Review by Win Wiacek

In a bizarrely synchronistic moment, the summer of 1963 saw the release of two offbeat superhero titles in which a genius confined to a wheelchair gathered freaks and outcasts. Both initially came to an end after a few years, but although a revived X-Men conquered the world, there are some who prefer the Doom Patrol.

Arnold Drake collaborated with Bob Haney on an origin story bringing together Elasti-Girl, Negative Man and Robotman under the auspices of Professor Niles Caulder, also known as the Chief. They were a startling squad of champions with thematic roots still firmly planted in the B-movie monster films of the era that had not-so-subtly informed the parent comic My Greatest Adventure.

After an origin story also introducing perennial villain General Immortus, we move to ‘The Nightmare Maker’, combining everyday disaster response – saving a damaged submarine – with a nationwide plague of monsters created by war criminal Josef Kreutz.

Thereafter solely scripted by Drake, a devious espionage ploy outs the Chief in ‘Three Against the Earth!’, leading the team to believe Rita is a traitor. ‘The Night Negative Man Went Berserk!’ spotlights the living mummy as a radio astronomy experiment interrupts Negative Man’s return to Larry Trainor’s body: pitching the pilot into a coma and sending the ebony energy being on a global spree of destruction.

‘The Return of General Immortus’ has ancient Babylonian artefacts leading the squad to the eternal malefactor, who turns the tables to take control of Robotman. Even though his comrades soon save him, Immortus escapes with the greatest treasures of all time. ‘The Furies from 4,000 Miles Below’ introduces monstrous subterranean horrors fuelled by nuclear forces.

‘The Brotherhood of Evil’ are an assemblage of international terrorist super-criminals led by French genius-in-a-jar The Brain. He’s backed up by his greatest creation, a super-intelligent talking gorilla dubbed Monsieur Mallah. Diametrically opposed and with some undisclosed back story amping up tension, the teams first cross swords after Brotherhood applicant Mr. Morden steals Rog: a giant robot the Chief has constructed for the US military.

Next ‘The Terrible Secret of Negative Man’ is revealed after Brotherhood femme fatale Madame Rouge seeks to seduce Larry. When the Brain’s unstoppable mechanical army invades the city, Trainor is forced to remove his bandages and let his lethal radiations disrupt their transmissions.

An occasional series of short solo adventures kicked off with ‘Robotman Fights Alone’. Here Cliff is dispatched to a Pacific island in search of an escaped killer, only to walk into a devastating series of WWII Japanese booby-traps. All mysteries surrounding him are finally revealed in ‘The Incredible Origin of the Chief’. A blistering drama tells how brilliant but impoverished student Niles Caulder suddenly receives unlimited funding from an anonymous patron interested in his researches on extending life.

The volume closes with a duplicitous scientist who devises a means to transform himself into ‘The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Menace’.

Everything is beautifully illustrated by Bruno Premiani, a classical artist already in his late fifties when he began drawing the comics he’s most remembered for. More great adventure follows in Volume 2, although the material from both is now more readily available in thick paperback as either Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Volume 1, or Doom Patrol: The World’s Strangest Heroes. In oversized hardback it’s found in Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Omnibus. If you can track it down, the stories are reprinted in crisp black and white in the first Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol.