Review by Win Wiacek

A second collection of creepy costumed dramas covers the Doom Patrol over 1965 and 1966, with Arnold Drake scripting for superbly skilled artist Bruno Premiani, with Bob Brown occasionally filling in. Premiani is the perfect vehicle to squeeze every nuance of comedy and pathos from Drake’s captivatingly involved and grimly light-hearted scripts, always proffering a tantalisingly believable world for the outcast heroes to strive in.

This collection opens with a two-part epic as frantic investigations reveal a global wave of insanity is being 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 in the following story, transforming humans into crystal zombies, and heralding the return of super-rich wannabee and self-made superhero Mento. The net result is a stunning showdown free-for-all on the moon.

Mento, or at least millionaire Steve Dayton’s appearances increase here. Introduced in Volume 1 intending to marry former movie star Rita Farr, now Elasti-Girl, it was disgust at first sight on her part. Towards the end of this collection, though, there’s a change of heart.

Instrumental in that is the groundbreaking first appearance of shapeshifting juvenile delinquent “The Beast-Boy”. The green kid burgles then saves the team with his incredible ability to become any animal he can imagine, but it’s discovered orphan Gar Logan is a child being slowly swindled out of his inheritance by his ruthless guardian Nicholas Galtry. Beast Boy’s tragic origin features, and a series of back-up strips explore Robotman’s early days after his accident and subsequent resurrection. Attention then turns to the early days of Negative Man, when fellow self-imposed outcast Dr. Drew draws the former pilot into a scheme to destroy the human species which had cruelly excluded them both.

Negative Man also features in the inventive ‘60 Sinister Seconds’ drawn by Brown, in which he must find and make safe four atomic bombs in different countries… all within one minute!

Because Drake and Premiani’s Doom Patrol was so out of tune with any other superhero series of the era its quirky inventiveness holds an appeal to this day. Frustratingly, though, DC once again called a halt to the reprints before completing the series. The whole run is available as Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Omnibus, while these stories are reprinted in crisp black and white over two volumes of Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol if you can track them down. They’re also in hardcover, primarily in The Doom Patrol Archives Volume 3. More recently most of this content featured in The World’s Strangest Heroes.