Every time I think something would never get made outside of comics, the world proves me wrong.
What They Say:
The team — tired of being stuck in Doom Manor — decides to visit the local town while The Chief is away; the seemingly harmless field trip leads to some grave consequences, including an encounter with the mysterious and powerful Mr. Nobody.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When the DC Universe streaming service was announced I was all on board with it. Their slate of titles definitely had me interested and seeing the potential of a whole-house approach over time as everything gets pulled together is appealing. But I was also hopeful because you would see properties that wouldn’t click or work well through broadcast networks that could be explored here, especially with a miniseries approach for some that I’m still hoping we’ll see. Doom Patrol, however, was not a property I was expecting. When we had an episode devoted to them in Titans, knowing that most of it would show up in its own series, I was still in shock. I read the original run in bulk way back when as my first experience was with the Grant Morrison books, which is what defines this run. At the time, it was easy to buy large runs of older Doom Patrol books so I got to have the discovery of the much older works with the new.
This season, released weekly, is now underway and it’s the kind of totally offbeat work where I can completely see them pulling in so many different elements as it goes on. What I wasn’t surprised by was that the first episode essentially serves as several vignettes to introduce the characters to us, touching on their origins. It’s the kind of thing that you’d get in a comic in a first issue where it wraps it all around with the villain narrating his view of them, exploring their connections in the present and flashing back to the past. And while to some degree that may not be exciting to some people, it serves as a strong foundation so we know who these characters are right out of the gate. And we get twists within it that help to shape our understanding of them from the initial view to how they are at the end of it.
The general premise is that this is a what if the X-Men were actually weird. And I mean weird weird. The group is brought together by Dr. Niles Caulder, a mysterious man of great intelligence that has a curiosity for the not normal. The story her runs across the decades with an interesting view of how ageless these characters are because of what happened to them. It gives it a wider breadth as we see how apart and separate from the world that they’ve been for decades and how now that they’re coming together in such a slow way can reshape their approach to the world. I think the central focus of this episode is on Cliff Steele, aka Robotman, a race care driver who does and has his brain saved. He’s put into this clunky body and spends decades getting back on track since the accident in 1989. Voiced by Brendan Fraser and with him doing the flashback scenes, we’re more invested in his story across it because of the loss of family, the passage of time, and the complete out of body experience as he tries to figure out a path forward.
We also spent time with Rita Farr, a semi-famous actress from the ’50s who ended up ingesting something mysterious in the water while on a shoot in Africa. The accident has turned her into what will be known as Elasti-girl but she’s struggling with control over her form, which often sags and falls apart under stress. With her view of herself as a classic beauty shaped by her Hollywood time, there’s so much tension within her in how she tries to present and carry herself that I almost find her more tragic because she hasn’t come to the acceptance Cliff has of his situation. Rita also makes for the more outward action element of the episode when she loses complete control toward the end and goes all blob-like, tearing up the town and getting everyone else to act. The sadness of her in not being in control and just wanting to go home really strikes a chord in showcasing her mindset.
One of my favorite characters is Larry Trainor, aka the Negative Man, who see as an ace test pilot in the 60’s that was on track for the Mercury Program. His path is a little simple but familiar in a flight that goes back when he goes through a floating energy field during a session that causes him to crash and for his body to be burned beyond recognition. This is a tough role for Matt Bomer in some ways because his time in the present is all done up in rags to hide his entire head while wearing sunglasses. But he damn well pulls it off, and that outfit that would look awful otherwise, because there’s a really strong confidence and ease about him even as he just wants to hide away. The fact that he and the others have been staying out of town for decades now because of how much of an outsider they feel says a lot about their personalities. We only get a brief look at his powers toward the end, which allows him to separate from his body in energy form, but it’s definitely well done.
But it’s Crazy Jane that I’m most excited for because this character made for so many great moments in the comics years ago. Coming across as a bit of an punk outsider type, she’s got sixty-four distinct personalities and they all have unique powers, which really does make her one of the most gifted powered people out there. She’s got the rough personality and youth to be real trouble and she causes plenty when she storms the house to hang out for a while and convinces everyone to go into town. Which, naturally, causes them all to face certain things about themselves, their pasts, and what they really want. It’s nicely done and the episode as a whole really does tie a lot of things together even while spending good chunks of it focused on a single character and their story. It’s not hard to weave stories together like this and introduce a lot but it is hard to do it in a way that really makes it engaging and leaving you wanting more.
If there’s a weak point its in that we don’t get enough time with the villain of the season. The show actually leads with this as we see a man named Morden in the ‘50s in Paraguay meeting with a Nazi mad scientist that puts him through a process – willingly – to become something more. The man, Morden, becomes Mr. Nobody, which was a highly fascinating character in the comics that basically looks like abstract art. Huge kudos to the creative here that found a way to do it that’s engaging here and with a role that should let Alan Tudyk, an actor that I really enjoy, be able to do some really crazy stuff as it goes on. He’s basically looking to screw with Caulder for reasons still to be fully revealed but the nature of an existing bond is intriguing and that he knows all about the team means he’s going to really play with them well while they try to figure out who he is – all while learning to be reluctant heroes.
In Summary:
I get the sense that Doom Patrol won’t be for everyone but I also know that a lot more people are going to like it now compared to ten years ago. The “acceptance” of the really unusual has grown from TV audiences and this show will definitely play into that, especially when we get introduced later on to characters like Dorothy and Danny, which has me excited. This opener is traditional in some ways but it also leans into the weird hero side that we don’t get from most of the usual mainstream leading characters. I really like all the characters that they’re using (and looking forward to seeing Cyborg in the second episode), the actors are great and I love that Timothy Dalton stepped into this world for something that feels like a weird Penny Dreadful side-role, and just the overall tone and vibe from it. It is still a little too slow in the same way that Titans suffers from, but I’m hopeful that as it gets rolling that each episode will have some good forward momentum to it.
Sadly, because of the way I have to watch this, I’ll be doing a full series review instead of weekly because I’m committed to watching it with family every other week due to their schedule.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: DC Universe
