DP09-AP(d) Retro Stories During The Giffen Period

.....This is actually the second half of an analysis of the story "Out Of Time" from The Brave And The Bold #34 (07/10)- 35 (08/10). In the previous post I provided the details of the creator credits and the rosters for the four teams involved. There's also my reasons for placing the story in the period of comics published c.1964. Anyone who had difficulty using the links provided in the previous post should check them again. They've been embedded again in a different manner and seemed to be working better than they did initially. Sorry about that.

.....This is a time travel story, which is a common enough plot device in comics that it shouldn't ordinarily require an explanation or map to guide the reader. The complications, and subsequent confusion on the part of many readers, can follow when travelling into the past multiple times results in crossing your own path and impacting the chain of events that brought you back in the first place. Douglas Adams once famously said that the most difficult part of time travel isn't really the mechanics of moving through time, it's conjugating the verbs afterward to describe what you did. The longer the story and the more often the trips taken, the more common will be the complaints of confusion, generally. Take Avengers Forever as a textbook example. Now put the Legion Of Substitute Heroes in control of a time machine and watch them try to 'fix' things. Thus we come to the following dual attempt to disambiguate the order of events, once in the order they take place in the world and once in the order they are experienced by the cast. That cast is abbreviated here for convenience: [DP] is the Doom Patrol, [LSH] is the Legion of Super-Heroes, [Subs] is the Legion of Substitute Heroes and [I5] is the Inferior Five.

.....First, the 'real time' account of events. Although the Original Period Doom Patrol stories were first published in the 1960's, the time in which they took place changes. Following what I suspect was Roy Thomas' approach of time compression employed at Marvel in the 1970's to explain why Peter Parker was allowed to pursue an undergraduate degree for thirteen years without being called up for academic review, DC since at least as far back as Zero Hour has used a similar conceit in which three to five years of publishing translates to one year in the life of the characters, working backwards. As a rule of thumb, if the story you are reading today references a story from the past, take the number of years since it was published and divide by, say, four. Subtract the result from the year of the newer story. For instance, if a story is published in 1965, then in 1969 stories it would be treated as though it took place in 1968. In 1977, it would be treated as though it took place in 1974. In 2005, it would be treated as though it took place in 1995. Thus, Lian Harper did not look 24 years old when she died. The three-to-five year standard would make her anywhere from five to eight years old. The reason I mention this is because segments in which the LSH locate the DP will be described as c.1964 in this post with the understanding that this is the period which they are obviously intended to evoke aesthetically. It is not actually stated anywhere in the story in what year those scenes occur. However, it is explicitly stated that the [Subs] find the [I5] in 1972, which is why I've included that scene and other specified dates with scenes from the Time Stream. The story does nothing to indicate whether the [DP] was formed and/or active before, during or after 1972 in this continuity frame of reference. Since, for these purposes, any of those scenarios would work equally well, we're not going to fret over it right now. Likewise, although the modern [LSH] is set in the 31st century, I'm referring to their home as the 30th century to conform to the c.1964 motif. If you want to know why that distinction is important, the best possible explanations can be found with the [LSH]-related links in the previous post.

• {c.1964; #34/p.9} [LSH] arrive from the future (using Time Bubble 1) in [DP]'s headquarters and ask for their help.
• {c.1964; #35/p.17} While [LSH] and [DP] discuss the problem in a different room, [Subs] and [I5] arrive (using Time Bubble 2) and switch machines, taking off in the one in which [LSH] arrived (Time Bubble 1).
• {c.1964; #34/p.10} 7:15 minutes since page 9, [LSH] and [DP] return to the room where Time Bubble 1 was left and find Time Bubble 2 in a slightly different spot and speculate that it "shifted position". All but Caulder depart in Time Bubble 2.
• {c.1964; #35/p.18} The departure of the [LSH] and [DP] coincides with the Time Stream sequence {#34/pp.11-13}(see below).
• {c.1964; #35/pp.5-6} After [LSH] and [DP] leave, [Subs] arrive from 30th century (using Time Bubble 2) to find Caulder alone. Exercising characteristically poor judgement, their attempt to 'fix' their situation results in creating multiple anomalies of themselves.
• {c.1964; #34/p.22} [LSH] return [DP] to their proper time (using Time Bubble 2) and are greeted by Caulder shortly after he has spent an exhaustive afternoon (presumably figuring out how to collapse a telescoping time anomaly). [LSH] then return to the 30th century.
• {Time Stream; #35/pp.7-10} Having been set right by Caulder, [Subs] reach a timeline in which [I5] exist, in 1972 (using Time Bubble 2).
• {Time Stream; #35/p.11} [Subs] and [I5] realize that none of them can remember the Hawking Theorem, key to solving their problem. (In Time Bubble 2.)
• {Time Stream; #35/p.12-13} [Subs] and [I5] locate Dr. Stephen Bawking (probably in the 1990's), who explains the theorem to everyone. (In Time Bubble 2.)
• {Time Stream; #35/p.22} [Subs] strand [I5] 30 years in their future, on July 14, 2010 (using Time Bubble 1).
• {Time Stream; #35/pp.14-16} Dumb Bunny's pink fluffy tail gets stuck in the tachyon collector of Time Bubble 2, causing it to stop moving forward at 2193. Knowing that [LSH] beat them to finding [DP] (they found Caulder alone), [Subs] and [I5] return to {c.1964; #35/p.17} (see above) in order to switch time machines.
• {Time Stream; #35/p.18} occurs simultaneously with...
• {Time Stream; #34/pp.11-13}. After the time machines have been switched, [LSH] and [DP] travel forward in Time Bubble 2, which stalls at 2193. When they investigate, Lightning Lad finds and removes Dumb Bunny's pink fluff. He speculates that it belongs to Cosmic Boy because it matches his costume's color scheme. With the Time Bubble 2 working again, they continue on into the 30th century.
• (Both teams travelling forward can now reach the30th century. [Subs] and [I5] arrive after [LSH] and [DP]. See #35/p.19 below.)
• {30th Cen.; #34/pp.2-3 in flashback} Lightning Lad returns to Earth after a patrol in a conventional space vehicle and witnesses a Black Hole event en route towards Earth. He races ahead of it to warn the Legion.
• {30th Cen.; #34/pp.14-19} [LSH] and [DP] try unsuccessfully to drain the Black Hole (using Time Bubble 2).
• {30th Cen.; #35/p.19-20} [Subs] and [I5] arrive (in Time Bubble 1) before [Subs] initial disastrous attempt to view the Black Hole (see #35/p.3, below). This appearance also causes a 'time surge', with the difference being the presence of [LSH] and [DP].
• {30th Cen.; #34/pp.20-21} The 'time surge' causes the efforts of [LSH] and [DP] to drain the Black Hole to have the same effect as though they had been working at it continuously for days (still with Time Bubble 2).
• {30th Cen.; #35/pp.20-21} [Subs] and [I5] witness the Black Hole being drained (in Time Bubble 1) and [Subs] decide to abandon their plans to try taking credit for [LSH]'s plan before anything else goes wrong.

