2 out of 5

“Waaaaay!” he rumbled, fist shaken toward the sky, “You won’t get away with this.”  This last declaration was whispered with dedication, affirmed in his Rightness.

Alas, ‘right’ is objective, and glancing at the internet’s swath of opinions, Way would get away with his Doom Patrol revamp, simply by being, like, random and referential.  And that’s not me inserting too much bias: most of the reviews I checked out admitted that the series’ first arc doesn’t make all that much sense.  Uh huh.  Yippee.

I was pretty interested in writer Gerard Way’s in-continuity Vertigo-esque line, Young Animal.  I liked Umbrella Academy (though a reread might change that…), and forgave Killjoys as a remnant of his emo lifestyle as lead of My Chemical Romance.  So his next project, at that point, was still on my to-read list.  As I sifted through, and was disappointed by, the YA titles, I saved Doom Patrol for last as it was the only solo-Way penned title, and seemed like a logical follow up to Umbrella.

The first issue wasn’t bad.  Way was certainly going for Morrison, following his same getting-the-band-back-together approach, with plenty of nods to the Grant run and tons of randomness…  But there was the rub: few do random quite like Grant, because he rarely is random.  His DP style had its roots in Dadaism, and the elements he included generally supported the outcast vibe of the title.  Fine, Way is going for a “cooler” vibe – rather ditching the outcast thing – but the lack of theme to the excess bits and bobs threatened to be a distraction.  Still, first issue – introducing ambulance driver Casey, and having seeming circumstance draw her toward ex-Patrol-er Cliff – not bad.

Issue 2 digs deeper into Morrison land, and brings in more team members.  Do we have a plot yet?  Sort of – various cutaways show other things happening that will maybe develop into something.  It’s wandering, but Nick Derrington and Tamra Bonvillain’s art is a bright, colorful update on Quitely, with well balanced pages  and good eye direction, so it’s still pleasant.

Let me cut in to clarify something: My Morrison fan boy days have passed.  Once you get his general gist, you see how he reuses it, and you also get better at spotting his b.s. moments   Doom Patrol was never my favorite title of his, but I did enjoy it, and I stand by my statement above: for all its randomness, it felt (like most Grant books) that it maintained a theme effectively, and that theme was often one of being just completely on the outside of things, something Morrison has plucked at from various perspectives across many tales.  He might get lost up his own arse frequently, and likes to pull heaven-sent All Is Well And All Is One messaging at his conclusions, but the build up and central arcs of his tales are generally satisfying thanks to that dedicated thematic vision.

Which is where Doom Patrol via Way tanks.  As the series wears on, tacking on random bit after random bit… none of those random bits add up to or support any real concept.  There’s an argument for that being pure DaDa or that that’s the essence of randomness, but I still feel like you should be employing this stuff as a narrative tool in some fashion….  Instead, characters act and talk in completely unrelatable ways (thereby undermining even the randomness of the randomness, as there’s no juxtaposition), and Way does a horrible job of delineating plot points in a notable fashion so as to connect issue one to two to three and so on.  If I hadn’t read Grant’s Patrol, I probably wouldn’t even have recognized that there was a team forming, not to mention the ridiculous cutaways that only exist to justify cutting away to them later on… this does not a “twisty” plot make; it’s just disconnected scenes you’re tricking into a connection by setting them up side by side.

Yes, you’re hearing frustration.  It’s bad story telling that’s compounded by respinning the spurned of the hero class as cool counter-culturists, which is totally in line with the (judgmental statement spoiler) emo My Chemical Romance stereotype.

To summarize, I recently read an interview with Way from his Umbrella Academy years, during which he ragged on comics and their overblown sense of, essentially history, which is why he purposefully crafted a background-less set of weirdos for UA.  Setting aside that he comes off rather standoffish in the interview (and always great to bash comics when you’re a comic writer…), I’ll allow that that mentality worked for a standalone creation.  But with Doom Patrol, its like he wants it both ways, reveling in reference while also rallying against any sense of stability.

And it doesn’t work.