.....I've been catching up on reading other blogs and in my absence here I've forgotten to note that the current series of Doom Patrol is scheduled for cancellation after the publication of issue #22 this spring. It is one of several titles selling below expectations that will be cancelled before a far-reaching summer 'event' storyline. It's true that shortly after this series started it was drawn into the Blackest Night storyline and that it had two noticeable effects: an enormous jump in sales for those two issues (#'s 4 and 5) and the derailment of the planned storyline, requiring a few months to get back on track, during which the sales slid below where they had been before hand. That's bad news for any title, but critical to this one because it was widely promoted as being an attempt to reconcile conflicting histories and failed attempts over the past seven years to radically rewrite continuity. While the group's history has always been strange, with some periods seeming irrelevant to the events of others, for nearly forty years it was never technically in gross contradiction as it has been this past decade. In interviews, Keith Giffen seemed to view it as a professional challenge and personal mission to be able to relate the group's history both accurately and coherently while somehow also telling an interesting story in the present time. Putting all that aside to participate in a thousand-character crossover, as he was required to do, has chased short-term sales at the expense of the brand itself. The book has been back on track for almost a year now, but since few people have been reading it, they don't know that. Hopefully, once the summer event is over, the team will appear in some other vehicle, with the best-case scenario being an opportunity for Giffen to return with them in their own feature. When he started, the Doom Patrol had disambiguation problems that were probably only second to the Legion Of Super-heroes in the DC Universe. In just a year and a half he has already made enormous progress.
.....Of course, since the purpose of this blog has always been to recount that history and add the reader's perspective, the blog will continue, however far apart I have allowed the posts to come. I would also recommend that you add your voice to an existing petition at:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savethedp/
and follow the petition's progress at Doompedia (the link is on the left).
