but her early feminism is not as strong.
Neat coincidence (or maybe not) but Beast Boy is referred to as a "changeling" in this story. I wonder if this is where Marv Wolfman came up with the name...
The stories are fast paced and the characterizations are consistent throughout. We get to know more about the background for Robotman in this volume, as well.
Rita Farr, Elasti-Girl, tends to spend most of her time in a will-she-or-won't-she dalliance with Steve (Mento) Dayton, but ends up marrying him in the end. She's still a big part of the team (pun intended) but her early feminism is not as strong.
Neat coincidence (or maybe not) but Beast Boy is referred to as a "changeling" in this story. I wonder if this is where Marv Wolfman came up with the name...
September 20, 2017
Archives, Vol 3 is a bit of a slog compared to the previous volumes. While Vol. 1 is genuinely disconcerting and strange, and Vol. 2 has some zip and good ol'fashioned beat-em ups, v3 is weighed down with a lot of uninteresting developments that don't even feel much like Doom Patrol.
The first half of the book is mostly focused on the introduction of the animorphing Beast Boy, a new recruit to the team that sort of feels like when Cousin Oliver was added to the Brady Bunch -- he's annoying, his vibe is all wrong, and his presence still threatens to take over the book despite not fitting in with the story he's been thrown into. It's also weird to see Beast Boy, a character so well known for his decades-long membership in the comparatively cutesy Teen Titans, try to fit in with an off-kilter series like DP, despite the character being original to writer Arnold Drake.
The volume also spends a lot of time on a strangely noirish backstory for Robotman entitled "Robotman Unchained," complete with its own logo for the series-within-a-series. Again, the tone's off, but it's a worthy experiment (and Grant Morrison put this story to good use in his own Doom Patrol over twenty years later).
And thirdly, there's a just-plain-awful crossover with Challengers of the Unknown that's mainly just 50 pages of the two teams insulting each other. Drake is a witty, strange writer, but the bickering among characters wears thin after a while.
In terms of sheer page count, these three stories take up far more space than any of them should. But first among the book's saving graces is Drake's continued penchant for inventing bizarre, hopelessly-complicated villains -- here we're introduced to Mr. 103, who can turn his body into any of the "103 known elements" (or combinations of elements, meaning he's another become-basically-anything shapeshifter, like the classic DP foe the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man) (who I still can't believe is an actual thing). There's also the hilariously-named League of Challenger Haters, made up of villains like Kra, King of the Robots and Multi-Man, who can become ANY LIVING FORM (like okay dude, too many shapeshifters, I am serious).
For me, the book doesn't get back up to the standards of the previous volume until a two-parter called 'Bride of the Doom Patrol' and 'Honeymoon of Terror' at the very end, in which yes Elasti-Girl is getting married but also we get some of the cantankerous, familial notes to DP that are missing for the rest of the book.
In fact, it's these last two issues in which it starts to feel like Drake, and to an even greater degree artist Bruno Premiani, are really upping their game. The stories are funny and weird and seriously well drawn for the era in which it was published, and there's a sense of even deeper continuity for the first time, to a degree that didn't really take hold in Marvel or DC for at least another ten years. Comparatively, the other issues feel like a phoned-in dinner -- it's fine, you are technically full of food, but it still seems empty.
The first half of the book is mostly focused on the introduction of the animorphing Beast Boy, a new recruit to the team that sort of feels like when Cousin Oliver was added to the Brady Bunch -- he's annoying, his vibe is all wrong, and his presence still threatens to take over the book despite not fitting in with the story he's been thrown into. It's also weird to see Beast Boy, a character so well known for his decades-long membership in the comparatively cutesy Teen Titans, try to fit in with an off-kilter series like DP, despite the character being original to writer Arnold Drake.
The volume also spends a lot of time on a strangely noirish backstory for Robotman entitled "Robotman Unchained," complete with its own logo for the series-within-a-series. Again, the tone's off, but it's a worthy experiment (and Grant Morrison put this story to good use in his own Doom Patrol over twenty years later).