....At this point the story diverges to two possible outcomes: one in which the Earth is destroyed and one in which it is saved. Because some of these scenes play out in concurrent parallel time lines, pinning down when something would have occurred relative to events that happened instead becomes understandably tricky.

• {30th Cen.; #35/p.3} Having just acquired Time Bubble 2, [Subs] materialize within viewing distance of the Black Hole event between the time Lightning Lad witnesses it and the time he reaches Earth to warn them. Somehow, their sudden emergence from the near future accelerates the Black Hole's approach towards Earth.
• {30th Cen.; #34/pp.1-4} On Earth, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy are both awoken by Lightning Lad's arrival. He explains what he witnessed in space and that they must prepare a defense in the few days remaining. They then notice that the Black Hole's arrival is imminent and must resort to time travel to stop it at an earlier stage.
• {30th Cen.; #35/p.1} [Subs] watch a television report praising [LSH] for averting the Black Hole event with the help of [DP] by traveling into the past. Jealous, [Subs] decide to use the same method of time travel to replicate the feat and reap the glory.
• {30th Cen.; #35/p.2} This remains the most confusing sequence in the story. [Subs] enter [LSH] clubhouse to steal the Time Bubble. Their plan is NOT to: (a) take the bubble, use it and then return it at that moment in time so that no one will notice that it is missing; nor (b) take the bubble, travel backwards just one hour to where they know it was sitting before and get into the earlier version so that it never appears to have left (then make sure they get it back an hour later in time to return it right after their earlier incarnations took it). Instead they (c) take the bubble, travel forward one hour to where they find the bubble still there, take that bubble and continue on their adventure. Now, obviously (a) is the simplest approach, but nothing is simple where [Subs] are concerned. The (b) scenario, while reasonable on the surface, would require a time paradox of a time machine traveling backwards one hour, then sitting unoccupied for an hour (effectively traveling forward in time, albeit at 'normal' speed) until it is then used to travel backwards an hour again, in an infinite loop. This would mean that a time travel machine existed that was never manufactured and runs infinitely without ever being refueled. It would also mean that the time machine used in the adventure was picked up at the beginning of that hour and deposited at the end, with a separate existence from the one in the infinite loop. The (c) scenario only means that at some point between stealing the bubble and finding it again one hour in the future, the bubble had been returned after the adventure at some point during that hour. [Subs] then get out of the first bubble, get into the returned one, have the adventure and return during the hour and leave it for them to find again. All this just means that there is a different infinite loop, just a much, much longer one. The explanation for what's going on here, if there is one, is that [Subs] departing doesn't change the fact that [LSH] departed, too. Each took and returned Time Bubbles, but from and for each other, not themselves. What we have here is not a loop so much as a figure eight. If [Subs] took Time Bubble 1 one hour into the future to switch with Time Bubble 2, it could only be after [LSH] returned from the successful version of the mission, otherwise they wouldn't have a reason to set out and upstage them. Therefore, from the perspective of the machine itself, the [LSH] adventure concluded before the [Subs] adventure began. Yet, [LSH] concluded their adventure in Time Bubble 2 and presumably parked it in the clubhouse, then informed the media, who in turn broadcast the story, inflaming [Subs] who took the Time Bubble left by [LSH], moved it forward an hour and took it again at another point in its time, damaged it with Dumb Bunny's tail, went back to 1964 to switch it with itself at another point in time yet again, meaning that the Time Bubble used by [LSH] for the remainder of their adventure and parked where [Subs] found it and subsequently switched with itself an hour in its future has a separate timeline (and existence) from the Time Bubble [LSH] started with and [Subs] ended with, when they dropped off [I5] in 2010. But there's only ever been one Time Bubble. I've only been designating them '1' and '2' in order to keep straight when, in the bubble's history, it was being used. Eventually, either Time Bubble 1 becomes Time Bubble 2 or vice versa. What I've just described is instead two parallel continuities. Unless...

