The Doom Patrol Archives, Vol. 1

The Doom Patrol Archives #1

by Arnold Drake, Bob Haney, Bruno Premiani (Illustrator)

Contains the adventures of the Doom Patrol, comprised of superheroes Robotman, Elasti-Girl, Negative Man, and their wheelchair-bound mentor known as the Chief, as they battle a horde of villains in defense of humanity.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Comic Book, Fantasy

222 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

Arnold 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.

Reviews

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's no secret I'm a fan of DC's Silver Age. It was a time of goofy, all ages comics, with bizarre sci-fi plots and villains predicated on the silliest of concepts. In hindsight, it's understandable that DC lost ground to Marvel during this time period, as the nation recoiled at the carnage in Vietnam and dealt with struggles over civil rights and women's liberation.

I've been recently reading the original run of Fantastic Four, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It took a while, but I can now see the magic the team created vs the rather staid, if enjoyable, plots and art running through DC's titles at the same time. Although still a product of the 60s, there was the beginning of a new age of comics, tailored to more sophisticated and older readers.

With the Doom Patrol, DC had a comic that, in my opinion, was as good as anything Marvel was putting out at the time. Spot on and diverse characterization, realistic art, a strong sense of continuity from one issue to the next, and heroes that were not exactly going to show up as Justice League members one day. They lived more in the real world than any DC book at the time, meaning the encountered fear, suspicion, admiration, and exactly how you'd expect super powered beings to be received.

There's a lot of back and forth over the Doom Patrol vs the X-Men, but there are certainly some similarities. Leaders in a wheelchair, disfigured and weird characters, outcast from society, even a common uniform. Doom Patrol, however, stands out because they're still DC characters. Good still wins, no one (as of yet) is a complete asshole, and rather neat done-in-one stories that nevertheless tie into each other.

This volume was the first time I had really read the original Doom Patrol, and it stands head and shoulders above the rest of the DC line during the early 60s. Writer Arnold Drake had some real love for these guys, and artist Bruno Premiani did as well. His layouts are pretty good and show his beginnings in more realistic illustration. The biggest surprise was how liberated Elasti-Girl is as a character. She's not a damsel in distress a la Sue Storm, or a cardboard character like Wonder Woman in Justice League of America. She is an integral part of the team and has as much gumption as the boys.

Even if you don't like silver age comics, I think you'd enjoy the Doom Patrol. I have all five volumes of the archives, and I'm going to read them in succession, that's how excited these stories proved to be for me.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good. I was half expecting that this was going to be as flat as other material from DC's "Silver Age" library. But the characters were interesting and it was quite obvious that Marvel was already having an influence on what DC was producing.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes you have those friendships that just end horribly and you don't know what they were for but at least that friend was able to snag you some free copies of Doom Patrol Archives. After many years I'm on a DP rereading kick, and that includes rereading the Archives to see exactly how I feel about them, because I don't think I've ever been able to put my finger on just what it is about Doom Patrol.

Doom Patrol, like many pieces of ancient DC weirdness, never fully came into its own until it was reinvented during the British Invasion of the 80's and 90's, when a bunch of Englishmen got hired to revamp some lower-tier DC characters. Of these many hip Europeans, Grant Morrison was probably the most adept as the art of reinvisioning, and his Doom Patrol brought the characters into focus as a team of disconcertingly weird, near-insane characters doing battle with the very weird, and the truly insane. One anecdote that I came across (and then lost, of course) was that DP creator Arnold Drake felt that Morrison's work was the closest to what the DP were "meant" to be (closer, perhaps, than even the original iteration) -- but to me, the question has always lingered on just how much of that extreme, oogly-moogly skin-crawling strangeness was baked into DP from the start, and how much of it has been retroactively overemphasized by Morrison's reinvention of the series.

