Thoughts on 2000s Doom Patrol (SPOILERS)

General Discussion Comic Books
1

Here are my thoughts regarding the 3 different “Doom Patrol” books that came out in the 2000s:

2001 (John Arcudi) - Ultimately, this was underwhelming. Of the 3, this one is the cleanest in terms of how it connects to past series. I’ll admit that the idea of having a brand new team is appealing, but none of the new characters are like-able or memorable. They don’t even feel like they should even be on this team. Cliff is decent though, I’ll give it that. Also, this series ended basically on a cliffhanger that never got resolved.

2004 (John Byrne) - This completely relaunched Doom Patrol, spinning out of a story from JLA. This means that none of the other series were canon anymore, including Grant Morrison’s run. While I was annoyed at that, I tried to go in with an open mind. But…I couldn’t really get into it. The new characters were fine, better than the ones form the last series, but ultimately not memorable. Oddly enough, I was interested in Cliff and Rita having something of a relationship. Granted, their first kiss while time travelling was certainly not ideal, but I kinda liked the idea of them together. If only it was in a better book. Other than that, nothing noteworthy here either.

2009 (Keith Giffen) - Following “Infinite Crisis”, it was revealed that all past Doom Patrol runs are now canon. Making this really confusing. I still don’t understand how we went from Rebis going off into space to the Negative SPirit literally being the soul of Larry taking over the body of someone already dead. And why do they still care for The Chief? If I learned that my life was manipulated by someone for his own gain and agenda, I would lock him away and never see him again. Anyway, this series had it’s small moments between the OG 3, Cliff, Larry, and RIta. It was nice having Crazy Jane and Danny back. There were some interesting story ideas that if done with better writers could prove really worthwhile. But I have no idea what Mr. Nobody’s endgame was. Speaking of which, I will admit it is funny that the final issue ends with Mr. Nobody simply giving up because he was told about Flashpoint happening.

So yea…there ya go.

2

I’m a Keith Giffen guy, so I loved his run. I thought it a strength that it pulled from all previous runs. That was Grant Morrison’s attitude on Batman and in Death Metal, I think it is Scott Snyder’s attitude on everything.

It allowed the biggest sandbox in which to play, to be able to celebrate not only the original silver age Doom Patrol, but also the venerated Grant Morrison era, as well as swimming in the best of every other era.

3

I love nearly anything by John Byrne, so of course I lean towards his book.

I’d rank the '00s volumes of Doom Patrol as follows:

● Byrne

● Giffen
● Arcudi

Speaking of Doom Patrol in that period, a couple of lesser-known but very fun appearances of their’s can be found in:

● Batman: The Brave and The Bold #7
● The Brave and The Bold (2007) #8

4

I only read Byrne’s run, I’ll have to check the other books out. I’m a huge fan of Morrison’s run and the old My Greatest Adventure stuff.