The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1791: Doom Patrol and Suicide Squad Special #1,1988

  

Let's just talk about Erik Larsen just for a second. He's a pretty great artist, though definitely comes from a school of comics art of which I'm not 100% a fan. As I mentioned yesterday, at least in his earlier work, I just don't get the physics of breasts that he's going for. Check out Psi's chest (she's the one in the barely-there gold) - she looks like she's just got gold suction cups pulling on the flesh of her chest.

(Actually, in the first couple of shots of that character, I wondered if Larsen was going for a more masculine appearance. It could be that I spend an awful lot of time around drag queens, but Psi definitely looks like she might be bending gender a bit.)

Now, all this said, he's a master of motion in a comics panel. That cover is fairly crackling with energy, and none of the characters have that unfortunate cardboardness to them that can sometimes happen with comics. I've referenced an interview with Steve Lightle a couple of times in the last few days, and at one point, though praising Gary Martin's inks, he notes that at times the characters seemed somewhat flat. Larsen suffers no such problems, inked here by Bob Lewis.

But on to the story - it's pretty good, though perhaps way too political for a Doom Patrol story. It's also one of those stories that simply has not aged well. In fact, the argument could be made that it hasn't aged at all. It simply could not happen in any period other than the 80s, making it difficult for us to place it into sliding continuity. That said, of course, with all of the reboots since, it's hard to say whether this version of the team even existed in the fictional history. But before simply tossing it out as a continuity anachronism, we can also consider the comic as a time capsule of sorts. Rather than seeing it in the context of a part of the Patrol's history, we can look at it as indicative of the things that were informing the writers and artists working in the field at the time. The inclusion of Ronald Reagan, an actual president rather than a fictional one, cements this position. As I read through this run, there are moments like this, but this one stands out, more so than the absence of cell phones or Internet in what is, ostensibly, only a few years removed from current continuity.

More to follow.