Welcome Rhea Jones - though, honestly, if I'd had the experience with the Patrol that she has in this issue, I'm not sure I would have stuck around. Literally everyone is shitty to her, intimating that she can't possibly understand the seriousness of the Doom Patrol. This, of course, being said to a young woman who watched her father disintegrated in the very accident that powered her, who was, a la Larry in the television series, used as a guinea pig by the government, and who then ran away and grew up as a carny. That sounds pretty serious to me.
I recently read an interview with penciller Steve Lightle in which he described his dissatisfaction with this assignment, which he leaves after tomorrow's issue. Apparently he had been promised story input that never came, and was promised a 6 month lead time that never happened. And he wasn't a fan of the characters that Kupperberg had created in the 70s and who were the core of the team in this series. I'm on his side here, especially with Arani, and to a lesser extent Val. Josh is okay, but he really is filling the Colossus role on the team, agonizing over every aspect of his life through interminable soliloquies. I think I mentioned that a couple of days ago too.
But I do like Rhea, and I think she could have become an interesting addition to the team, had the team gone in a different direction. It's almost like Mr. Kupperberg was trying to set up a Doom Patrol/Titans dynamic within the Doom Patrol itself. The problem with this introduction of new characters is that the old ones, Arani, Josh, and Val, never really got a chance to develop themselves, as the team never really had a series in which to develop. I wiser idea, I think, would have been to let the New Doom Patrol become a team and then perhaps introduce a new character, or bring back an old one, for variety's sake. But I don't really know these characters the way I know the old ones. They're defined by a single trait that is highlighted, but haven't been given the time to demonstrate more rounded personalities. And as an example of how that can be done, just check out Josh in Morrison's subsequent run, in which we see that he is in fact a doctor, and acts like one, even though he's also a superhero. Perhaps that's what it is - the characters are caricatures, and you can't tell a proper story without characters.
More to follow.
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