Doom Patrol has a certain lineage at DC Comics. Is it the biggest or most popular book? Not always, even as it maintains its core of ravenous fans. And that commitment is likely from the runs of creators like Grant Morrison, Rachel Pollack, and Gerard Way, each of whom have brought something new, evocative, and totally bonkers to the team of lovable misfits.
In recent months, the team of writer Dennis Culver, artist Chris Burnham, and colorist Brian Reber have tried to add their names to the team’s mighty canon with Unstoppable Doom Patrol. Across the first three issues, they’ve presented a compelling new version of the team, with Doom Patrol’s latest lineup featuring old pros (like Negative Man and Robotman) teaming with newbies (like Degenerate and Beast Girl) to help out the deluge of new post-Lazarus Planet metahumans.
Issue #4, which arrives this week (July 11), could be a highlight for this still-young title. Written out of order from the rest of the series (it happened when the book went from six to seven issues), it’s basically a bottle episode of the team members visiting with Dr. Syncho. But from that premise comes the core of this new series: a hugely poignant moment for the weirdos to find community, and or readers to see that maybe we’re all outcasts in our own right. It may not have sentient streets, but it’s got heart galore.
We got the chance to speak with Culver a couple weeks ago. We not only talked about the development of issue #4 and its importance, but what comes next for Doom Patrol issues #5-7 (that includes some cool stuff with Metagen). Culver also spoke about working with Burnham, his love of the Doom Patrol premise, and even how the team appear or play into DC’s upcoming Knight Terrors.
Variant cover by Alan Quah. Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Do you have an idea about how this book’s been perceived? Do you keep up with that kind of stuff?
Dennis Culver: Yeah, I pay attention to it. There’s some pretty vocal Doom Patrol fans. There’s a Reddit section that are really strong and supportive. I think doing the standalone issues is something that people aren’t necessarily used to. Everyone’s like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ That’s a good thing, right? We want people to keep coming back and reading the books.
Something that I think is interesting to think about is the way people now consume comics versus the way they did maybe when the Grant [Morrison] issues were coming out. You had to wait a month to read it, and now people binge them all at once. Having it come out like that and reading it all at once is a different experience than reading it monthly. So something I wanted to do is make something that’s satisfying in a single issue, but still makes you want to come back for more. And I feel like that’s exactly the response I’m getting. People are happy with it, and they want more. I think doing our one-in-done issues makes it what would normally feel like a short series feel much bigger.
AIPT: Yeah, I get the sense that everything’s connected but stuff also gets its own spotlight.
DC: The last two issues of this series is a two-parter. So that’ll feel a little more traditional comic booky, like not a cliffhanger and that kind of stuff. But also if you read everything together, I’ve been setting the table; there’s clues, and it’s something that’s building on it. When you go back after we get to the end, and you reread everything, you’ll see that I’ve been putting it all out there for you.
AIPT: Do you have a sense where this book fits in the larger Doom Patrol lore? Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, this is a super weird book,’ but you’re telling something that’s very human and very real and focuses on emotions.
DC: I have a rule that I try to bring to superhero comics: it all counts. I looked at the Doom Patrol as kind of a holistic thing. Like all of the series happened, you know? It may not have happened in order but all of those things happened to those people. And I think if you look through those series, there’s an interesting progression there. When they start, they’re a group of misfits and they’ve all had this trauma and they’ve just haphazardly fallen into things at the behest of the Chief. And then as it progresses, once you get to the [Morrison] run, it gets turned on its head completely as you find out the Chief caused all of this. Then it’s really about these characters that have been processing this trauma. When you get to the end of the Gerard Way run, you can argue that they’re starting to heal and start coming to grips with those things, especially characters like Jane and even Cliff — Cliff went through a pretty major change there at the end dealing with his trauma.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
Following that progression, these are people that are healing, and so I think the next logical progression in that journey is to want to help other people. So I don’t know if it’s so much as a left turn; in my mind, it’s just a progression of moving things forward. Because we could have went a number of ways when we did this. We could have just done a throwback series completely and just made it, ‘Hey, it’s the Doom Patrol and they’re just going out and doing weird things.’ But I feel like if you’re a long time fan, that’s not really rewarding to you as a reader. And if you’re a fan of the TV show, you don’t want more of the same. You want to feel like it’s a progression from the things that you’ve already seen. So I think it’s an interesting take. And I think doing it with [Chris] Burnham has made it really fun and exciting. We’re getting to do a Doom Patrol that we’ve never really seen before, but it absolutely feels at home.
AIPT: The team feels really cognizant of what their trauma is and not just, ‘Everything’s better and we’re OK.’ It’s this ongoing process, and that makes the characters feel a little more relatable, but also like why they want to help people: because they’re ultimately, helping themselves by doing this.
DC: It makes them more interesting characters. It makes them more interesting to write.
You know, a lot of times the challenge with writing some of the big, iconic superheroes is they’re almost perfect in a way and it’s hard to access them because there’s 80 years of lore behind them. With Doom Patrol, even though they’ve been around a while, there’s not a lot of material; really, the only material is that they’re the world’s strangest superheroes. They’re kind of fuck-ups and that is a part of their charm. And so having them figure things out and mess up, and step on each other’s toes, to me, is a more interesting entry point into the characters.
