Thinking Hypothetically: The Silver Age Doom Patrol
/It's a lazy Saturday here at the John pad, so I'm going to engage in some thought-exercise. Specifically, I'm going to try to figure out just what kind of chance the members of the 1960s version of the Doom Patrol would have had if they'd applied for membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes.
I've changed things up a bit since the last time I did this: instead of arbitrarily deciding whether someone gets in or not I'm going to give everyone a hundred points, then subtract a varying amount based on any ways in which they don't qualify for Legion membership (being 25 might lose you 5 points, while being as old as time itself would bump it up to 20) However many points are left at the end of my brutal evaluation process will be the likelihood of their admittance into the LSH, percentage-style. And then, being a well-rounded nerd, I'm going to roll 2d10 to see if they get in.
Today we'll be doing things in reverse alphabetical order!
Robotman
Cliff Steele, former racecar driver, had his brain placed in a powerful robotic shell following a terrible accident. He's been the Martian Manhunter of the Doom Patrol, having been a member of every incarnation so far. And noone has yet stabbed him fatally with a fire spear!
Penalties
Over 18: -5 points
No powers/duplicate powers/device-based powers: -15 points (no matter how he swings it he's going to get dinged here. He's either an ordinary guy, a guy whose power is being made of metal [which is Ferro Lad's schtick] or is reliant on a robot body. No way someone isn't going to bring that up).
Likely to mouth off during the interview: -10 points
Not too bad, actually. The simplicity of Cliff's position is his strength here - he's a brain in a jar in a robot. If he applied post Sun Eater then there could hardly be any arguments against the usefulness of having a metal guy around. Plus, Robotman's cavalier attitude toward his body comes in handy with surprising frequency. I've seen him rip off his limbs to use as missiles or hurl himself into machinery to gum up the works with surprising frequency - he'd be worth having around for the novelty factor of seeing Mordru get a robo-leg upside the head during one of his soliloquies, if nothing else. And Brainiac 5 would have the fun of replacing his various parts. Try to tell me that he wouldn't enjoy that.
The only real problem is that Mr Steele here is a bit of a big mouth, with a penchant for insulting people at the slightest provocation. I reckon that there's a pretty good chance of him calling someone "something-puss" or "something-snoot" during the interview, with the "something" being replaced by physical idiosyncrasy. Chameleon Boy, for example, would be "pumpkin-snoot".
Still, he stands at an astonishing 70%. Let's get out the old dice and see... hooray! He's in!
Negative Man
Larry Trainor was a test pilot who flew too high one day and was filled with radiation. Now he himself is radioactive, necessitating that he wear specially-treated bandages in order to keep the people around him safe. On the plus side, he can release the super-fast energy being Negative Man from his body in order to do his bidding. On the minus: if Negative Man is away for more than sixty seconds, Larry will die.
Penalties
Over 18: -5 points
Drawback ("If your bandages were to slip off during a mission, you could irradiate and kill your teammates!"): -10 points
Another drawback ("What if Negative Man were away too long and you died? We'd never finish a mission that way."): -10 points
Very likely to mouth off during the interview: -20 points
Larry's got more bankable powers than Robotman but on the other hand has a heck of a lot more negative (ha!) traits. Barring the super-generalists like Superboy and Ultra Boy, the Legion is traditionally low on speddy types, so he's doing all right there, as well as with the radio energy that he is usually described as crackling with. A little fancy talk to downplay the inherent downsides to the Negative Man condition, maybe a bit of a mention of the whole pilot thing along with a hint that he'd only be too happy to fly the Legion Cruiser on missions (I'm sure that they need more pilots - half the damn team flies outside of the spaceship) and he's in.
Problem is, Larry's got a bigger mouth than Robotman. He starts more of their many fights and definitely starts the name-calling more than his share of the time. There's no way he gets through the judging process without calling someone a "tin-plated gavel jockey" or something equally nonsensical. There might even be a fist-fight.
It's an even fifty-fifty chance for Larry Trainor, folks. And... he doesn't get in! Larry ends up joining the Legion of Substitute Heroes for about two weeks before he punches out Stone Boy during an argument over a sandwich and is asked to leave.
Mento
Steve Dayton! Billionaire industrialist, philanthropist, inventor, super-hero! Steve Dayton, AKA Mento! Not really a member of the Doom Patrol, but associated heavily-enough with them that I include him here.
