Synopsis
The Doom Patrol must stave off threats to the very structure of existence, including the sinister workings of the Ant Farm and the return of the Brotherhood of Dada.
Reviews
Grade 10 Up—Morrison is one of the more innovative writers in superhero comics, mixing layers of character and complex concepts with the straight-ahead action for which the genre is known. He assumed the writing for Patrol in the early 1990s, keeping classic characters like Robotman, but quickly making the title his own by adding bizarre figures. Among the latter are a sentient city street and a woman with 64 distinct personalities, each with a unique set of superpowers. Musclebound spans issues 42–50 of the original serial and starts when Flex Mentallo, a superstrong hero inspired by Charles Atlas, seeks out the help of the Doom Patrol to battle a dark cabal, known as the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., hiding under the Pentagon. Later stories include a being that threatens to destroy a small town by bringing its inhabitants' sexual fantasies to life and a team of supervillains called the New New New Brotherhood of Dada, a nonsensical group that fights to rid the world of every piece of logic and rationality. Despite a different artist for each issue, the illustrations have a consistently realistic but sketchy style that gets cartoony when the plot calls for it. Doom Patrol is for older YAs looking for something a little bit different. Part satire and part reinvention of comics, this collection delivers tales that, despite being over a decade old, are still fresh and daring.—Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA
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Fans of Morrison's adventurous approach to superheroes in recent DC titles should see his earlier outre treatment of Doom Patrol. He recast a 1960s team of outcast heroes (DC's answer to Marvel's X-Men) as a volatile group of aberrant adventurers. One suffers from -multiple-personality disorder (64 distinct personas, no less, each with its own superpower); other members include an ape-faced adolescent girl who brings imaginary beings to life and a bandaged, radioactive hermaphrodite who contains a being made of negative energy. The sequences gathered here introduce Flex Mentallo, a Charles Atlas-derived bodybuilder whose muscle training imparted strange mental powers. He alerts the Doom Patrol to a menace lurking underneath the Pentagon, where the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. have based an effort to eliminate all eccentricities and irrationality. Later, the team visits once-quiet Happy Harbor, which has been overwhelmed by a dream transplant that unchains the townspeople's libidos. Mainstream comics have seen their share of experiments in the 15 years since these yarns emerged, but they remain freshly bizarre and impressively audacious. Gordon Flagg
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