• {30th Cen.; #34/pp.5-6} [LSH] rush to the room where the Time Bubble is housed. Before they reach it, it appears to shift to the side. With no time to truly figure out why that happened, they dismiss it as a side effect of the extreme magnetic forces present due to the Black Hole. They board the Time Bubble in its new position and begin the successful version of the adventure. Had they reached the Time Bubble while it was still in it's original position they would have traveled to [DP]'s Original Period, brought them back to the 30th century to drain power from the Black Hole... and failed, resulting in the destruction of the Earth. The plan was good in theory, but the scale of the problem would simply be too overwhelming for it to have worked. Besides, they were running from the Black Hole in a timeline where it had already advanced too rapidly for them to confront. They knew their only hope was to intervene hours earlier, just after Lightning Lad became aware of it, creating a new timeline. So what really happened to the Time Bubble? The initial image of the bubble belonged in a timeline where [LSH] failed, a failure that was caused by the acceleration of the Black Hole's advancement, an acceleration caused by [Subs] (see #35/p.3, above). Therefore, the Time Bubble didn't go anywhere. It was still in the room, but part of a separate timeline in which [Subs] screwed things up. After [LSH] and [DP] succeeded and [LSH] returned the Time Bubble, [Subs] take it and go an hour forward, illogically expecting the bubble to still be there for them to find. The Time Bubble they find an hour in the future is the one that disappeared in front of [LSH]. Think about it; it's a time bubble that belongs to a timeline where [LSH] fail because of an effect caused by [Subs]. It has to be the second bubble [Subs] take, because it's the Time Bubble they were in when they caused it. The Time Bubble that takes them to it, an hour into the future, is the one that already succeeded in averting the disaster, creating a separate timeline, and was left there by [LSH]. Therefore, the Time Bubble that appears in front of [LSH] to replace it, the one that [LSH] assume is the same bubble shifted to the side by magnetic forces is the one [Subs] moved forward one hour. It, too, was in the room the whole time, but did not become visible to [LSH] until the timelines shifted. They take it, meet [DP] for the first time and, while they're out of the room, [Subs] and [I5] switch it for the earlier damaged incarnation, which [LSH] and [DP] use for the remainder of the adventure. Eventually [Subs] return it after stranding [I5] in 2010.
• {30th Cen.; #35/p.4} [Subs] discover that they inadvertently caused the Black Hole to accelerate it's path to Earth, destroying it. Now they have no choice but to duplicate [LSH]'s feat by retrieving [DP] from the past.
• {30th Cen.; #34/pp.7-8} [LSH] witness the destruction of Earth one day after Lightning Lad's warning. They must travel backwards to a point before this timeline formed and somehow avert it.

.....Which they did.

╠═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╣

.....And now, as promised, an account of events from the perspective of the only one, true witness to all of the events in this story: The Time Bubble.

• The Time Bubble sits, ready and waiting in the [LSH] clubhouse.
• {#34/pp.1-4} Lightning Lad witnesses the Black Hole event in space en route to Earth. When he arrives to warn the others, the Black Hole is suddenly almost upon them.
• {#34/p.5} [LSH] attempt to use the Time Bubble to avert disaster, causing an alternate timeline. They disappear.
• {#35/p.2} [Subs] arrive from an hour in the past in my future self. They board me. I am now referred to as Time Bubble 2.
• {#35/p.3} [Subs] try to witness the Black Hole event sometime after Lightning Lad discovers it, accidently causing its acceleration.
• {#35/p.4} [Subs] witness the destruction of the Earth.
• {#35/pp.5-6} [Subs] take me backwards to find [DP], but we arrive shortly after my future self has departed with [LSH] and [DP] on board. They briefly create multiples of ourselves before the clever monkey with the broken legs sorts them out.
• {#35/pp.7-10} [Subs] take me to 1972 and add five more monkeys to the crew, called [I5]. Their legs work... but they're not clever.
• {#35/pp.11-13} [Subs] and [I5] don't understand the Hawking Theorem and make another stop to have someone explain it to them.
• {#35/pp.14-16} Part of Dumb Bunny's costume gets stuck in my tachyon collector while we're traveling in the Time Stream. Because of this, I can't get past 2193.
• {#35/p.17} We travel back to a point between [LSH] meeting [DP] and the two groups departing. [Subs] and [I5] disembark from me and board my future self. So, there's that to look forward to.
• {#34/p.10 and #35/p.18} [LSH] and [DP] return from a briefing session believing that I am the craft they arrived in, when I am in fact the craft they will arrive in. Both groups board me and enter the time stream.
• {#34/pp.11-13} Inevitably, [LSH] discover that they can't get past 2193. They find and remove the pink fluff ball and soon we're back on course.
• {#34/pp.14-19} We stop in the 30th century right after Lightning Lad witnessed the Black Hole's approach but before [Subs] caused the time surge that pushed it towards Earth. [LSH] and [DP] make a valiant effort to drain the Black Hole, but the sheer size of it is too much for them.
• {#34/pp.20-21} The sudden, heroic appearance of my future self causes a time surge, but instead of accelerating the Black Hole's travel by several days, it accelerates the drainage by several days. [LSH] and [DP] are able to accomplish in accelerated time something that would have killed them in natural time. This must be the event that caused me to jump timelines when [LSH] tried to board me at the beginning of this mess.
• {#34/p.22} Back to the 20th century to bring [DP] home. This must be after my first arrival with [Subs] because the monkey looks exhausted.
• Home again, home again, jiggity jig. Whoever said working with teenagers will keep you young can go fry their-- ooh, wait, [LSH] are on the video news. They're getting credit for stopping a threat that nobody remembers happening. Good for them. Even if it didn't happen, who could get mad at that?
• {#35/p.1} Ooooooh, right.
• {#35/p.2} [Subs] enter my docking room to try and duplicate what [LSH] have just done in order to get the credit. At this point I'm referred to as Time Bubble 1. They think that they can take me without anyone noticing if they go forward in time one hour and take my future self. Well, that's just plain foolish; if you take me forward one hour, the room will just be empty for an hour until I get back. Oh, no, now I remember. I've already been through this. This is when the timelines shifted. Yes, there I am. There they go.
• {#34/pp.5-6} I've seen [Subs] dematerialize in my past self, but I'm still there. Now [LSH] are rushing in. They're looking panicky, they see my past self dematerializing. Now they notice me. They board me.
• {#34/pp.7-8} [LSH] take me one day forward and see the Earth destroyed by the Black Hole. They'll have to take me back through this timeline before it branched off into disaster, then go forward again into the one I've just been to.
• {#34/p.9} [LSH] take me into the past to fetch [DP]. They all go into another room to confer.
• {#35/p.17} Ah, yes, right on cue. [Subs] and [I5] arrive in my past self and leave it, er, me, in order to board my present self.
• {#35/pp.18-21} Back in the Time Stream and headed for the 30th century. We arrive shortly after I was previously here with [LSH] and [DP], but before [Subs] caused all that grief by accelerating the Black Hole. My only consolation is that I know what's going to happen. Sure enough, our appearance has caused the temporal wave that turned the efforts of [LSH] and [DP] into several days' worth of work.
• {#35/p.22} [Subs] seem eager to get [I5] back home. July 14, 2010... I thought we picked them up in 1972? Well, not my problem.
• I'm back in my dock, taking a breather. Too many alternate timelines just aren't good for you. I'll have to ask Brainiac 5 to replace my Claremont filter.

