This is a review of Doom Patrol: Crawling from the Wreckage, written by Grant Morrison in the late 80’s/early 90’s. The Doom Patrol have been around since the 1960’s and are the ugly stepsisters of superhero teams. They aren’t powerful, or good looking, or important; they’re an obscure bunch of weirdos in tights. Luckily, the late 80’s were sort of the heyday for obscure weirdos – in comics, anyway.
A confession: I adored this version of the Doom Patrol. By the time this series came out, I’d read thousands of comics. This one was just different. It felt like someone took a Philosophy/Modern Art class (focused on surrealism & Dada) and jammed it all into a comic book.
Cliff Steele, aka Robotman, is the normal member of the group. He’s just a Regular Joe, stuck in a robot body. It’s not even an interesting robot body, but that will change. There’s also Rebis, an amalgamation of man, woman, and negative being, who has covered their body in bandages. Finally, Crazy Jane (the writer’s name, not mine), who has a superpower to go along with every one of her 64 personalities.
The Doom Patrol’s first encounter is with the Scissor Men, emissaries of the imaginary city Orqwith. Orqwith is staging a hostile takeover of earth, overwriting it into its own image. And then there’s Red Jack, aka Jack the Ripper, aka God, who likes collecting butterflies and looks like an escapee from a deck of playing cards. The writing is great, the art a little less so. Still, a strong start to one of my favorite series.
Abandoned Places 