I finished the Brotherhood of Dada storyline last night and yes over the last four issues this series made a quantum leap toward deserving its reputation.

When I saw the cover, I thought for a second I'd missed an issue and had skipped to the Doom Patrol issue in one of those 1990s DC universe cross-overs I dislike so much. But no, after Animal Man, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle just sort of stood around in the previous issue, the big guns of the JLA show up ... and just stand around because they don't know what to do. I found that very amusing.

The Brotherhood of Dada are such fun! I hope they come back in future issues of this run.

If I was writing Doom Patrol, the second thing I would do (after bringing back Rita Farr, natch) is start setting up a storyline where the Brotherhood of Evil and the Brotherhood of Dada get into a bit of a grudge match turned blood feud over who is really the Doom Patrol's greatest foes! I mean, the Brotherhood of Dada is pretty weird, but then the Doom Patrol already has a rogues gallery of bizarre enemies. I could easily see General Immortus talking over the Dadaists. And Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man would fit right in.

I'm feeling like its time to take one of my Golden Age breaks for a few days or a week, so I'm putting Doom Patrol on hold to read some old Wonder Woman, Space Smith, Sky Girl, Wildcat, Futura and so on. And I'll probably try to dig up some Golden Age Catwoman and Penguin stories that I've never read.

For the defense: Some stuff I really liked in Doom Patrol 19-22 "Crawling from the Wreckage."

1) The first page. Teeny little blood red panels that explode into a full splash or Robot-Man screaming on the next page. Morrison and Case are great at playing big-panel vs. small-panel throughout.

2) The lettering... "Laaareeee" ... "LAARRRREEEE!"

3) Robotman beating his head against the concrete wall and falling to his knees. I'm not 100% on Case when he's drawing naturalistically, but he's great at these intense, slightly askew action sequences.

4) The circles and angle design while Rebis is being "born."

5) "Come in out of the rain."

6) The quiet, fairly subtle teasing of the "scissor men." (Also the cut-out paper doll cover of issue 20. Ha!)

7) The cheerfully nasty meditation of faith that ends with death via falling refrigerator. These kind of visual gags are a lost art, and I'm glad any time I see 'em in a comic published post 1970.

8) Actually seeing what the Scissor Men can do. (Again, before we see them.) "A hollow wind in an empty room. There is no time. There is no space."

9) Kansas City... Another great use of small panel-big panel. This comics is great at showing small details to build suspense. You don't really see that kind of restraint in superhero comics. Ever.

10) Just love the entire concept of the "Big Bad." An imaginary reality created by a group of philosophers is imprinting itself over the "real" world.

11) "Oh Yeah. I've still got my powers." Everyone gets a bad-ass moment. No background characters just there to provide exposition or move the plot along.

12) Speaking of bad-ass: the heroic last stand at the end of # 21. "Cliff, there must be thousands." "Yeah, looks like it."

"Let's go." (Basically this scene is twice as cool because it ends all the sentences with periods, deviating from decades of superhero tradition.)

13) "Around every corner is some fresh wonder: The weeping clock, the mechanical orchards. Yet no matter how strange, no matter how beautiful, everything in Orgwith s dulled by the taint of long familiarity. When you see it, you will know it. For all of us, in the end, come to the city of bone."

14. The Chief's machine-gun carrying wheelchair of death. "You think I'm afraid of a cripple? You thing I..." *BAM* "Looks like you're a cripple too. Now. Shall we talk?"

15) Crazy Jane H-Dials (this is the correct term, right?) into a giant with a sun for a head that shoots smaller suns out of her sun-head.

16) God, these fight scenes are good. There's a lot of focus on where stuff is on the page in relation to other pages... so there's both horizontal and vertical continuity to the story flow.

17) Ok, yeah, I don't like the ending either. The liar was telling the truth when he said he was a liar. So the paradox doesn't work. (Still a solid "A" in my book overall.)

That's what he does, and it's why I have no respect for him as a writer. It's a cop-out every time. No, it isn't deeper than you are; it just looks that way so that you won't question it.

Getting away with lazy endings because he comes off smarter than his reader is pretty much his go-to shtick. Here's one other example.

Seven Soldiers was the story where I first realized Morrison repeatedly pulled this stunt on his readers. So much of what appeared to be building throughout that story simply dropped out by the close. And didn't Final Crisis' outcome hinge entirely upon a wish machine that let Superman fix everything via deus et machina? I will admit I haven't read any of the others you've mentioned.

It's been years since I've read it, but I remember there being mysterious recurring elements that simply stopped recurring. For example, wasn't there a cosmic die or something?


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I suppose it may just be a style preference, but when you begin with a god bullet traveling through time, I expect the solution to involve gods and time, not a magic eraser of sorts.


Anyway, I've derailed this thread and made it about Morrison in general, (sorry!) so let's get back to discussing the run.

I'm up to Doom Patrol #34.

That was awesome. But then I'm a sucker for Monsieur Mallah and the Brain, even when they kiss and BLOW UP!