Comics covers from the 1960s didn't always worry about political correctness. Nor, really, does the story within.
Can I say something about Mento? He sucks. I really, really dislike the character. I feel like he's simply in the comic to disrupt the adventures I'm really actually there to read. Though I revere Drake and Premiani for their inspired creation of these lovable characters, they never do manage to convince me that the marriage of Rita Farr to Steven Dayton is a good idea. Even when they adopt Gar Logan, to save him from being exploited by his really awful guardian, Dayton is an ass to him. And where the other members of the Patrol can be asses at time (except Rita, actually. The characterization of her in the new show is quite different from her original personality), they at least seem to care about other human beings, where Dayton's motives are, almost to a fault, selfish.
I recommended the new show to a friend of mine (and I recommend it HIGHLY to anyone who hasn't seen it yet) because she's interested in disability and how it's portrayed in our society. The show is doing a nice job of dealing with this quite explicitly, but the old comics weren't, as far as I can tell, intentionally dealing with the issue. Today's back-up chapter of "The Private Life of Negative Man" does so, in that Larry is unable to procure any employment after his accident, except for jobs that wish to exploit his new condition. Larry simply wants to be "normal." Though as Jane says many issues later, "What do normal people have?" No one's been able to answer that adequately for me as yet.
On the subject of Larry, I'm delighted to see him as a queer character in the television show. Really, as my son has often said, most iterations of the Patrol could be seen as stories of queerness, whether intentionally or simply by virtue of the team's marginal existence. But the explicit treatment we're getting now is a perfect growth for the character. The Rebis version of Negative Man remains to me one of the best portrayals of queerness in a superhero comic, if a little over-symbolic at times. For me, the conversation and consolidation of those three voices in Rebis felt a lot like my own head, and the "people" I am in there. Part woman, part man, part spirit that is both and neither. I like that.
We've got a couple of weeks of Doom Patrol on the way. I'll be wrapping this "season" with the end of the first series. And if you'd like to go back and have a look at the things I've said and read in previous seasons, here you go!
I'm going to try to sign off with a line, memorable somehow, from the day's comic. I will not, however, be giving any context ;P
"Mento -- anytime you want to go into the milkshake business, you've got a great future!"
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