Rereading Archives makes me feel like, while no Silver Age comic could completely anticipate the new-age surrealist tendencies of someone like Morrison, there is still a lot of discomfort to be found in the original Doom Patrol. Much of it has to do with the low-frequency body horror that is built into the fabric of the series. None of the team's members are happy to be 'freaks,' and readers are constantly reminded of the dysmorphia inherent in the heroes' powers. Robotman, instead of being some kind of advanced-technology powerhouse, is most useful when he allows his metal body to be melted by a flamethrower, rolled to crush rocks, or literally taken apart (this, over and over) so that his limbs can be fashioned into tools and weapons. We are constantly reminded that the most emotional and human member of the team is, ultimately, a thing, an object, and when his teammates show concern at their continual use of him in these ways, his insistence that "everything is fine" somehow just makes things worse.

Negative Man is easily the most bizarre character in the series, able to project a sort of superfast, superstrong radioactive being from his body to do battle while his physical form becomes inert. Not only is his power just weird, but its use is always a source of threat, as his teammates count down the seconds that his body can lie abandoned before it dies. And Elasti-Girl, though her sex appeal and "aw shucks" innocence makes her more akin to one of the hormonally-charged, aesthetically pleasing X-Men, still finds herself constantly at odds with both leering suitors (including her teammates) and horrified onlookers who are overwhelmed at her size and strength.

And of course, there's the Chief, Doom Patrol's fearless leader, who would be a Professor Xavier also-ran if not for the fact that he is also an openly cruel and manipulative mad scientist who is nonetheless worshiped by his team for no obvious reason, even as he chops off dogs' heads and sews them onto other dogs just to see if they'll live.

Everyone is powerful, but no one is happy -- just like X-Men, but the series' tension relies on alienating the reader, rather than giving them something to identify with. As DP fights giant robots and green-faced aliens in nameless cities and mundane locales, it feels like there is an undercurrent of constant existentialist critique: isn't this utter bullshit? When we're done fighting, what do we go back to? This is so ridiculous, but what it is for?

The thing is that Doom Patrol never winks at the camera, never completely lets you know how you are supposed to feel about what you are reading. This adds to its discomfort and mystique: it is a scab, and you are picking.

To be honest, Golden and Silver Age comics are full of weirdo superheroes, shitty gender dynamics and creepy paternalistic leader-types. But I don't know. The X-Men may be 'hated and feared,' but they have cool costumes and a mansion and they're a family. The Doom Patrol just feels strange, and lonely. Reading it soothes me when I'm angsty but makes me want to bathe after I finish.

I don't know. It's a terrible world. I'll keep you posted.

[Jared Millet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've loved the Doom Patrol ever since reading a reprint of "The Man Who Lived Twice" in an issue of Super-Team Family back in the late 70s. Then there was a DC Digest collection of classic stories a few years later, and the shocking New Teen Titans #13. When I got back into comics in college, Grant Morrison's take on the series was always at the top of my "to read" list. These classic stories, however, still hold up really well in comparison to the safer stories appearing in the more mainstream DC titles.

Morrison called the Doom Patrol "the post-modern Fantastic Four." Like the X-Men, the Patrol are alienated and shunned because of their powers, but as Morrison points out, what sets the Doom Patrol apart isn't race or mutation but the fact that these are superheroes with disabilities. I didn't catch on to that when I first came across them as a kid, but it probably explains why I reacted to them so strongly.

It's almost as if Arnold Drake took a look at the disaffected attitude of The Thing and said "Oh, yeah? I can come up with a whole team of those guys." He then went the extra step of making this book utterly crazy. How else could you explain a villain like Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man? If I remember right, it only gets kookier from there.

[Siona Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun read. I'm not sure if this is considered Golden or Silver Age, but regardless, the style was similar enough to modern comics that I could read it (whereas for example the Doctor Fate Archive I found a little hard to read because it was so different). I like Negative Man is my favorite member so far.