.....So that's it for now. In 1965, Lightning Lad lost an arm fighting "the Super-Moby Dick of Space". «sigh» I am so glad Mort Weisinger didn't edit Doom Patrol. That story was in Adventure Comics #332 (05/65). He and Saturn Girl would eventually become an item (I'm guessing after they found a pink puff ball in Cosmic Boy's colors in the Time Bubble's tachyon collector). Twenty years on, about the time COIE was published, Cosmic Boy and Night Girl became an item. Hopefully that did something to cool down the rivalry between the Legion and the Substitutes. By the way, the disambiguation above is my own personal attempt and not necessarily official DC continuity. I'd be extremely curious if anyone on the Legion blogs knows of an established timeline that's been leaked. Comments, criticisms, additions and detractions are all welcome in the comments section below.

DP09-AP(a) Retro Stories During Giffen Period

.....In the various Period synopses early in this blog, beginning with "The Wilderness Years", I began to designate period pieces with the symbol [P]. The phrase "period piece" here means the same as it does in theater and film: a whole work that noticeably takes place in an earlier, distinctly different period. There's a qualitative difference between those stories and ones that include flashbacks to earlier periods for exposition purposes or ones that simply take place earlier in continuity within the same period.

.....At the time that I put together the synopsis for Gypsy Period 2 and the accompanying Trade Survey that follows it, I wasn't aware that Ambush Bug was going to play such a significant part of the current series. It's hard to think of him as a team member, since so much of what he is seems to be conscious and willing on his part, while the common bond among the Doom Patrol's members is that they were the results of tragic accidents. Irwin's parents may beg to differ with me, but that's my first impression. Had I known, I would have included the TP SHOWCASE PRESENTS AMBUSH BUG on both lists, early in 2009 (March 25th), right before the first DP volume and after the issues of TRINITY. Incidentally, the issues of TRINITY, which take place in an alternate timeline, pose a question of judgement for me. I've decided to judge them as I would Elseworlds stories. The Doom Patrol have experienced different states and different senses of existence often enough that it isn't immediately obvious which versions are 'real' and which aren't or even what 'real' means. The one time I've cut myself some slack in the 'comprehensive' aspect of these searches was when I decided to dismiss out of hand the Tangent 'Doom Patrol', not because of any concerns I had about the quality of the stories but for the simple fact that they were unrelated characters in a unrelated timeline in unrelated circumstances who were given the same name for Maximum Obfuscation Purposes best understood by DC's Marketing Department and whoever prescribes their medication. Not my kids, not my problem.

.....Speaking of kids, the last entry on the Gypsy Period synopsis is where we should start when considering period pieces, with some careful qualifications.

.....[juv.] Batman: The Brave And The Bold #7 (09/09) "The Secret Of The Doomsday Design!" by J. Torres (script) and J. Bone (art) with a cover by Scott Jeralds and edited by Rachel Gluckstern and Michael Siglain is an original story in the style of the Cartoon Network series. This is made for children but that would only be implied by the cartoon art of the cover. There's little in the way of trade dress that would suggest that to the casual observer. For instance, the checkerboard Cartoon Network logo is not present and DC's kids titles have dropped the Johnny DC logo and imprint identity, although they continue to use the character as the 'voice' of the editorial content. Below the UPC box there is printed "dckids.com", but that's less than an inch from the bottom of the page, almost literally beneath notice. It's been a long time since Helix, Piranha and Paradox were absorbed into DC or Warner Books' other imprints, but the past year has been an exercise in streamlining with the dismantling of Wildstorm/ABC and Zuda. A casual flip through a recent Diamond Comics Distributor catalog shows that the super-hero titles are now under a "DCUniverse" imprint and Vertigo is still there, but everything else, from Tiny Titans to Resident Evil, comes under the generic sounding "DC Comics" imprint.

