Raving Review for Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol

Book 1: Crawling from the Wreckage

Before I start telling you how much I like the Doom Patrol and why, I first have to admit something to myself: I am not much of a comic book reader. Growing up, I always liked the idea of collecting comics, but lacked the financial means. As an adult (and still lacking the financial means...silly art career), I have always found comics, particularly American superhero comics, intimidating to jump into. Thus, everything I know about any standard superhero was gleaned from their Saturday morning cartoon.

Recently (relatively) I made a friend who is well steeped in the comic culture and has begun versing me in how to jump into comic reading and collecting. When I asked him where a good place to start was, he rattled off a number of titles and mentioned The Doom Patrol. Which he immediately took back because The Doom Patrol is not something you recommend to someone lightly. Then, lucky for me, he changed his mind and decided to lend me the first two books from the Grant Morrison run* of The Doom Patrol.

I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am that he did that. The Doom Patrol is to superheroes what my group of friends was to high school. After everyone else is sorted out into their cliques, the nerd, the jocks, the goths, etc. we were everyone that was left over. We were a rag-tag group who had come together only because we didn't fit in anywhere else, which was pretty much the only thing we had in common. That also made us unequivocally weird.

The series begins normal superhero-ey enough, there is a global threat and only a select group of individuals is equipped to deal with it. Sure, the threat is a dimension based on a philosophical paradox and the entire group of heroes is made up either hospital or mental patients, but the beginning seems regular enough. Somewhere between that story and the end of the second book, there is a slow, spiraling decent into madness that I didn't even notice until I pulled away for a moment and realized that absolutely none of it made sense at all. (and for my bonnie William, there is an entire sect of villains that speaks in anagram)

I marveled at the writing and artistic mastery that could have lead me down the path into complete non sequitur insanity without me even noticing. It is unlike anything else you are ever likely to come across, a grand fusion of 21st century art ideas, storytelling and superheroes that shouldn't work, but does. I strongly encourage anyone who has ever been an outsider, a weird one, or takes being called a creeper as a compliment to read The Doom Patrol. I know you won't regret it.

*American comics are grouped together in "runs" that are named after the writer (not unlike Japanese history periods being named after the ruling emperor). Since many characters have been written and drawn by a number of people since their inception, readers and fans often refer to particular runs of a comic being their favorite or their least favorite. Since the version of The Doom Patrol I read was written by Grant Morrison, it would be referred to as "Grant Morrison's run" or "Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol". At least as far as I understand the terminology. Feel free to correct me in the comments if you know better.

Tomorrow's Post: Why art is expensive.