front page  ·  comicbook reviews  ·  interviews  ·  comics  ·  merchandise  ·  contact us  ·  newsfeed: rss xml

The Doom Patrol is a team of misfit superheroes that consists of Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, Robotman, and their leader The Chief. The comic book was introduced in the 1960's and has been reborn in many different manifestations over the years. Now in 2004 the writing and drawing skills of John Byrne have taken over the legendary super team and Byrne is taking the team in new directions. With this issue Byrne has Robotman in an underground ultimate-fighting arena with robots. This is the continuation from Doom Patrol # 5, which has Robotman going undercover with Elasti-Girl and new recruit Nudge who is a psychic. Robotman infiltrates the competition and battles a monstrous robot. The robot decapitates Robotman thus brings us to this issue.

Robotman, after suffering a brutal beating by a menacing robot, battles back and defeats the robot only to find out that the robot is also housing the brain of a human. Elasti-Girl and Nudge investigate The Chief 's old nemesis and former partner Doctor Verdalian, who for years experimented with the process of human brains and using robotics machinery to house them. Byrne has a twist for the readers: the doctor is also using a powerful narcotic to relive the pain of this process. Robotman, who suffers from phantom feelings of his limbs (this is common for individuals who have lost their limbs, where they might feel the limb is still attached and still has feeling), notices that the narcotic is also being used by humans.

Doug Hazelwood's inks compliment the pencils of John Byrne well, and the battle scenes are classic Byrne with distinctive and imaginative angles. The final panels depicting Robotman seemingly ready to try the drug is pure classic cliffhanger material. The coloring by Alex Bleyaert is very clean and he utilizes good accents on the Metallic looking robots and interiors of the arena.

I am very curious to see if Byrne will have the team heal their own wounds. Byrne is drawing in readers with social issues and all the other human aspects of modern day heroes. He could be setting up a storyline of impending doom and The Doom Patrol is on its way to becoming another John Byrne masterpiece.