.....This is clearly not DCU continuity, but anyone who has seen the animated television series that the comic book is based on would agree that it's a weird synthesis of periods whose result is something unique to the show, something it doesn't even share with DC's other animated projects. Starting with Batman himself, he doesn't resemble the versions from "Batman Adventures", "Justice League Unlimited" or "Young Justice". He doesn't even jibe with the tot-friendly "Super Friends" from the 2008 comic (or the 1970's cartoon for that matter). If anything, he calls to mind the animated opening sequence of the live-action 1960's "Batman" series, a fact they've actually played with when peppering the current animated series with visual in-jokes. In a way that's not entirely inappropriate. The show usually takes place in the present day but Batman's personality is generally like his comic book counterpart in the late 1960's, a period comparatively overshadowed by the campy TV show contemporary to it and the fantastic Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams issues that followed. While I personally prefer the O'Neil/Adams stories, the late 1960's stories weren't bad at all. They tended to distance themselves from the celebrity villains and pop-art self-awareness of the TV show and opt instead for straight-forward self-contained detective stories. In fact, the silliness of the TV show villains seemed to have soured both writers and readers on Batman's fetishistic rogues' gallery. They rarely appeared in the 1970's in either Batman or Detective Comics until Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers brought them back with a vengeance nearly a decade later. Despite the fact that the Batman of the current cartoon is fighting colorful villains, both he and the 1960's comic version are tight-lipped without being grim, relentless without being ruthless, perfect for kids who won't stand for something babyish but aren't quite ready for the Christian Bale version.

.....For their part, the Doom Patrol here are a synthesis as well. This story shipped over a year before the team appeared in the episode "The Last Patrol" (October 8th, 2010). A "B:TB&TB" spot was only a matter of time, since there had already been appearances by The Brain ("Journey To The Center Of The Bat", January 30th, 2009) and Mallah ("Gorillas In Our Midst", April 16th, 2010). But the version of the Doom Patrol who eventually surfaced in that episode was very close to the Original Period line-up: Cliff, Rita , Larry and The Chief. Shockingly, they even updated the 1968 self-sacrifice scene. The version in this comic book story not only adds Beast Boy but uses a version of Gar closer to that from the "Teen Titans" animated series, which preceded "B:TB&TB". The squad as a whole most closely approximates the "Homecoming" incarnation of the group. "Homecoming" was a two-part season premiere of "Teen Titans" (September 25th and October 1st, 2005) broadcast during the waning days of the Byrne Period. The premise is that Beast Boy introduces his current teammates to his adopted family, the Doom Patrol, when they are kidnapped by the Brotherhood of Evil. The remaining five episodes in that season's first leg (through November) use the Brotherhood as villains. In "Homecoming", The Chief is nowhere to be found and Mento is the leader of the group. The following spring that team configuration was featured in the comic book counterpart to the series, Teen Titans Go! #28 (04/06) and again months later in #34 (10/06). The cartoon version almost seemed coordinated with the DCU version from Teen Titans #34 (05/06)- #37 (08/06), the "One Year Later" story that immediately followed Infinite Crisis. In that story Gar has returned to the Doom Patrol and they decide to have Mento be their new leader after reassessing Caulder's people skills.

.....When the Doom Patrol eventually appeared in Batman: The Brave And The Bold #7 (09/09) the roster was Cliff, Rita, Larry, Beast Boy and The Chief. Mento isn't mentioned, but curiously although the team is wearing uniforms in the same style they used in the 1960's, the color scheme is Mento's purple and black instead of Original Period red and white. One can only assume that was done in the hopes of carrying over readership from Teen Titans Go!, where Gar has always worn those colors for some reason. The plot of the issue involves Cliff, Rita and Larry being kidnapped by the Mad Mod, who intends to cannibalize the material of their costumes (or in Cliff's case his body) to custom design a battle suit that takes advantage of the materials' adaptability to the DP's powers. The Chief, based on experience no doubt, assumes General Immortus is responsible and dispatches Gar to recruit Batman's help. The scene in which Gar finds Batman shows him swooping into the Batmobile in the form of a green bat crying, "Daddy! Daddy! I've been looking all over for you!" That line is particularly jarring to anyone who knows the personal histories of both characters, even by the standards of Gar's filterless humor. In his own life Gar watched his natural father (and mother) die, was stolen from the African king who adopted him and then was adopted by Rita and a reluctant Steve who years later tried to kill him. Batman not only watched his father (and mother) die but was himself a proxy father to at least three boys: Dick Grayson was his ward for years (for decades to readers) without ever being formally adopted; an adult Dick then stood by and watched Bruce adopt Jason Todd relatively quickly; Jason was killed shortly after that while in Bruce's care; Bruce then took in Tim Drake while Tim's own father was incapacitated, leading to complications when Tim's father recovered; and finally learned that Tim's father was murdered during Identity Crisis as a direct result of Tim's activity as Robin. And then there's Damian. Gee, Gar, why not invite Scandal Savage or Orion of the New Gods and make the adventure a 'daddy issue' trifecta?

.....The choice of Mad Mod as the villain should also be acknowledged as a nod to the animated "Teen Titans" TV show as much as the purple and black costumes. Between the cartoon and the Teen Titans Go! comic book, I can't recall him appearing anywhere else in the past decade. Having made only two outings in pre-Crisis comics, both while the Original Period Doom Patrol was being published in the sixties (the second just barely), it could be that he and the DP's roster were chosen to evoke that period, at least among older readers. Yet, I'd wager his use since being revived for animation in 2003 has caused most fans to forget his turn as a reformed supporting character in Dan Jurgens late 1990's Teen Titans comic book series. So then, is this issue an Original Period story, albeit from the Original Period of an alternate timeline? Only with that conditional 'out' could I feel comfortable saying yes. To argue in defense of that choice I should point out that neither Batman or Beast Boy mention Robin or the Teen Titans even as they're fighting a TT villain. If they had I might have reconsidered what possible analog DCU continuity period the story could have fit. There are few other clues, although there is a wink on the last page as the team are enjoying their restored uniforms. Larry says, "I've been considering a makeover. How do you think I'd look in a trenchcoat?"