And thirdly, there's a just-plain-awful crossover with Challengers of the Unknown that's mainly just 50 pages of the two teams insulting each other. Drake is a witty, strange writer, but the bickering among characters wears thin after a while.
In terms of sheer page count, these three stories take up far more space than any of them should. But first among the book's saving graces is Drake's continued penchant for inventing bizarre, hopelessly-complicated villains -- here we're introduced to Mr. 103, who can turn his body into any of the "103 known elements" (or combinations of elements, meaning he's another become-basically-anything shapeshifter, like the classic DP foe the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man) (who I still can't believe is an actual thing). There's also the hilariously-named League of Challenger Haters, made up of villains like Kra, King of the Robots and Multi-Man, who can become ANY LIVING FORM (like okay dude, too many shapeshifters, I am serious).
For me, the book doesn't get back up to the standards of the previous volume until a two-parter called 'Bride of the Doom Patrol' and 'Honeymoon of Terror' at the very end, in which yes Elasti-Girl is getting married but also we get some of the cantankerous, familial notes to DP that are missing for the rest of the book.
In fact, it's these last two issues in which it starts to feel like Drake, and to an even greater degree artist Bruno Premiani, are really upping their game. The stories are funny and weird and seriously well drawn for the era in which it was published, and there's a sense of even deeper continuity for the first time, to a degree that didn't really take hold in Marvel or DC for at least another ten years. Comparatively, the other issues feel like a phoned-in dinner -- it's fine, you are technically full of food, but it still seems empty.
February 6, 2015
For the most part, this is fun, very uncomplicated, the result of a much simpler time.... I had read a few of these 60s Doom Patrol reprints as a child in the 1970s, so i knew what i was getting into with a re-read 35 years later, regarding the title's style & art. Fans tend to proclaim these as "ahead-of-their-time", i would disagree with that, these stories are very much OF their time. And as much as some want to contend these are more like Marvels of that day, than DC, i would disagree. The style is flat out DC of that time, with a few subliminal tweaks to make you think more is going on there than really is, which is one thing other DC titles did not bother to try--what was on the surface was IT.....Quite frankly, These juvenile stories would fit right in line with superman/batman fighting far out galactic cartooney over-sized space monsters with a giant space-ray gun in "World's Finest." On the positive side, these stories do contain the unique in-house interpersonal bickering other teams later became famous for, score a point for originality there, but the fact remains this is an antiquated story-telling style aimed at 8 year olds. It can be a little hard to navigate through at first, until you are used to it. The cartooney art is workman-like, but doesnt dazzle & kinda wears on the eye after awhile. It's main goal as artwork is to not get in the way. (Of a positive note, this reader as a fan of early 1980s Teen Titans, DID enjoy the first appearances of Beast Boy! ) In spite of a lot of my criticisms, there is a fun vibe to this, and i can see where Grant Morrison did indeed channel this same goofy vibe from these originals, in his complete deconstruction of this title. in summation, Sorry, i still take kirby-lee 1960s early XMEN work over this, regardless of who came first. Only read this is if you are ok with it being rooted in a DC 1950s/mid 1960s ethos (pre DC copying Marvel in more adult storytelling tone) and if you have a soft spot for the original Doom Patrol, which for me, in spite of my criticisms, is a guilty pleasure of sorts. PS - the DC ARCHIVES format/presentation of the book is first class. All archivals should be this pleasant on the eye.
March 5, 2022
These stories get worse as they roll along. The constant bickering is way past annoying.
March 30, 2018
While I love the Doom Patrol's concept and overall weirdness, some of their antics don't translate all too well to our current time.
What they see as fun and camaraderie, seems more like macho posturing than anything else. At some point, Cliff and Larry's fighting stops being amusing.
But on the other side, the portrayal of Rita Farr is way advanced for her time. She does have a voice and is not afraid to make a stand, even when marriage is at play.
