Doom Patrol [2016] #1 - Young Animal (DC Comics)

DOOM PATROL No. 1, November 2016

Whilst “DC Comics” awarding Gerard Way his very own imprint was arguably “one of the comics industry’s most surprising announcements” of 2016, it is probably safe to assume, if the quality of his narrative for Issue One of “Doom Patrol” is anything to go by, that the formation of “Young Animal” far from represents “an exciting new phase for the publisher.” Indeed the American musician’s oddball storyline, which illogically follows ambulance driver Casey Brinke witnessing both the apparent destruction of a befuddled Robotman and the fatal cake-related combustion of her roommate, is so incomprehensively bad, that doubtless many of its readers quickly tired of not only his perplexingly choppy writing, but also sadly, the Sixties superhero team upon which this comic is purportedly based.

For starters little of this twenty-four page periodical’s plot actually makes any kind of sense whatsoever, despite initially starting with the briefest of flashbacks to the race car accident which destroyed Cliff Steele’s body. Such a promising four-panel breakdown is frustratingly immediately replaced by the New Jersey-born songwriter’s storyline focusing upon “new figures” Brinke and her tiresomely tedious co-worker “the Mighty Samson”. Just what these paramedics have in common with Niles Caulder’s team of misfits is extremely hard to fathom until Lucius’ father inexplicably throws away his half-eaten burrito and it becomes apparent that Robotman was leading a rebellion on a world situated within the wheat flour tortilla’s filling!?!

Bizarrely, this potential macrobiotic uprising, which is eerily witnessed throughout by a common housefly, appears to culminate with Steele’s alter ego blowing the planet up with nuclear missiles, and resultantly having his mechanical body hurled ‘back’ into the Emergency Medical Team’s modern-day world just in time for it to be demolished by a bin lorry; “C’mon- - Just help me gather up the parts…” To make matters worse however, this laughable storytelling is then compounded by Way introducing Terry None to the title’s audience by having her ‘inadvertently’ blow up Casey’s “highly irritating” cotenant during an overly enthusiastic birthday celebration and then simply moving in when she realises there’s now a bed free…

Sadly Nick Derington’s artwork for “Brick By Brick” isn’t especially attractive either. For although the artist’s “clean lines and cartoony visions of people” are tolerable, especially when he adopts a far more heavily pencilled technique for illustrating Robotman’s revolution on the ‘refried beans’ world, they significantly pale when compared to the work of Brian Bolland and the "definitive Judge Dredd artist's" variant cover.

The regular cover art of "DOOM PATROL" No. 1 by Nick Derington & James Harvey