Doom Patrol 6: Planet Love

Comic Info

Doom Patrol (2) #63

Reprints Doom Patrol (2) #58-63 and Doom Force Special #1 (July 1992-January 1993).  The battle for Earth’s survival is on…and only Doom Patrol knows it.  The Candlemaker is loose on Earth and using the Chief’s virtually indestructible robot body to wreak havoc on Manhattan.  It is up to Doom Patrol once again to stop the madness that no one can see and not everyone will walk away from the battle unscathed.

Written by Grant Morrison with artwork by Richard Case, Sean Phillips, Steve Pugh, Ian Montgomery, Paris Cullins, Duke Mighten, and Ken Steacy, Doom Patrol Volume 6:  Planet Love wraps up Grant Morrison’s acclaimed run on the DC series which has since fallen under DC’s Vertigo flag.  Following Doom Patrol Volume 5:  Magic Bus, the volume also collects Grant Morrison’s one-shot parody series Doom Force Special #1 (July 1992).

Doom Patrol is a great team.  The weirdness of the flawed characters has always led to some X-Men comparisons, but I find Doom Patrol to be a completely different entity.  With Grant Morrison’s turn on the series, Doom Patrol not only took on the idea that comic books were more than just for kids, but that they could be more complex in storytelling than many books or novels.

Morrison didn’t not however forget that Doom Patrol was a comic book.  The enemies and actions of the book are primarily comic book based, but with an adult audience in mind.  The characters talk more like action heroes in an R-Rated film than the “Holy Smokes, Batman” DC characters that peppered older readers’ memories.  Granted, other writers at the time were doing the same thing, but Morrison’s unique take was one of the best.

Doom Force Special #1

The series wraps up here and could have ended (DC kept it going with a new writing team and the comic soon officially fell under its new imprint of Vertigo).  Here, however, we see the final throwdown of Doom Patrol, and it really feels like an ending.  It is sad to let the characters go and Morrison does a good job making you feel like no one is safe throughout this volume.

Also included in this run is the fun stab at ’90s comics in Doom Force Special #1.  Image Comics had just launched and unlike Marvel and DC, they were more about artists and appearance rather than writing.  When Doom Force Special #1 was released it might have been harder to see through this glossy shiny view that Image had created, but now reading Doom Force Special #1 is fun since you can see what the Image bubble did to the comic market (and I love the big “Which of these heroes is going to die” pointing right at Shasta on the cover).

Doom Patrol was a great series and never has reached the peaks it reached during Morrison’s take on the character.  I keep trying to read new Doom Patrol series, but find them lacking in comparison (especially trying to shoehorn them into the regular DC universe).  Someday, I hope that some other writer will get Doom Patrol back into something fun and readable, but until then I recommend just getting Morrison’s books to read, and reread…and reread.

Related Links:

Doom Patrol 1:  Crawling from the Wreckage

Doom Patrol 2:  The Painting that Ate Paris

Doom Patrol 3:  Down Paradise Way

Doom Patrol 4:  Musclebound

Doom Patrol 5:  Magic Bus

Flex Mentallo:  Man of Muscle Mystery