Doom Patrol #1 // Review
Niles Calder always has the same nightmare. It begins the way it always does...he’s writing about the nightmare on his typewriter when a woman enters the room and takes him by surprise. This time it’s different, though: this time he dies. It’s the 215th “doom entry” of Dr. Niles Calder and it begins the latest Doom Patrol #1. Writer Darcy Van Poelgeest and artist Niko Henrichon open a whole new series for the beloved team which takes them in a whole new direction. A particularly surreal superhero group gets some fresh air thanks to a very sharp creative team.
There's no money. The team is completely broke. They need to keep working, though. Not just for money. But for emotional stability. And it's not going to be easy. So they're going to have this sort of into the free market. They're going to have this sort of find a way to market their skills. And so naturally, they find themselves adopting a heroes for hire business model. Their first client wants them to find a missing cat. This might be kind of disappointing for them. Not dimension frustrating. But this IS the Doom Patrol... and even a lost cat can lead to truly surreal and dangerous things.
Darcy Van Poelgeest nails, the weirdness of the title quite well. There's a strong and deeply appealing surrealistic bent to the first issue that seems promising moving forward. Central membership of the team comes across as an appealing ensemble once more. Everybody seems very distinctive and distinctly drawn in a way that is true to their personal idiosyncrasies and personalities. The author really has a deep connection with the team. And that's a good sign. There is subtlety nuance in the way they're brought to the page. And there are some very clever bits of storytelling that keep the pages turning.
Henrichon keeps it dark. The visuals maintain a darkness about them. That is also very engaging. It's a mood and tone that matches the characters perfectly. Everything fits together quite well. And the subtle underlying weirdness of the horror is conjured out of a page in a very clever way. It all fits together quite well. It's hard to pull together a coherent vision of the team. It would be difficult for any artist. Henrichon does a brilliant job of making it all feel very cohesive and warm and emotionally engaging while also drawing into the horror of the story.
It's a promising start for a new series with one of the stranger superhero teams in mainstream comic books. It's not easy to bring them to the page in a way that feels like it's being true to their particular energy and personality. This particular creative team is doing a really good job of managing that much. It will be interesting to see where they move with it all as things progress. The first issue keeps it relatively simple. And variably it's going to get more complicated as such things as tended to with the Doom Patrol.