Anyway, the series is losing a bit of its steam in spite of welcoming of such interesting characters such as Mento and Beast Boy. But they start to repeat themselves in the battles they fight. Oh! And the Brotherhood of Evil is getting old already.
What they see as fun and camaraderie, seems more like macho posturing than anything else. At some point, Cliff and Larry's fighting stops being amusing.
But on the other side, the portrayal of Rita Farr is way advanced for her time. She does have a voice and is not afraid to make a stand, even when marriage is at play.
Anyway, the series is losing a bit of its steam in spite of welcoming of such interesting characters such as Mento and Beast Boy. But they start to repeat themselves in the battles they fight. Oh! And the Brotherhood of Evil is getting old already.
June 24, 2019
Entertaining and enjoyable, but the quality of the early issue is missing.
June 2, 2021
Much better than the average 60's DC book.
September 11, 2014
This third collection of Doom Patrol stories is the best yet, collecting Issues 98-105 of Doom Patrol along with Issue 48 of Challengers of the Unknown.
The first two collections were superb but this one topped them. There are a number of reasons why.
First and foremost was the introduction of Beast Boy, a spunky orphan with the amazing Superpower to change himself into any animal and a smart aleck attitude that was second to none. The character also had a compelling personal story as his guardian is stealing his money. The character is a great addition. My only complaint is that his first appearance in Doom Patrol #99 is a bit of a ripoff. While I don't usually lend credence to such allegations. In his first appearance, Beast Boy tries to gain admittance to the Doom Patrol by breaking into their headquarters and fighting them, a plot that sounds familiar if you've ever read Amazing Spider-man #1. Despite the ripoff introduction, the character makes a great addition to the mix and a fantastic foil to Robotman.
I also loved the introduction of Mr. 103, a villain who could change himself into any of the then-103 known elements. Meteor Man was mindless but fun, particularly with the idea of the man who had been changed into Meteor Man trying to send subliminal messages.
The book's crossover story between the Challengers of the Unknown and the Doom Patrol was a highlight as the four challengers, the members of the Doom Patrol, Beast Boy, and Mento took on four of the Challengers' greatest foes led by multi-man. Truly, an epic story.
The book's ongoing characters continued to be enjoyable except perhaps for Larry. Rita continues to be my favorite Silver Age Superheroine. These books written before feminism became a thing in comics, which is good. Rita doesn't come off like Marvel and DC's attempts to appease the womens' lib movement, rather she comes as a very real character who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to say it. She stands up to both her own team and Mentos when she feels she's being disrespected. The book features the story, "Bride of the Doom Patrol," which features a superhero wedding story like no other with cameos by Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Teen Titans. Not quite the cast that would go to Aquaman's wedding but still pretty snazzy.
Robotman actually stands out better in this book. He clashes frequently with Beast Boy. In addition, Arnold Drake decided to tell his backstory in a series of 8 page back up stories. It's unusual because usually these back up stories are somewhat shallow one-shot stories with a little bit of humor. However, Drake told a 38-page story over the course of four issues with boy the Challenger Team Up and Bridge of the Doom Patrol demanding the longer tale. The story was as close to a realistic look at how a man would feel to wake up to find his brain in a robot body. It's not grim and gritty but it's got some emotional power.
Overall, this is just a great book. The Doom Patrol are fantastic as well as very human. The comics in this book are as good as any comics published in the Silver Age and better than many. This is a must-read for fans of vintage comics.
The first two collections were superb but this one topped them. There are a number of reasons why.
First and foremost was the introduction of Beast Boy, a spunky orphan with the amazing Superpower to change himself into any animal and a smart aleck attitude that was second to none. The character also had a compelling personal story as his guardian is stealing his money. The character is a great addition. My only complaint is that his first appearance in Doom Patrol #99 is a bit of a ripoff. While I don't usually lend credence to such allegations. In his first appearance, Beast Boy tries to gain admittance to the Doom Patrol by breaking into their headquarters and fighting them, a plot that sounds familiar if you've ever read Amazing Spider-man #1. Despite the ripoff introduction, the character makes a great addition to the mix and a fantastic foil to Robotman.
