Submitted: Ken Trickey, Comic News Writer
23 September 16
Writer: Gerald Way
Artist: Nick Derington
Something strange this way comes. Young Animal’s Doom Patrol #1 is a disjointed,
schizophrenic series of incomprehensible events that lack cohesion. Before we
continue, I feel it necessary to confess that I am totally unfamiliar with this
franchise. I have, so far, been unsuccessful in my attempts to alleviate my
ignorance as there doesn't seem to be a great deal of information about the
series outside of rather dated source material, and what I have briefly seen of
that doesn't appear to closely resemble its current iteration. It is entirely
possible, if not probable, that longtime fans will breeze through these
vignettes, these small moments, with a complete understanding of their meaning.
To those readers, I apologize, but Doom
Patrol is not friendly to newcomers.
Casey Brinke, the protagonist, appears to be an expert
ambulance driver with an unreliable memory and a need to do good deeds at every
opportunity. Her after-hours riffing session with a coworker provides us with
an entry point into a strange world existing within a gyro. The gyro-based
world introduces us to a humanoid robot as he escapes and assumes the normal
size of a man before being shattered by a garbage truck. There also appears to
be an alien conspiracy involving fast food, a homeless man who has lost a
friend, a lion riddled with arrows, and a looming nuclear apocalypse. What any
of these things have to do with each other is well beyond my reach.
The artwork in this comic is enjoyable. The deep purple and
blue colors of Casey’s environment are rich but not oversaturated. The shift in
style for the gyro’s microcosm provides a distinctive visual cue so that, even
if most everything else is unclear, the transition to another world is easy to
pick up on.
The Verdict: All in
all, I am glad to see DC is experimenting with its new Young Animal imprint. A company with a legacy like DC needs some
room for this sort of thing in order to stay relevant. That being said, this is
not a series that just anyone can pick up and understand. Newcomers, beware:
this issue was not written with you in mind. There's something unique happening
here. It might be worth investigating, but the story better start to come
together before its whimsical charm wears off.
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