[J. Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The DC comics of the 1960s are known for being quirky and strange, but the Doom Patrol stands out even among that odd crew. Writer Arnold Drake gave us a team of heroes who weren't always squeaky clean and cheerful -- they could be bitter over the deformities that came along with their amazing powers, and they could be resentful when society shunned them as freaks. But they come together as a sort of surrogate family under the gruff but loveable Chief, and save the world against all odds. Artist Bruno Premiani was a terrific draftsman, and his solid, realistic art helped keep things grounded even while Drake was pulling out the craziest sci-fi menaces he could come up with. Talking gorillas, disembodied brains, and even the awkwardly-named but undeniably-awesome Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man seem downright plausible in Premiani's hands. The Doom Patrol has often been compared to the X-Men (who debuted right around the same time), but frankly the Marvel mutants didn't get really good until the '70s, and the Doom Patrol kicked ass right from the start.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original Doom Patrol was a nice mix of the dysfunctional family vibe of the Fantastic Four and the 'freaks in a normal world' idea of X-men mixed in with some great adventures.

Plus, they had some cool bad guys! A brain in a glass bowl, a sinister, yet hot french woman, and a talking ape with a machine gun.
One of my all time favorite hero teams.

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was first introduced to the Doom Patrol in the 1980s, when their history was explored in the pages of the New Teen Titans. That history had long been set in stone, although a new chapter would begin for a new audience. With that in mind, I undertook this reprinting of the earliest days of the Doom Patrol with the mindset that I would read some standard Silver Age DC adventures with little in the way of surprises.

And the stories were typical of the DC standard at the time...but with a new dimension: character development. I attribute that to writer Arnold Drake, who does a masterful job at setting his scene. The first issues in this first volume started off somewhat standard and basic, but as Drake and artist Bruno Premiani found their footing the series began to coalesce and draw in the reader. The main draw is the characters, primarily the quartet that comprises the Doom Patrol. Drake imbues this cast with a real spark, and their histories - and feelings about each other - are developed bit by bit as each issue unfolds. I had always "known" these characters, but now after seeing glimpses of their back stories and earliest adventures as a team much color has been added to the painting. I am not just aware of them...I like them.

Bruno Premiani's artwork is splendid. It has been two days since I finished this book, but I can still recall certain panels from the stories (a young Niles Caulder overhearing shocking news, Larry Trainor's face without bandages, Rita Farr standing before a movie poster in a glamorous gown). That is the true mark of a great artist, when the work remains in the memory of the beholder.

I so look forward to reading Volume 2 in the near future.

[Adam Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the 1960s, Marvel was creating more realistic and human characters. Arnold Drake got a chance to follow suit as DC with the creation of the Doom Patrol. Three people whose lives have been transformed due to tragic accidents become the Doom Patrol: Elasti-girl, Negative Man, and Robotman. All three have become recluses after accident, but a wheel chair bound genius doctor know as the Chief spurs them into action. Thus they set out saving the world and become the Doom Patrol.

Robotman is a man stuck in a robot's body with a human brain, Negative Man has the power to have a negatively charged being of energy leave his body. The highlight of the book is Elastigirl who hasability to shrink and expand from inch-size to skyscraper size. Her power exceeded that of DC's Atom or the more comparable Marvel Ant Man. Plus, she has the most distinct personality in the book.

The stories are pure sci fi fun. It's not quite the Fantastic Four, but the stories work even though the only major villain is General Immortus who doesn't quite have the star power of Lex Luthor or Dr. Doom. There are some good fun action stories, a few very emotional stories such as Elastigirl's Private War which has her trying to reunite a war oprhan with his adopted father. There's also a solo Robotman story that's so humorous it has to be read to be believed. I can't help but think Monty Python read this before writing the black knight sketch.

Overall, this collection stands up pretty well despite some annoying "ha ha's" thanks to Elastigirl. I'll look forward to the next Archive.