Penalties
Over 18: -5 points
Uses a device (the 'Mento helmet') to achieve his powers: -15 points (I knocked off 5 points because there's some indication that the helmet just amplifies some powers that he already possesses)
Somewhat likely to mouth off during the interview: -10 points
More than a little creepy: -10 points
Possible criminal record: -20 points
Mento is an interesting character but only occasionally a likeable one. Yes, he has telekinetic powers in addition to being in top athletic condition, but he's also a bit of an arrogant dick. Since he only really associated with the Doom Patrol in order to get into Elasti-Girl's pants I have to assume that that would be his motivation for applying for Legion Membership as well. The only question would be: who is he stalking? Shrinking Violet? Triplicate Girl? Princess Projectra? Whoever it was, it'd likely come up at the interview. Steve is a little more cool-headed than Larry or Robotman but is more than ready to rise to any baiting that he might encounter. Throw in the fact that he uses a device to gain his powers and the fact that he might have a record either for insider trading or for this sort of thing:
and his score is down to a measly 40 percent. Did he get in? Nope! Bitter, Steve takes to the drink, slowly losing his holdings to RJ Brande's corporate takeovers and racking up an impressive number of restraning orders from female super-heroes.
Elasti-Girl
Rita Farr was a movie star and (I think) an Olympic swimmer before she was exposed to strange gases and gained the power to grow or shrink at will. Later, she refined the ability so that she could grow only a part of herself at a time.
Penalties
Over 18: -5 points
Duplicate powers (Shrinking Violet, Colossal Boy): -20 points
Bit of a pushover: -5 points
Now Rita, she's a good fit for the Legion. She's got a fairly straightforward power, no major personality flaws and is quite good at the actual mechanics of super-heroing. As noted above, though, she can be pretty passive at times - two to four men at a time were usually squabbling over her in the old Doom Patrol comics and she was not terrific at doing much more than going with the flow. I reckon that if Superboy or someone started claiming that "If you suddenly expanded while we were all in an elevator or something then you could seriously harm all of us. Except me. Unless you're magic." then she might not do more than agree with him and slink out of the room. Or maybe not - she did show some spine from time to time.
Okay, assuming that she emphasized the usefulness of being able to grow parts of herself instead of the part where she has powers that are already represented on the Legion... 75 percent chance. Go, Elasti-Girl! And...aw. She didn't make it. Reverting to her sex-object roots, Rita went on to date Sun Boy, Matter-Eater Lad and Chemical King in quick succession before settling down with Kid Psycho in a little split-level Moon Dome.
The Chief
Niles Caulder is the genius behind the Doom Patrol: the man who placed Cliff Steele's brain into the Robotman body, who coordinates the Patrol's activities and who creates all of the scientific devices that they require to fight monsters and other weirdies.
Penalties
Over 50: -10 points
Duplicate powers (Brainiac 5, Rond Vidar): -15 points
Drawback ("Dude, you're an old man in a wheelchair."): -20 points
Aloof: -5 points
The Chief is going to have a hard time winning over the Legion. Put aside the fact that he's older than most of their parents or that he's used to being in charge of a team and is likely to put people off with his attitude - the guy's in a wheelchair due to supervillain misadventure. It's highly likely that Wildfire is going to walk over and tip him onto the floor as an illustration of why they're going to reject him. Of course, Niles Caulder doesn't roll around in just any old wheelchair, and is likely to pull what I like to call a Val Armorr Manouvre: beating up a Legionnaire to prove that you can cut it in the Legion. In Niles' case, there's a giant mechanical arm in the back of the thing for smacking people around, plus a machine gun in the arm.
Of course, the Legion already has a couple of guys whose claims to fame are their big brains. Do they want someone who specializes in Sixties-style mad science cluttering up their lab? Let's see: another no. Well, don't worry about old Niles. He gathers together a rag-tag team of heroes like The Mess and Arm Fall-Off Boy and sets out to prove that they're more than their freakish deformities. Then, years later, Grant Morrison writes their adventures. The Mess becomes a hermaphroditic comet with some pretty interesting theories about popular radio!
Beast Boy
Look everyone, it's Garfield "Gar" Logan! Given an experimental serum when dying of a rare illness, he turned green and gained the ability to turn into various animals! If you grew up during the Eighties or Nineties, you might know him better as Changeling!
Penalties
Kind of likely to mouth off during interview: -15 points
Power duplication (Chameleon Boy): -10 points
Same name as a dead guy: -5 points
Bonus
Great hair: +5 points
Beast Boy is a bit of a troubled lad as a result of being orphaned at a young age and then entrusted to a scheming uncle who was interested in his inheritance and nothing else, but the structure of a group like the Legion might be just what he needs. It has to be better than him hanging around with the Doom Patrol, for heavens' sake - two grown men yelling at him and calling him names in Sixties lingo can't help his self-esteem. As long as he doesn't antagonize the Legion members like he did the original Teen Titans, he'll be fine. His powers are only kind of like Chameleon Boy's, after all (especially if Reep can grow an imagination) and I'm sure that Brainiac 5 would like to see another green face around the Clubhouse. After all, it's not like he's a token or anything - surely the Legion can have more than one guy of a certain colour at a time. Right?
