Doom Patrol: Difference between revisions

[[Not Quite Dead|It didn't quite stick]]. Over a decade later, the team was relaunched, with all new characters reminiscent of the older ones... and it turned out Robotman survived because he was everyone's favorite anyway. The second version of the Patrol appeared in ''"Showcase''" #94-96 (August-December, 1977). Sales were not good enough to get them a new title, but they went on to become regulars of the DC universe, receiving guest appearances in titles featuring [[Supergirl]], the [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]], and [[Superman (Comic Book)|Superman]].

''"Doom Patrol''" vol. 2 was launched in October, 1987. Eventually, most of original team was revealed to have been resurrected in some way or alive all along, and the new book added a number of other characters which colored within the superhero lines and didn't quite set the world on fire. Then came [[Grant Morrison (Creator)|Grant Morrison]], who dedicated them more specifically to fighting "weird" crime and disasters. His first [[Story Arc]], "Crawling from the Wreckage", built up the weirdness of the comic to extremes and delved into some adult subject matter. There were scissormen from imaginary worlds, the Brotherhood of [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|Dada]], the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E and a friendly "[[Genius Loci|transvestite street]]" named, well...Danny the Street. Just in case you were wondering, {{spoiler|he dresses like a boulevard}}. No, really. And then it got even weirder. He left and, with the switchover of the book to [[Vertigo Comics]], Rachel Pollack, more well known as a tarot expert and prose fiction writer, took over. She had much the same approach, but the book did not retain its popularity and it got cancelled. The title ended with issue #87 (February, 1995).

Since then there have been a few subsequent revivals which reverted the series back to a traditional superhero comic. John Arcudi wrote an unsuccessful series turning them into Corporation superheroes. John Byrne did a [[Continuity Reboot]] that was ill-fated to begin with and [[Canon Dis Continuity|downright ignored by other DC books of the time.]] It eventually ended with the [[Crisis Crossover]] ''[[Infinite Crisis]]'', which undid most of Byrne's changes and restored the team's history. Byrne did finally manage to bring original member (the ''only'' one who had yet to return) Elasti-Girl [[Back From the Dead]] , though. After an appearance in the ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' comic and [[Teen Titans (Animationanimation)|Animated Series]], their popularity resurged enough for them to get their own new series in 2009, written by Keith Giffen (of ''JLI'' fame) who was practically begging for the position.

The team got [[A Day in Thethe Limelight]] in ''[[Batman: theThe Brave And The Bold (Animation)|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'', fighting Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man and General Zahl.

* [[All Just a Dream]]: Used as a [[Framing Device]] during the [[Grant Morrison (Creator)|Grant Morrison]] run to introduce an [[Affectionate Parody]] ([[Pastiche]], really) of '60's ''[[Fantastic Four]]''.

* [[Brain In Aa Jar]]: Monsieur Mallah's partner, The Brain, of course. Cliff, too, as he's just a brain in a robot body.

* [[Cursed Withwith Awesome]]: The whole point of the original team; each had a horrible disfigurement, or some other way in which their powers were supposedly as much a curse as a blessing. The problem is, this wasn't really true of Elasti-Girl; [[Word of God]] says this is the reason she was the only member of the original team not brought back for Morrison's run.

* [[Follow the Leader]]: At one time the Patrol acted as a school... [[X -Men|for young mutants]]. The two groups debuted within months of each other, however, not nearly long enough for one to be based on the other. That being said, there are also some very clear parallels between the original Doom Patrol and the [[Fantastic Four]], who came first by a much wider margin.

* [[Menstrual Menace]]: Dorothy Spinner's first menstruation causes her imaginary friends to try to force her to wear "red, bloody shoes." The comparisons to ''[[The Wizard of Oz (Filmfilm)|The Wizard of Oz]]'' are all intentional, too.

* [[New Powers Asas the Plot Demands]]: Crazy Jane. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in that she has 64 separate personalities with 64 separate powers. Not all the personalities are nice, either. One of the Doom Patrol's enemies, The Quiz, also has "Every power you haven't thought of," literally, so in order to fight her, people have to constantly think of and/or shout out a long list of all known superpowers. Unfortunately nobody can ever think of every superpower so the Quiz has yet to be defeated in a conventional battle (that we get to see).

* A species of [[Retcon]] yet to be assigned taxonomy, inverting [[Remember the New Guy?]] and related to [[Multiple Choice Past]], in which Rachel Pollack retcons Crazy Jane out of existence through the introduction of a character called "The False Memory", who displays Crazy-Jane-like powers plus the ability to create false memories, and who instructs the protagonists to "remember me in the Doom Patrol all these years". The reference to "false memory syndrome" appears to [[Writer Onon Board|express Pollack's disgust]] with Jane's [[Dark and Troubled Past]]. This was such a widely decried dick move that Pollack [[Lying Creator|denied that this was her intent]].

** A more obvious, if [[Mind Screw|wild]] example is the recontextualization of the group's origin by [[Grant Morrison (Creator)|Grant Morrison]] at the end of his run.

* [[Two Guys and Aa Girl]]: The original team, with Robotman and Negative Man as the two guys and Elasti-Girl as the girl

* [[Welcome to The Real World]]: It is heavily implied that the final issue of Grant Morrison's run takes place in the real world. Aside from the fact that this world apparently has no superheroes, it also has the same colour scheme as {{spoiler|the last issue of Morrison's [[Animal Man (Comic Book)|Animal Man]]}}, which explicitly takes place in "our" world.