.....The 2010 retro stories are next.

DP02-03 Showcase #96(12/77-01/78)[a]

.....FYI: This is a critical review of a comic book published over thirty years earlier. It was the third issue of a three issue arc. This blog's internal search can be used to find reviews of the previous two issues as well as related essays on the period by typing in the codes 'DP02-01' and 'DP02-02'.

.....On June 16th, 1963 cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, riding aboard Vostok-6. It turned out to be the last Vostok mission, a series that began with the first man in space to orbit the Earth, Yuri Gagarin, in April, 1961.

..... The details can be found here and here.

.....The week before Gagarin went up, Journey Into Mystery #69(06/61) and Patsy Walker #95(06/61) became the first comic books to carry the "MC" logo, signifying the first public expression of the new Marvel Comics identity that had been clawing its way out of Atlas' grave since 1957. That fall, Fantastic Four #1(11/61) used the space race as a premise for what would become Marvel's flagship title. For the next few years the leap-frogging accomplishments of the USA and USSR space programs were echoed by Marvel and DC feverishly introducing new characters to capitalize on the public's renewed interest in super-heroes. The significance of this point in comics history was not lost on Warren Ellis, who used the ripple effect of Fantastic Four on comics publishing as a premise for his Planetary series. Fans of the Doom Patrol would no doubt recognize the importance of Tereshkova's historic flight to their favorite series. Not only was it coincidently during the same month as the cover date of the DP's first appearance but provided the name of one of its later members: Lt. Col. Valentina Vostok.

.....To be honest, I've never read Paul Kupperberg (or Paul Levitz, for that matter) explaining the derivation of Val's name. One or other may have trawled their memory for reasonably Russian-sounding names and picked them for alliteration, not remembering where or in what context they heard them originally. If that's the case it's an astounding coincidence and we may have to take a strop to Occam's razor. The reason I mention it is because Val becomes the focus of issue #96 as Arani had been in #95 and Cliff had been in #94. Her defection provides the plot for this issue as both American agent Matt Cable and Soviet agent Igor Brunovich each seek to capture her for their respective governments. In fact, the story is entitled "Defection!". Bruce Patterson replaces Frank Chiarmonte on inks and Ben Oda replaces Bill Morse on lettering. Otherwise the script (Kupperberg), pencils (Staton), colors (Berube) and edits (Levitz) are the same credits as in the previous issues. That consistency can work in a feature's favor when there is a limited window in which it can create an identity for itself and also win acceptance from a substantial readership for that identity. For that reason, this issue seems like a lost opportunity. The same team that has brought us this far and put Val front and center leaves her unconscious for much of the issue and unable to reveal any substantive background about herself. We don't learn why the Negative Energy Being envelopes her body instead of projecting from it a la Larry Trainor. We don't even know if its abilities and limitations are the same as Larry's (although she was contained by lead in #94). We don't know how she acquired the NEB (or how it acquired her). We don't know what her life was like before her defection; we don't know how she came into contact with either Joshua or Arani following her defection; we don't even know the details of her motives for defection. Perhaps she longed for the freedom we Americans have to wear stretch leotards with cleavage split to the navel. (I'm reminded of Lily Tomlin, who wondered what the world be like if we all grew up to take the jobs we wanted as small children-- a national economy built on astronauts and ballerinas, firemen and nurses. Could you imagine a world where we all dressed in the costumes of our 1970's heroes? Spend a day comparing the physiques at your local shopping mall and you'd know that all those gravity-defying codpieces and bustiers would have their work cut out for them.)

.....The story picks up immediately after the previous issue's ending with the Doom Patrol returning to the old headquarters in Caulder's abandoned Midway City mansion. They are met by Lt. Matt Cable, who identifies himself as an agent of US intelligence but neglects to mention that he is with the covert DDI and not the CIA. When he tries to take Val into protective custody, Cliff and Josh stuff him into a closet. Val is no more willing to be interrogated by her team-mates than by Cable and she storms out. What happens in the next panel [page 5, panel 2] could be easily over looked, but for readers who would go on to try and reconstruct the chronology of this often mysterious group it became a source of many headaches. Blaming Cliff for the conflict with Val, Arani says, "Cliff Steele...my husband told me you could be stubborn at times... but he never mentioned anything about stupidity!" Insults aside for a moment, for her husband, meaning Niles Caulder/The Chief, to tell her about Cliff's personality would require him to be in contact with her after the formation of the Doom Patrol, long after their brief relationship in India. From what we learned through the 'psychoprobe' in the last issue, Caulder had the use of his legs and was unaware that Immortus was financing his experiments when he gave Arani the immortality serum prototype. The probe doesn't reveal anything else after that (at least not to the readers), but Caulder's own account of his origin from Doom Patrol #88(06/64) recently reprinted in Super-Team Family (see DP01-AR3) shows him learning Immortus' identity and faking his own death to escape him, losing the use of his legs in the process. He operated on Cliff from a wheelchair according to the Robotman origin in the DP's first appearance, so he would only come to know Cliff after having left Arani behind in India. In post-Crisis appearances, Caulder claims to have never met Arani at all, that she was delusional and obsessed with him. He could easily be lying or the scene with the psychoprobe revealing her memories may have been wiped from history by Crisis and never happened at all or happened differently. In this pre-Crisis story we are only assuming that the probe accurately displays what Arani remembers as she remembers it and that it reconstructs what her physical senses saw and heard rather than merely what she believes happened. For what it's worth, Immortus says, "After his marriage, Caulder left Arani in India, unaware that I knew of her existence..." As much as Caulder no doubt strongly desired to learn the results of using the immortality serum on Arani, it would also be possible that he avoided contacting her hoping to keep her off Immortus' radar. Not that I give much credence to anything Immortus says, but he found her, and not vice versa. How either of them knew of the existence of the other is not disclosed here or, I believe, ever. Yet they clearly both did. If, as Arani contends, Caulder informed her of the Doom Patrol and his part in it and went so far as to provide her with the alarm codes (in Showcase #94) and profiles of the team members, we have to consider a disturbing possibility that would not have even been on the table for readers back in 1977.

