Doom Patrol #1

When I picked up this issue, John, the owner of the comic shop I frequent, said, "Good choice - this is going to be a sleeper hit."

Of course, I've long been a fan of the Doom Patrol, so it was an easy call for me, especially since the comic includes a Metal Men back-up.

The comic seems to pick up where John Byrne's recent series left off, centered around the original trio - Robot Man, Negative Man and Elasti-Woman. There's no apparent connection to the Vertigo series, or to the original Silver Age version of the team. But I suspect Byrne won't be happy with the events in the first part of this issue.

I wasn't too crazy about it, either. Writer Keith Giffen provides a dark, nasty and grim story that devotes most of its time to examining the individual team members (to be fair, there is some humor in evidence).

In the original incarnation, the Doom Patrol members were troubled but heroic - an odd family of sorts. This time around, so far, they're just odd, they don't seem to like each other much, and they're frankly not terribly interesting.

The art by Matthew Clark is pretty good, though some of the action scenes were difficult to follow.

So all I can say is: I think my comic shop owner was wrong.

But wait, what about the Metal Men story? Well, all those things I said about the Doom Patrol? This story is the opposite.

It's also written by Giffen (along with J.M. Dematteis) with art by Kevin Maguire. It's a light-hearted romp very much in the style of that team's work on the classic Justice League America.

There's lots of humor, great art, a breezy story - it's like a breath of fresh air after the grim world of the Doom Patrol. When it comes to this issue, split between Doom Patrol and Metal Men, I vote for more of the latter and less of the former.

Grade:
Doom Patrol: C+
Metal Men A-