Beast Boy has the same name as the deceased semi-villainous former member of the Heroes of Lallor, but the creepiness of that is offset by his great hair, and by the fact that he retained that hair, well...
... that's right. He kept his wicked mop-top while he was in animal form. How could the Legion resist that? 75 percent chance of getting in and... he gets in!
Robotman and Beast Boy are our newest members of Johnathan's Possible Legion of Maybe Super-Heroes, who need a better name! Feel free to suggest one!
Until next time, mes amis.
Howdy howdy howdy. This is Johnathan and I have been problem solving. You see, I used to arrange my comics according to my general "save the best for last" policy, but found myself running out of steam with regards to the ol' reviews by the time I reached the end of the pile. In effect, I was writing a whole lot more about the comics that I wasn't as excited for and sometimes barely anything about the ones that I was all worked up about. Unacceptable, says I, so I nerded up and shuffled this week's pile and deployed some 
This comic's had plenty of previews and teasers and stuff scattered around - it seems like there's a new one every time I go to the 
I was torn over whether to buy this or not, but ultimately could not resist Lockjaw's mournful eyes. I am glad that I am powerless against dog manipulation, in this case. Heck, I'm not even out half a sandwich.
Last second Battle for the Cowl tie-in! Catman, Bane and Ragdoll play Batman for the evening! There's lots of pretty at-night lighting and crazy fighting in this one, plus Ragdoll being creepy in a Robin outfit.
I was very fond of Legends of the Dark Knight back in the day - it was home to some of my favourite Batman yarns ever ("Going Sane", woo!) and was some of the most approachable Batman around during the mid-Nineties. Therefore, I'm happy that Batman Confidential is starting to come into its own as a successor to that fine series. What with the Wrath stuff a while ago and the King Tut arc that just finished, Batman's rogues gallery is getting some neato new blood. This story might do the same - let's see how the second issue turns out.
Ugh. Blech. Blah.
Not that I, musical plebian that I am, had any idea who Gerard Way was before I got that Free Comic Book Day Umbrella Academy preview a couple of years ago (or was it last year? Curse my human memory), but he sure does stand as an object lesson in not assuming that a famous person is going to suck when they decide to try something wildly different from what they became famous for. The Umbrella Academy is good times! Dysfunctional super-family with neato powers and wildly eccentric physical appearances good times, crazy villains with world-wrecking plots good times, Eiffel Tower on the Moon thanks to the foiled machinations of cryogenic zombie Gustave Eiffel good times. Pretty friggin’ good good times, is what I’m trying to get at. It’s not just a bunch of good weird ideas either - there’s some damn fine writing in there as well, both in terms of dialogue and plot. I was going to say that I liked the first series (arc? Volume? Dammit, this thing’s numbered 12 in the indicia. WHAT’S GOING ON?) a bit better, but on reflection I think I’m just upset about the Time Trapper being back and taking it out on stories involving time travel. Number Five’s origin a few issues ago was terrific, for example, so yeah: I like ‘em the same (a lot).
Well, awright. This is another comic that I’ve seen previewed around a lot lately and the previews did not steer me wrong. The story is concerned with Tom Taylor, whose father wrote a series of thirteen Harry Potter-esque novels with him as the protagonist and then promptly disappeared. Tom now makes a living appearing as his fictional counterpart at conventions and bookstores, while simultaneously trying to distance himself from the whole thing. And then weird stuff starts happening.
Hey, another mystery! One deepened by the fact that I have no idea what Nemesis is all about just now or when exactly he appeared in Final Crisis - in one of the side stories that I missed? Final Crisis: Submit? Final Crisis: Insist? Final Crisis: Soft-Shoe? I have no idea, nor have I been reading Wonder Woman lately (for no good reason, especially given how much I enjoy Gail Simone), nor Checkmate nor anywhere else that he might be appearing. How he might have ended up in a comic that reads like The Prisoner: The New Class is a question that might require some homework on my part, or maybe not. I remember liking him back in my Suicide Squad reading days, so maybe that’s enough. Speaking of which, Count Vertigo’s in this book too, along withCameron Chase from, uh, Chase and a lot of references to Jack Kirby’s Omac. Well, it looks good and the first issue setup is done - it’s starting out confusing so it’s either going to come to a satisfying resolution or end in a jumbled mess like some comics about wheelchair-bound computer nerds that I could mention. Let’s watch and see, shall we?