I also loved the introduction of Mr. 103, a villain who could change himself into any of the then-103 known elements. Meteor Man was mindless but fun, particularly with the idea of the man who had been changed into Meteor Man trying to send subliminal messages.
The book's crossover story between the Challengers of the Unknown and the Doom Patrol was a highlight as the four challengers, the members of the Doom Patrol, Beast Boy, and Mento took on four of the Challengers' greatest foes led by multi-man. Truly, an epic story.
The book's ongoing characters continued to be enjoyable except perhaps for Larry. Rita continues to be my favorite Silver Age Superheroine. These books written before feminism became a thing in comics, which is good. Rita doesn't come off like Marvel and DC's attempts to appease the womens' lib movement, rather she comes as a very real character who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to say it. She stands up to both her own team and Mentos when she feels she's being disrespected. The book features the story, "Bride of the Doom Patrol," which features a superhero wedding story like no other with cameos by Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Teen Titans. Not quite the cast that would go to Aquaman's wedding but still pretty snazzy.
Robotman actually stands out better in this book. He clashes frequently with Beast Boy. In addition, Arnold Drake decided to tell his backstory in a series of 8 page back up stories. It's unusual because usually these back up stories are somewhat shallow one-shot stories with a little bit of humor. However, Drake told a 38-page story over the course of four issues with boy the Challenger Team Up and Bridge of the Doom Patrol demanding the longer tale. The story was as close to a realistic look at how a man would feel to wake up to find his brain in a robot body. It's not grim and gritty but it's got some emotional power.
Overall, this is just a great book. The Doom Patrol are fantastic as well as very human. The comics in this book are as good as any comics published in the Silver Age and better than many. This is a must-read for fans of vintage comics.
October 5, 2014
Another great entry in the DC Archives series, and one that I couldn't put down. Usually I try to read these a few issues a night, just so they last longer. But the original Doom Patrol always draws a person in to their strange little world.
This volume features nothing but the art of Bruno Premiani and Bob Brown (covers and the Challengers issue). Arnold Drake really hit his stride in the stories in the one, as the Mento-Rita Farr romance turns to marriage, Mr. 103 returns twice, and Beast Boy makes his debut. Heck, even the elusive Super-Hip makes a cameo! How can you go wrong with that?
Recommended fun and weirdness!
This volume features nothing but the art of Bruno Premiani and Bob Brown (covers and the Challengers issue). Arnold Drake really hit his stride in the stories in the one, as the Mento-Rita Farr romance turns to marriage, Mr. 103 returns twice, and Beast Boy makes his debut. Heck, even the elusive Super-Hip makes a cameo! How can you go wrong with that?
Recommended fun and weirdness!
August 28, 2016
Seriously, why have people not been insisting that I read this book when I've asked for Silver Age recommendations? Solid writing, excellent characters, bizarre humor. This comic is impressive. I'm going to have to check out Drake's run on Challengers of the Unknown. Perhaps, I'll find some fun there.
September 16, 2013
This is really fun and light, despite the main tenet and name of the team. I took a star off because some if it is a bit dated, but it doesn't render it any less enjoyable...just sometimes overly verbose.
August 12, 2015
One too many 'pardon the pun' jokes for me...
But a 5 star just on the covers themselves.....
Would have loved this as a kid. intermix some science lessons with how the mr 103 can change elements and how they react....not bad
Kudos to the glossy ARCHIVE editions!! cheezy dialogue and all
But a 5 star just on the covers themselves.....
Would have loved this as a kid. intermix some science lessons with how the mr 103 can change elements and how they react....not bad
Kudos to the glossy ARCHIVE editions!! cheezy dialogue and all
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews