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Doom Patrol (2009)
Doom Patrol, Vol. 1: We Who Are About to Die
Comics legend Keith Giffen breathes new life into the infamous band of misfit superheroes of Doom Patrol in this eagerly anticipated return of the classic DC Comics team.
Shunned by society because of their superpowers and freakish appearances, the members of the Doom Patrol live a spiteful existence on the fringe of society. It takes the brilliant Dr. Niles Caulder, a mysterious genius, to mold them into true superheroes.
These new adventures find the Doom Patrol facing off against a long time fan favorite alien G'nort, dealing with a black hole and coming face to face with death in a special tie-in to the DC Comics event Blackest Night! Also featured are special back up stories featuring the Metal Men written by Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, the creative team that brought you JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL!
Shunned by society because of their superpowers and freakish appearances, the members of the Doom Patrol live a spiteful existence on the fringe of society. It takes the brilliant Dr. Niles Caulder, a mysterious genius, to mold them into true superheroes.
These new adventures find the Doom Patrol facing off against a long time fan favorite alien G'nort, dealing with a black hole and coming face to face with death in a special tie-in to the DC Comics event Blackest Night! Also featured are special back up stories featuring the Metal Men written by Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, the creative team that brought you JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL!
140 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Keith Giffen
1,976 books224 followersKeith Ian Giffen was an American comic book illustrator and writer. He is possibly best-known for his long runs illustrating, and later writing the Legion of Super-Heroes title in the 1980s and 1990s. He also created the alien mercenary character Lobo (with Roger Slifer), and the irreverent "want-to-be" hero, Ambush Bug. Giffen is known for having an unorthodox writing style, often using characters in ways not seen before. His dialogue is usually characterized by a biting wit that is seen as much less zany than dialogue provided by longtime collaborators DeMatteis and Robert Loren Fleming. That approach has brought him both criticism and admiration, as perhaps best illustrated by the mixed (although commercially successful) response to his work in DC Comics' Justice League International (1987-1992). He also plotted and was breakdown artist for an Aquaman limited series and one-shot special in 1989 with writer Robert Loren Fleming and artist Curt Swan for DC Comics.
Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.
He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.
He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.
Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.
He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.
He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 9, 2017
It's pretty okay. I only had some vague idea of who the Doom Patrol was, but what really struck me was their powers. I want to learn more. The characters, well, not so much. Elastic Girl may have the most promise, and I want to like the idea of metalman, but haven't we all seen a lot of this already?
I think we can safely skip this for Blackest Night without any loss, and I include Booster Gold in the estimate, too.
I think we can safely skip this for Blackest Night without any loss, and I include Booster Gold in the estimate, too.
August 4, 2010
Keith Giffen does a very nice job of resolving much of what should make this title radioactive, and at the same time maintains a degree of quirkiness not found since the Grant Morrison/Rachael Pollack run (and possibly better hearsay to most). Matthew Clark contributes nice steady artwork, and while the science might not make this a a true hard science fiction read at least Giffen eschews most, if not all fantasy conepts. I mean who could resist the idea of a sentient black hole?
July 18, 2019
I knew I wasn't going to get a Grant Morrison weirdness level experience with this new (to me) version of Doom Patrol, but this was just relatively standard superheroics with just a tiny twist of weird, and that just wasn't enough. The sentient black hole that takes over people was a neat idea, but it never went far enough for me.
At least this volume chooses to acknowledge the past iterations of this series, not least in the section at the end concentrating on Larry "Negative Man" Trainor, which goes through his past in roughly chronological order and at least filled in a few gaps.
Art is okay, but again just standard for superhero stories.
At least this volume chooses to acknowledge the past iterations of this series, not least in the section at the end concentrating on Larry "Negative Man" Trainor, which goes through his past in roughly chronological order and at least filled in a few gaps.
Art is okay, but again just standard for superhero stories.
July 11, 2023
Easily the best post-Morrison attempt to turn the Doom Patrol into true-blue superheroes again... though whether one thinks that's a good idea at ALL is really up to the individual reader.
Keith Giffen has a wonderful grasp of the level of zaniness you want to see in a Doom Patrol comic. He's also got a great sense of the characters (as he sees them-- more on that in a bit) and the different levels of psychology at play in what's driving them. And the artwork by Matthew Clarke is crisp, clean, and wonderfully detailed; the characters all look great (prob'ly my favorite designs for every character) and the action flows smoothly and dynamically.
This feels like a deliberate attempt to recapture the Silver Age tone and style for the Doom Patrol, albeit with the richer and more psychological storytelling of later Vertigo books. But if you're a fan of Grant Morrison's or Rachel Pollack's complex, transgressive interpretations of the characters, there's not so much to appeal here; while Giffen admirably tries to weave the Silver Age, Vertigo, and John Byrne iterations of the characters into a single, cohesive timeline, he seems fairly uncomfortable with the weirder stuff-- in particular, Larry's history as Rebis, the intersex persona manifested when the Negative Spirit merged him with a female doctor. Giffen's Larry is a VERY straight horndog of a cis man, which he makes sure to stress over... and over... and OVER again.
The book also suffers from just DROWNING in mid-2000s DC continuity baggage. The team now operates from Oolong Island-- a mad scientist stronghold turned sovereign state from the 52 miniseries, now run by President Veronica Cale (a Wonder Woman villain). Worse, the fourth and fifth issues of this volume are tie-ins to Blackest Night, a company-wide Green Lantern crossover event. And as mentioned, it also tries to make ALL of the Doom Patrol's history-- even the contradictory stuff-- into canon... which means there's a lot of backstory and context that has to be alluded to and/or clarified. This was definitely NOT a book designed to hook new readers.
That said... I still loved it! I'm a big enough fan of this era of DC Comics to understand the context, and I appreciate that this version of the team threads the needle of being superheroes while also being broken and complicated people. It's a solid synthesis of the best versions of the concept.
Keith Giffen has a wonderful grasp of the level of zaniness you want to see in a Doom Patrol comic. He's also got a great sense of the characters (as he sees them-- more on that in a bit) and the different levels of psychology at play in what's driving them. And the artwork by Matthew Clarke is crisp, clean, and wonderfully detailed; the characters all look great (prob'ly my favorite designs for every character) and the action flows smoothly and dynamically.
This feels like a deliberate attempt to recapture the Silver Age tone and style for the Doom Patrol, albeit with the richer and more psychological storytelling of later Vertigo books. But if you're a fan of Grant Morrison's or Rachel Pollack's complex, transgressive interpretations of the characters, there's not so much to appeal here; while Giffen admirably tries to weave the Silver Age, Vertigo, and John Byrne iterations of the characters into a single, cohesive timeline, he seems fairly uncomfortable with the weirder stuff-- in particular, Larry's history as Rebis, the intersex persona manifested when the Negative Spirit merged him with a female doctor. Giffen's Larry is a VERY straight horndog of a cis man, which he makes sure to stress over... and over... and OVER again.
The book also suffers from just DROWNING in mid-2000s DC continuity baggage. The team now operates from Oolong Island-- a mad scientist stronghold turned sovereign state from the 52 miniseries, now run by President Veronica Cale (a Wonder Woman villain). Worse, the fourth and fifth issues of this volume are tie-ins to Blackest Night, a company-wide Green Lantern crossover event. And as mentioned, it also tries to make ALL of the Doom Patrol's history-- even the contradictory stuff-- into canon... which means there's a lot of backstory and context that has to be alluded to and/or clarified. This was definitely NOT a book designed to hook new readers.
That said... I still loved it! I'm a big enough fan of this era of DC Comics to understand the context, and I appreciate that this version of the team threads the needle of being superheroes while also being broken and complicated people. It's a solid synthesis of the best versions of the concept.
April 3, 2024
Yet another 2000s superhero reworking where Giffen feels out of place. The title struggles to find a middle ground between the weirdness of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and the action-comedy of a Secret Six or Suicide Squad book. Giffen's lax approach to exposition and dialogue does not help either. Larry Trainor is mostly a jerk now, an aggressively straight dude openly contemptuous towards his previous genderqueer "Rebis" incarnation. Cliff and Rita are more or less in standard hero mode. We are told Niles is "mysterious" rather than shown. As with many post-Infinite Crisis books, we get laughable attempts at including ALL the continuity. All in all, probably not the best place to start or even expand one's reading of Doom Patrol.
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July 21, 2025Who was the fucker who had the idea to include the most boring stories of the Metal Men (if there even are interesting ones) in this collection? I hate you and Will Magnus aswell
May 19, 2018
While I wanted to like this series, as I am a huge Doom Patrol fan, and Giffen was using the original line up and was one of the few writers I had faith would 'get' the quirky vibe the DP needs to work.
Unfortunately, I'm painfully aware of Giffen's weak spots as a writer, since his huge success with JLA in the 80's he is known as the funny writer, and he immediately did all the things I hate about his writing and it killed any chance I'd have of cutting Giffen some slack ad enjoying this series.
Five minutes in and a couple people are randomly killed off, so we know this a whole new take on the team and that it'll be edgy and tragic.
Which would be great, except every character speaks in witty one liners, so it reads like a bad, yet tragic and edgy, sitcom.
There's a combo.
The menaces are all suitably quirky and sci-fi, and Giffen seems to have a genuine love of the characters and handle on the main four, but his pathalogical need to have every single line of dialogue be a one liner kills the mood and has all the characters sounding alike.
Every couple years DC tries to bring the Doom Patrol back, so there are a dozen versions and you'll be better off reading one of the others.
I recommend the original stories, Grant Morrison or John Bryne.
Unfortunately, I'm painfully aware of Giffen's weak spots as a writer, since his huge success with JLA in the 80's he is known as the funny writer, and he immediately did all the things I hate about his writing and it killed any chance I'd have of cutting Giffen some slack ad enjoying this series.
Five minutes in and a couple people are randomly killed off, so we know this a whole new take on the team and that it'll be edgy and tragic.
Which would be great, except every character speaks in witty one liners, so it reads like a bad, yet tragic and edgy, sitcom.
There's a combo.
The menaces are all suitably quirky and sci-fi, and Giffen seems to have a genuine love of the characters and handle on the main four, but his pathalogical need to have every single line of dialogue be a one liner kills the mood and has all the characters sounding alike.
Every couple years DC tries to bring the Doom Patrol back, so there are a dozen versions and you'll be better off reading one of the others.
I recommend the original stories, Grant Morrison or John Bryne.
December 31, 2014
I've always liked the Doom Patrol. They are one of the oddest and most interesting groups in the DC Universe and all of comics. I also know, from the experience of reading many iterations of the Doom Patrol over the years, that they're a really difficult group to get right. Keith Giffen tries, but the writing is confusing at times, though the art (by Matthew Clark and Justiniano) is nice. The Doom Patrol brought a lot of baggage with them at the time of this publication, and it serves to drag the book down. Giffen tries to incorporate all the previous versions of the Doom Patrol, from the original trio to the revamps, the Morrison weirdness to the Byrne heroics, and that, along with the necessity of adding a Black Lanterns crossover, really pulls this one under. Maybe one of the (few) benefits of DC's New 52 is getting rid of all this backstory and being able to start over with the Doom Patrol. We'll have to see what they can do (although they'd better include Danny the Street).
July 16, 2014
Mediocre comics are a crime, and sadly Giffen's Doom Patrol is largely mediocre. Every once in a while there's a glimmer of something great, like Black Lantern Cliff, but Giffen never fulfills the potential.
A mediocre Doom Patrol is worse than a crime. Giffen really tries to live up to Morrison's example with intelligent black holes and a creep-crazy Mentallo, but he never manages to figure out exactly what was great in Morrison's writing.
I do have to give Giffen some credit for trying to respect the entire long history of the the Doom Patrol, but unfortunately the final issue's spotlight on Larry points out what a horrible, horrible mess DC made of it following Morrison's run. I mean, I couldn't make heads or tails of what Larry was talking about with his multiple deaths and rebirth.
So, a mediocre comic, made worse by its place in Doom Patrol history.
A mediocre Doom Patrol is worse than a crime. Giffen really tries to live up to Morrison's example with intelligent black holes and a creep-crazy Mentallo, but he never manages to figure out exactly what was great in Morrison's writing.
I do have to give Giffen some credit for trying to respect the entire long history of the the Doom Patrol, but unfortunately the final issue's spotlight on Larry points out what a horrible, horrible mess DC made of it following Morrison's run. I mean, I couldn't make heads or tails of what Larry was talking about with his multiple deaths and rebirth.
So, a mediocre comic, made worse by its place in Doom Patrol history.
September 16, 2013
This isn't awful, but it tries to undo what didn't need to be undone, ie the death of the Doom Patrol in the 60s. Keith Giffen rightfully taps into the past and tries to push this into new territory, but the first volume is too obtuse as to who these characters are (are they clones? robots? alternate universe versions?). When the last volume that worked, the Morrison era, was so charcater-centered, you are saying "screw you" to the audience to dally for half a year on who the characters are. That, to me, is what killed this series before it ever truly got started.
March 2, 2015
I never got into the doom patrol and this is the first one I have actually read (my sole exposure to them was via the original cartoon network teen titans). I am not overly impressed with the characters or story but this one was a nice introduction to them and has me intrigued enough I would like to read a few more issues before coming to a conclusion on their value with my personal collection
February 1, 2012
I don't know if was just Giffen or other writers before him who've directed Doom Patrol since Grant Morrison, but this volume seemed to deliberately steer away from all the best ways Morrison previously queered this team of misfits, and for that I was extremely bummed.
August 6, 2014
Just a little too all over the place. I usually like Giffen's writing and his dialogue especially, but in this it just felt like he rambled and I never knew what he was saying. I thought it would be a good introduction back to Doom Patrol but it really just left me feeling "eh."
July 29, 2012
A fun and pretty decent reintroduction of the book that always seems "Doomed" from the start (pun intended).
August 27, 2016
Start of most recent revamp of group. Great condition. $4.
July 20, 2012
Turns one of the best and weirdest superhero titles into mainstream fodder minus all the charm. Pretend this version never happened.
March 15, 2014
This Doom Patrol book was a bit hard to follow. I have heard that Grant Morrison had the best run with this superhero team. I will probably go back and read his run.
June 13, 2016
Not bad , as its the 1st Doom Patrol. The last story does a good recap of previous incarnations and has me intrigued
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews