Review by Win Wiacek

Continuing from Volume 1, this hardcover supplies the second year of the Doom Patrol’s strange history, courtesy of writer Arnold Drake and artist Bruno Premiani. We pick up with ‘The Private War of Elasti-Girl’. The Miss of Many Sizes uses unsuspected or acknowledged detective skills to track down a missing soldier and reunite him with his adopted son. ‘The Enemy Within the Doom Patrol’ then sees shape-shifting Madame Rouge infiltrate the team and turn them against each other.

‘Mento – the Man who Split the Doom Patrol’ introduces multi-millionaire Steve Dayton. Used to getting whatever he wants, he creates a superhero persona solely to woo and wed Rita Farr, Elasti-Girl, former film beauty lest we forget. With such ambiguous motivations he was a radical character for the times, but at least his psycho-kinetic helmet proves a big help in defeating the plastic robots of grotesque alien invader Garguax.

The team face a temporal terrorist in ‘The Sinister Secret of Dr. Tyme’ again featuring the abrasive Mento, after which ‘Showdown on Nightmare Road’ features the Brain’s latest monstrous scheme: being transplanted inside Robotman’s skull whilst poor Cliff is dumped into a horrific beast.

Creature-feature veteran Bob Brown stepped in to illustrate ‘The Nightmare Fighters’ as an eastern mystic’s uncanny abilities are swiftly debunked by solid American science. Premiani returned to render back-up solo-feature ‘The Chief… Stands Alone’, wherein Caulder eschews his deputies’ aid to bring down bird-themed villain the Claw with a mixture of wit, nerve and weaponised wheelchair. ‘Menace of the Turnabout Heroes’ discloses the Chief’s disastrous effort to cure Rita and Larry, resulting in switched powers. Naturally, that’s the very moment Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man picks for a return bout.

‘The Day the World Went Mad!’ requires frantic investigations into a global wave of insanity. Unusually for the times, Drake has this caused by a deadly alliance of old foes the Brotherhood of Evil, alien tyrant Garguax and undying terrorist General Immortus. Cue last-ditch heroics to save everything, before that sinister syndicate attacks Earth again, transforming humans into crystal zombies, spectacularly resulting in ‘The War Against the Mind Slaves’. It heralds the return of super-rich wannabee and self-made superhero Mento. The net result is a stunning showdown free-for-all on the moon.

Somehow the exploits of Doom Patrol still seem just a bit more authentic than the usual cape and costume crowd. More great adventure follows in Volume 3, 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.