Doom Patrol 2: The Painting that Ate Paris

Comic Info

Doom Patrol (2) #29

Reprints Doom Patrol (2) #26-34 (September 1989-July 1990).  Mr. Nobody has a plan and forms the Brotherhood of Dada to steal a magical painting.  When the painting consumes Paris, only Doom Patrol can save it from the threat of the Fifth Horseman living inside it.  Willoughby Kipling seeks out Doom Patrol when the Cult of the Unwritten Book tracks down the Fifth Window and threatens to release the Antigod.  Plus Robotman gets a new body but finds the body wants complete control…leading to a battle with Monsieur Malla and the Brain.

Written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Richard Case, Doom Patrol Volume 2:  The Painting that Ate Paris continues Morrison’s acclaimed run on the pre-Vertigo series (which helped bring about Vertigo).  Following Doom Patrol Volume 1:  Crawling from the Wreckage, Doom Patrol Volume 2:  The Painting that Ate Paris collects essential three different stories in the nine issue run.

Doom Patrol continues to show that Grant Morrison, especially at the time, was a unique voice in comics.  Though Alan Moore gets most of the credit of modernizing comics and really making them for adults, I think Morrison does a great job almost bridging the gap between Moore’s very adult titles and the super hero titles.

Doom Patrol (2) #34

Here, we get to see Doom Patrol interact a bit with the regular DC Universe by an appearance of the Justice League International in the title story “The Painting that Ate Paris”.  Morrison was also working on Animal Man at the time so it is fun to see a bit of a crossover of titles.  The Brotherhood of Dada (which was an updated version of the Brotherhood of Evil) becomes a thorn in the Doom Patrol’s side throughout Morrison’s Doom Patrol run which is nice since it seems like they have more potential than just seen in this volume.

The second storyline involving the Cult of the Unwritten Book introduces Willoughby Kipling who was created as an obvious stand in for John Constantine who DC wouldn’t allow Morrison to use.  Instead, Morrison created a duplicate and based him on Withnail & I’s Richard E. Grant character.  With Kipling and a story where Doom Patrol doesn’t really solve the problem (the universe is still being uncreated by the Antigod…just slowly), Morrison shows how the Doom Patrol is constantly just really lucky and almost a bit of a screw-up team.

The Monsieur Malla, the Brain, and Robotman’s new body story in Doom Patrol (2) #34 (July 1990) is a stand-alone which brings back Doom Patrol’s old enemies.  It primarily is a “funny” story and does provide some needed relief from the serious stories that have been involved in the comic thus far in Morrison’s run.

Doom Patrol continues to be a fun comic.  Here we get to see more of Morrison’s bizarreness, and as opposed to more recent comics he’s written, it is all new and all different from the period that it was written.  The series is a smart blend of sci-fi, horror, and super-heroes and continues to evolve.  Doom Patrol Volume 2:  The Painting that Ate Paris is followed by Doom Patrol Volume 3:  Down Paradise Way.

Related Links:

Doom Patrol Volume 1:  Crawling from the Wreckage

Doom Patrol Volume 3:  Down Paradise Way

Doom Patrol Volume 4:  Musclebound

Doom Patrol Volume 5:  Magic Bus

Doom Patrol Volume 6:  Planet Love

Flex Mentallo:  Man of Muscle Mystery