AIPT: Can you delve, how ever deep, into what happens with #4 specifically? It felt like a bottle episode of sorts, exploring everybody’s dynamic and what they have going on with each other and how that relates to the team in general
DC: It was an interesting process for this particular issue because we knew we were going to take a break for Knight Terrors, the crossover, because a few books are. And it was good because it was going to give Burnham a little bit of breather room and time because his drawing is very detailed. So it definitely worked out perfectly to take that break. Once we got the initial sales on the first issue, Ben [Abernathy, DC editor] was like, ‘Well, I think we can do a bonus issue. And maybe we can put that bonus issue right in the middle, and it’ll give Burnham even more of a buffer.’ Then we could adjust it so we’re not really taking two months off for Knight Terrors, we’re just taking the one month off. I had already written all the scripts for Doom Patrol, and so when this bonus issue came out, I wrote issue four after I wrote issue #6.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
That was a good opportunity because it gave me the ability to really zero in on some of the things that I wish I would have gotten to with Doom Patrol, which was really just really diving in deeper into their characters and getting into the root of who they are and that really emotional stuff. It was something that I was eager to do. I knew I had Dr. Synchro and I thought it would be really cool to do a therapy issue that’s kind of almost like a callback to those X-Factor issues if you read them back in the day, but with a Doom Patrol twist. It’s not just a talking issue; it’s where the thoughts and emotions are being manifested in the art itself, which was a challenge.
We thought it would be cool if there were these double-page spreads where the characters are almost kind of moving through it. And I literally had to sit there and thumbnail it out for myself just to figure out how to write it. It wasn’t something I ever intended to show the artist, but I just needed to draw it tiny just to see it so I could then figure out how to write through it. But I think that’s why it flows well together because I had a very crystal clear idea when I wrote it. Then letting David Lafuente take over, and he’s really good with stuff like that. He’s kind of the perfect choice for that issue. It’s interesting because some of his thumbnails look very similar to mine and some he kind of went off in his own path, but that’s the neat part of comics.
AIPT: Once you did this issue after everything was done, did it change your perception of the other issues at all?
DC: I was working ahead on all of this just for Burnham because I wanted to make sure he had scripts waiting for him as soon as he finished an issue. So I had a lot of this done already. I wrote out of order. Because I was stuck on what is now issue five and what’s going to originally be four. And I just skipped it and wrote the two-parter and then came back around to it, which was helpful. So it was a thing where I had to figure out what is now issue #5,
I’d already white-boarded everything and looked at all the issues, and looked at what they said and then figured that out. And I guess it was through that process that I thought, ‘I wish I could dig deeper into the emotional stuff.’ As luck would have it, we were able to do that extra issue. So I was already in that head space, and having the benefit of looking at everything in context was really helpful.
Burnham just wrapped up the art for issue #5. So before I hand in the script, I get the chance to go back through it and tweak it or polish it up. And it’s what I did for six that I just sent off to him today. So, you know, it’s alway a little bit of a work in progress, but we’re pretty locked in. right now. I’m super happy with how all of this is coming together. I love how it feels — how big it feels and how important it feels for Doom Patrol as being their own concept in the DC universe.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Speaking of those next three issues, is there anything you can tease or mention about issues #5, 6, and 7?
DC: Issue #5 is another one-and-done. We say it’s Doom Patrol versus Anytown, USA.
Basically, when they built the atomic bomb, they set up a town. Everyone was working on the bomb, but they didn’t necessarily know what was going on. They were all living in this town together, working on component pieces. And I took that idea and said, ‘What if they were working for Metagen, who we introduced in issue one, and they’re working on building tailor-made meta-humans. So there’s this undercover town that the team has to infiltrate and figure out what the heck is going on. They go into this idyllic town and it’s anything but. We’ve got the team split into two groups, with the main team attacking the town. Then we’ve got the Chief and Niles Calder and Degenerate infiltrating Metagen underneath the town, and so we get to focus on Niles a little bit and get into his character, which is really interesting. They explore Metagen, and obviously Degenerate has ties to that.
Then we get to the two-parter: part one is “Stoppable” and part two is “Unstoppable.” Basically, it’s all the stuff we’ve seen General Immortus doing and building towards. Whatever he’s been gathering this army for — it all kind of comes to a head here. And we also introduce a kind of Doom Patrol B team, which I’m calling Flex Force. These are the trainees that Flex Mentallo has been working with. We just see a little bit of them at the beginning, doing a little bit of training exercises with the main team. And then right in the middle of all of that, everything goes sideways. So the team has to contend with what is essentially the Brotherhood of Evil and whatever General Immortus is up to.
Like I’d said, if you read all the other issues, you’ll see all the clues, and you’ll realize that I’ve been kind of putting little bits out there for you to put together.
AIPT: However cryptically, can we expect more Doom Patrol? Do you even want to do more?
DC: Well, initially when we were approved, I was asked to plan for future arcs. I’ve talked about this before. The idea was to do it so that Burnham could be a part of this series with me and do “seasons” every year, like a prestige television thing. So there is a plan for next year’s Doom Patrol, but no official word on that yet. But it is something that’s being talked about.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
And anytime I can work in Doom Patrol, I can. I’m doing the Knight Terrors‘ Zatanna book; she’s one of the few characters in that crossover that’s actually still awake after the Nightmare Wave hits because she is magical.
But she gets overwhelmed, and so she uses her magic to call on an ally that’s awake and available. There’s not many [available, and she ends up with Robotman. So it’s Zatanna and Robotman versus these horrific sleepless night characters. And they’re trying to protect an unconscious Wonder Woman and Detective Chimp from those guys.
The really cool thing about having Doom Patrol integrated in the DC universe is that you realize they haven’t had a ton of interactions with characters. So there’s a lot of opportunities for stuff that feels brand new. Like when they crossed over with Green Lantern in issue #3; you’ve never really had those characters interact in a meaningful way. And the same is true with Zatanna. The only time Zatanna and Robotman have even appeared on a page together was from the Injustice mini-series…and that’s out of continuity.
And with Zatanna, her only real connection to the Doom Patrol was when Mento was present at the seance that killed her father. So she doesn’t have great feelings about the Doom Patrol. There’s like instant friction there. And that’s a really fun thing to write, too.
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