[sweet pea · Rating 4 out of 5]

i stumbled upon the Doom Patrol at my bookstore. me lovey! they have all the flavor of a classic superhero group, but...the womyn actually does things! Rita Farr is a great character who is constantly saving the group due to her quick decision-making (whereas Larry and Cliff, who also save the day, are generally following orders from the Chief). plus her clothes inexplicably enlarge and shrink with her (amazing!). the group works well together, with less bickering than the Fantastic Four. the villains, while ludicrous, somehow seem less ludicrous than others i can think of (possibly because they're mostly bizarre). it's a great glimpse into classic comics and the strongest female character from the era that i've read.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like a TV show a comic book series takes awhile to jell, but once it does it cooks like crazy. The Doom Patrol is no exception...the first stories seem tentative and unsure of their place in comics, but by the time the series changes from "My Greatest Adventure" to their self-titled book but it's time for the usual Doom Patrol insanity. The origin of the Professor is just as bent as Cliff, Larry and Rita's struggles.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

So the Doom Patrol. Three social misfits led by a handicapped man in a wheelchair. First, they fought General Immortus. Then a giant robot that tried to kidnap the Statute of Liberty and the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. But their arch-enemies were the Brotherhood of Evil, an evil (surprise) society consisting of the disembodied brain of a genius in jar, and a super-intelligent gorilla that speaks French. In conclusion, this is everything that is great about Silver Age comic books.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly brilliant from start to finish. This ground-breaking series is what the X-men were patterned on. Great art work and terrific stories. I strongly suggest you buy and read all five volumes. And the ending of the series! Another landmark. Exceptional comic booking for exceptional readers.

[Reggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

X-Men, eat your heart out.

[Paul Spence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the Doom Patrol. I'm also a stickler for character history, but only if that history is an enjoyable read. Drake and Premiani's original Doom Patrol is one of those silver age comics you have to trudge through. Doom Patrol falls victim to the then-standard style of overpowering the page with mediocre text, diminishing the power of the artist. When held up against the new Marvel comics that were just coming out in those days, Doom Patrol fails exceedingly. When held up against its DC contemporaries, Doom Patrol falls in place above Batman, but below Superman and Green Lantern.

I will quickly grant that the DP was definitely outside the box for DC of that era: Superheroes who didn't always get along, who resented their gifts of power, and whose personal lives intruded on their exploits. One can argue whether Arnold Drake deserves as much credit as the gang at Marvel for creating that kind of ethos in superhero fiction, but the fact is that, in the end, Marvel just did it better, period. (And in the spirit of full disclosure, at the time I was much more of a DC person than a Marvel devotee.) The plots are simplistic and at times inconsistent, even for the times, and the moments of angst become repetitious and stagnant as time goes on. The less said about corny dialogue, the better.

The best feature of these tales is Bruno Premiani's expressive artwork, at times reminiscent of the work of many others while retaining its own distinctive flavor. While not that good in absolute terms, Doom Patrol is still in its way invigorating within the context of Silver Age DC hero-dom -- discontented misfits battling a weird set of surreal enemies -- and in that sense worth at least one look, if not perhaps a second.

This Doom Patrol isn't all bad though. There are a few concepts used as plot device that only a drug-addled comic writer of today could come up with (by today, I mean 1980s on). There's also a few issues within that are good all the way through. Also, Grant Morrison's run ties directly into events first taken place in this book.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I acquired my love for silver age comics from raiding my brother's collection. He read mostly DC comics bought with his paper route money, so that was what I read, too. There was something about the DC covers that seemed indelible. Though my brother's collection has long since disappeared, I can still come across a cover of a 1960s comic book, and, remembering it from my youth, I am transported back to an earlier time.

What I liked about this collection was how clean the artwork is, and how evocative it is of its period. It is a very stylized and romanticized version, as all major characters are white, with few (very few) representations of other ethnicities. That wouldn't have bothered me as a kid, but I can't imagine how discouraging it was for non-white kids to have "nobody that looked like me" in comics. This isn't a knock on the book ... it is not overtly offensive (cf. stereotypes of Asians are still common at that time, unfortunately, as seen in a few panels), and I doubt that any one involved felt any animus towards others. The book makes my very nostalgic. My nostalgia is for the lost innocence of my youth, not a desire to recreate a time that was patently unfair to many people I now cherish.

