We're going to get back into the Doom Patrol, since the show has finished and I find myself yearning for more of the team. The trouble is that the version of the team that we're getting into right now is pretty lackluster. The "New" Doom Patrol are just a bunch of superheroes. They're not weird, they're not particularly novel, and they're certainly not the sort of characters that one traditionally associates with the DP.
Sorry. That's not quite true.
I have 8 frames up in our living room where I display comics. I rotate them, based on themes, or stuff I like. I redid them the other night with team shots of the various eras of the Doom Patrol. When I was done, I checked to see which characters had the most cover appearances - or which ones were present for which iterations of the team. It's likely not a surprise that Cliff is the only character that is in every version of the Patrol. That's him up there, holding the remains of his previous form. Even in the television series, it's Cliff with whom we first enter the mansion and the story. Even Mr. Nobody calls him a hero.
Dear DC Comics,
Were I ever to have the opportunity to write the Doom Patrol, I would frame the series with Cliff telling stories of all of the various iterations of the team. It would span almost a century of time (DP is 60 yrs old soon) and all of the different versions of the DCU, telling a story that weaves together through history and revision, trading on the fact that the Doom Patrol are the only people that remember the entire history and all of the crises.
With respect,
tom.
Hopefully that'll work.
Anyway, aside from Cliff, they're not necessarily the sort of heroes one associates with the Patrol. Strangely, these characters, for me at least, are redeemed retroactively, in sort of the same way that I view Barry Allen before his rebirth. Rather than being characters that necessarily work as part of the current narrative, their hauntological (perhaps) presence informs the group. Sort of as a less-looming Rita Farr. Josh, of course, finds a place in Morrison's team, and Arani turns out to have been another of Niles' experiments (and a creepy one, given the age disparity), again thanks to Mr. Morrison. Val never really gets to be much more than a token Russian defector during the Cold War. I'm not even certain what becomes of her, but she's not really folded back into the Patrol's history in the way that the other two are. I should note that this is not including any of the New 52 stuff that the Patrol are in, which I'm tracking down at the moment. But perhaps Valentina Vostock is not broken in the same way that the others are. Maybe she actually escapes.
"You, above anyone else, should know the threat the ageless villain poses!"
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