.....Consider the possibility that Niles Caulder himself activated Arani as an agent to flush out Immortus after the 'death' of the Doom Patrol at the end of the original series.

.....Before forming the Doom Patrol, Caulder by his own account had been defeated by General Immortus three times. During the Doom Patrol's history they gained a number of other enemies, most of whom were dispatched in some way or other, but a few who recurred as Immortus would. Principally those were Garguax and The Brain with his Brotherhood Of Evil. A little more than half-way through the Original Period the Doom Patrol teamed with the Flash against all three factions in The Brave And The Bold #65(04-05/66). After that, Immortus seemed to disappear. The others (including Monsieur Mallah and Madame Rouge) attack the DP again around the time of Steve and Rita's wedding. This cooperation among villains continued for about a year until it was interrupted on two fronts. Madame Rouge began to realize that she was in love with Caulder and Garguax betrayed the others to side with a fellow, more powerful invading alien. The Patrol and Brotherhood temporarily joined to fight the aliens together, successfully driving them back into space. Garguax does not appear again pre-Crisis. Caulder eventually gains custody of Madame Rouge after learning her origin-- she was a mentally unstable woman whom The Brain was able to make coherent and rational by focusing her mind on being purely evil. Caulder didn't consider this to be the "cure" that The Brain seemed to think it was. His attempts to restore her sanity eventually resulted in her being split physically into two people, one good and one evil. The 'evil' one died, but the 'good' one gradually went insane again. Enlisting the assistance of an aging Nazi named Captain Zahl she 'killed' both the Patrol and the Brotherhood. [Of course we saw earlier in the Showcase arc that Cliff survived. We next see The Brain and Mallah in The New Teen Titans #13(11/81)- 15(01/82), but their escape was not explained until Teen Titans Spotlight #11(06/87). After that the others emerged gradually.]

.....HYPOTHESIS: After surviving the blast that appeared to kill the Doom Patrol (presumably using either a force field or transporter built into the chair whose remains were later retrieved by Cliff and Arani in Doom Patrol #1(10/87)), The Chief offered his services to the U.S. government for a three-fold purpose:(1) to exploit the one advantage he had over his remaining enemies, that they thought he was dead, so that he could amass funds, weapons and political influence to fight them later; (2) to continue cutting-edge research without interruption; and (3) to monitor Mento's progress tracking down Madame Rouge and Captain (later General) Zahl. Brain and Mallah would not reemerge until that Zandia episode in NTT and with Garguax still in space the only player not accounted for was Immortus. With access to government data in the "mere months" before Cliff's return, The Chief would have learned about AWOL soldier Joshua Clay and defecting Soviet officer Valentina Vostock as well as Doc Magnus being in the custody of the military, just the man capable of repairing Cliff's body so that The Chief could remain hidden. What he did not have was bait that would flush out Immortus but the one thing he knew would cause Immortus to lose all caution was the prospect of obtaining an immortality formula, the same desire that brought them together in the first place. Arani would become that bait.

.....If we were to believe that the psychoprobe used in the previous issue revealed actual events being remembered, then Arani had developed super powers through training by a secretive order and was given an immortality serum prototype by Caulder, who left and formed the Doom Patrol. After the DP 'died' at the end of the original series, Caulder found her, still young, transferred his property into her name and provided her with the information and means necessary to collect Josh and Val and to leave a trail that Immortus could follow. Her perpetual 'search' for The Chief was actually meant to dissuade anyone else from conducting a search of their own that might actually find him-- anyone truly inclined to find him would join her instead and she would lead them into some unrelated mission far from him, which she would then decry as an "interruption" of her search. She could not reveal The Chief's whereabouts or the fact that he was still alive until Immortus was captured or killed, either due to an oath or by psychological blocks imposed by The Chief. In fact, the very next adventure involving Immortus was the one near the end of the Kupperberg period in which The Chief revealed himself to be still alive. Shortly after that, Arani gave up her life fighting aliens in Invasion! before any satisfactory explanation could be wrested from either of them.

.....If we were to believe that the psychoprobe was merely revealing an implanted memory, however, it could be possible that Arani was found by Caulder after his apparent death with the team. She may have always been mentally ill and Caulder applied a modified version of the 'cure' he used on Madame Rouge, once again resulting in a physical dichotomy but instead of splitting the subject in two it caused some latent metahuman ability to manifest extremes of hot and cold. To hide Caulder's part in this should she be subjected to interrogation, he would have implanted a memory of this taking place years earlier when he had working legs and replacing his own treatments in the sequence of events with the training of a fictional religious sect. Later, when Immortus captured her and witnessed this fabricated memory through the probe, he claimed to have been searching for Arani for years in order to maintain a facade of omniscience rather than admit that he had been kept unaware of her for years. He is, after all, an egomaniac. This explanation of events would answer several other questions: Why did the psychoprobe not reveal the years of Arani's life while Caulder was with the Doom Patrol? Because there weren't any. If Immortus really had known of Arani's existence, as he claimed, why not invade the religious sect that trained her? Because he was lying and/or they didn't exist anyway. Why did The Chief have a romantic relationship with the reformed Madame Rouge near the end of the original series if he was married to Arani, who was in hiding? Because they weren't married.