Silver age comics are goofy and outlandish. Meant for children, these stories are often ridiculous. A ray that enlarges a toy tank to life-size also, without explanation, makes the toy capable of firing live rounds. None of this detracts from the joy of reading these stories and enjoying the artwork. Suspend your disbelief and enter the world of 1960s America, where science seemed to make anything possible.

[Keith Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume collects the first 10 Doom Patrol stories published in My Greatest Adventure comics in 1963-4. The stories are deliberately weird, although not hallucinatory weird like Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol decades later. The stories at their best are reminiscent of the old Adam West Batman TV show, which aired at about the same time these stories were published. Extravagantly bizarre villains come up with overly complicated plans and openly challenge the heroes to stop them. We get the first appearances of General Immortus, a criminal mastermind who has lived for thousands of years, The Brain, a genius brain in a jar, and his assistant the talking gorilla Monsieur Mallah, and the magnificently named Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.

In contrast to the writing, Bruno Premiani's art is surprisingly realistic. His illustrations look like they would be more at home in a romance comic than in a bizarre superhero comic. The contrast between the writing and the art makes the overall work much more memorable.

There are some very 1960's attitudes in the stories. For example, Elasti-Girl with her ability to grow to giant size is clearly the powerhouse of the team, but often Robot Man and Negative Man find excuses to leave her behind in order to "protect" her. Also Elasti-Girl's short skirt seems like a very poor costume choice for someone who frequently grows to the size of a skyscraper.

[Stavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Se ha supuesto que si un hombre rechaza ver lo que todo el mundo ve, entonces ese hombre está loco
Pero, que pasaría si, solamente por una vez, lo contrario fuera verdad?"

Normalmente no leo comics tan antiguos como este, ya que las historias suelen ser un poco más infantiloides, pero en esta ocasión no me molestó

Encontramos a un equipo de cuatro extraños, y que las personas califican como "Monstruos"
El primero es El Jefe, un hombre de apariencia madura en silla de ruedas que recluta a los otros 3
Este personaje aún es una enigma gigante, pero actúa como el cerebro del equipo, ya que el consigue las misiones y arma los planes de ataque

La chica del grupo lleva por nombre Rita, y era una actriz que tuvo un accidente al grabar una escena de riesgo
En dicho accidente obtuvo los poderes de encoger y agrandar su cuerpo, al principio no podía controlarlo, pero con el tiempo ella pudo hacer sus cambios a voluntad
Rita es fresca y divertida, pero sin mucha profundidad en su personalidad

Luego tenemos a él Hombre Negativo, un piloto que luego de sufrir un accidente, se ve atado de por vida a un ente radioactivo
Es un héroe muy útil y en lo personal, de mis favoritos
Me gusta su diseño y su actitud.

Para finalizar, nos presentan a Robotman, un corredor de autos de fórmula que, al igual que sus compañeros, sufrió un accidente en su trabajo
De dicho accidente sólo se pudo recuperar su cerebro, y el jefe logró insertarlo en un cuerpo robotico que puede manejar a voluntad
Este personaje es quien ha tenido más profundidad, al enfrentarse a un mundo que no está listo para ver a alguien como el
Muestran un poco de su lucha interna al dejar su vida y convertirse en Robotman


Mi villano favorito hasta ahora (y el único que creo valga la pena) es el General Inmortus, el cual es horrible físicamente, y con atributos algo atemorizantes

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. I have fond memories of the comic read as a child and it came highly recommended by a former comic book writer I know. Alas, it is slightly better than, but basically of a kind with, the other crap published by editor Murray Boltinoff during DC's Silver Age. The couple of best stories are a lot of fun and make a kind of sense. The rest, in descending degrees, have plot holes and/or unexplained incidents. The Doom Patrol is a fun concept. The execution is most often lacking. My instinct is to give this book two stars, but that is also my instinct for CHALLANGERS OF THE UNKNOWN and this comic is a bit better, so, grudgingly, three.

[Mike Jozic · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's nothing quite like The Doom Patrol. Love these old Drake/Haney/Premiani issues and the Archive presentation is absolutely delightful.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Adam Cummings · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun

[James Hold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best comic book team ever!