.....Of course, both of the above speculations would answer some questions the same way. How did Arani know enough to locate Val when she had only recently defected, let alone (as we would learn in flashbacks published later) only recently bonded with the Negative Energy Being? Because Caulder contacted Arani after surviving the disaster that released the Negative Energy Being and when the new Negative Woman was first sighted, he could explain to Arani what that meant. Why would anyone trying to hide from Immortus in order to surprise him do so in the headquarters of his bitterest enemies? Because she was actually trying to lure him.

.....And the proof of these hypotheses? Well,... none. Absolutely none. But if gleaning back issues for some vague hint that corroborated either of the above proposed scenarios were difficult, finding any scrap of evidence that might disprove them isn't any easier. During this arc the four characters we are given are the old pro, the mysterious heiress, the fugitive and the angry young man. The pro (Cliff) we already know, but even if we didn't, he's a bit of an open book anyway. The heiress (Arani) we gradually learn not to trust, mostly because she doesn't trust anyone else. Of the other two we know nothing. The fugitive is an unconscious hostage when our attention is on her and the young man doesn't get any solo exposure at all.

.....HYPOTHESIS ENDS.

.....The highlight that would most likely be included in encapsulated descriptions of this issue, such as in price guides or online comics data bases, would be the introduction (and dispatch) of this issue's villain. Accompanying Brunovitch on his mission to retrieve Val is the massive, period-costumed COSSACK. In the age of Sky-Lab, an antiquated Soviet stereotype might have seemed quaint, but the Cossack is not quite that. Actual cossacks were not one thing, but several things. Different versions appeared in different regions. They were often a home-grown (and largely self-appointed) force for law and order at the local level dating back centuries prior to the communist revolutions. Their various relationships to the czars would fluctuate over decades, alternately fighting on their behalf or rebelling against them. Many, if not most, were not Russian. Poring over this issue (the character's only appearance) I grasped at any straw I could to give him some kind of context. There, on page 9, panel 3, is the only instance of him speaking something other than English. After evading the team and with Val in tow he shouts, "Na zdrowie, fools!" "Na zdrowie" is a Polish toast, comparable to "To your health" in English. The Russian counterpart would be the similar "Za zdorovye". If an actual Russian cossack were taunting opponents with a sarcastic drinking toast, he might use the Ukranian "Budem", but probably not Polish.

.....Still, even knowing all of this isn't enough to make sense of the character, especially when it is revealed that the Cossack is a robot. There were some signs, such as his speed despite his size and the fact that his horse sprouted wings to fly away when necessary. Also, when Val discovers him in the mansion he is one man on horseback, standing in front of a similar sized hole in the wall of an upper floor with rubble strewn about but no obvious blast marks. The physical damage could be attributed to a mechanical horse alone, true, but he did manage to survive riding through the wall on the horse. The revelation that he is also mechanical is not so much of a shock, then. But it is confusing. While the team was on the moon (in Showcase #95), Cable spotted Brunovich casing the mansion, also looking for Val. It's implied that Brunovich is a capable operative, meant to smuggle the defecting officer back to the Soviets using stealth. Why then is Plan 'B' to employ a large robot in a century-old costume with a flying horse? If you can't get the stealth you want, if you are forced to deal in public, then why not a robot who might blend in until you need him? Hell, they had enough sense to make the horse's wings retractable, although not enough to understand that a horse might seem out of place in Midway City after hours. And why choose the motif of a cossack, of all things? The cossacks died out under the Soviets. And why does the Cossack repeatedly threaten to kill Val if this essentially a 'catch-and-retrieve' mission? We get "The defector shall not live to see another day!", "Valentina Vostok will die!", (to Val:)"...you may call me... your executioner!" and "My orders are to kill you... and the Cossack does not fail!" That's all within three consecutive pages (pp4-6). Despite that, when his sword impales Val while she is in Negative Woman form it merely renders her unconscious. While she is unconscious, he does nothing to harm her.

.....At best, the behavior of the Cossack adds up to a robot that is so sophisticated that it uses intimidation tactics, is programmed to use interjections in a language other than the one in which it's been conversing, can adapt to new threats and yet dresses in 19th century clothing. In the long tradition of suspending disbelief in comic book stories, that's far from the worst case scenario. What is harder to swallow than the fact of the robot is the fact that since he is a robot, the profile I've just presented is the result of someone else's (probably a Soviet committee's) deliberate, conscious design. And bear in mind that while this story ran at DC, readers of Marvel comics were familiar with Red Guardian (Defenders), Colossus (X-Men) and Darkstar (Champions), all of whom were active in 1977, as well as numerous Soviet villains left over from the 1960's. That is, working models exist for comparisons. But knowing that the Cossack character would never be reoccurring is not a reason to allow his appearance to become incoherent. Being a robot, the Cossack himself may no longer be a concern for the Doom Patrol after this story but the still unseen interests who built and sent him should certainly be and many of the operating parameters they gave him should be cause for confusion for the team.

.....The basic plot of the story is much sturdier than the details. At its core, we see a fractious element within the team exposed, then one team member is threatened and the others cooperate to come to their aid, strengthening their bond in the process. Although that basic plot plays out in its entirety in this issue, there are clear indications that future installments and possibly an ongoing series were presumed to follow. After Cable is locked in the closet, Val storms out and is ambushed on an upper floor by the Cossack. When the other DP members chase after the Cossack and the unconscious Val, Joshua's dialogue repeatedly reinforces the subplot that he is in love with Val. This would be a point of interest for ongoing readers because an intragroup romance can change team dynamics, but that can only be evident if there are ongoing adventures. It can't be a plot in itself, it can only be a plot element of a series. While the DP chase the Cossack, Cable escapes from the closet then finds and subdues Brunovich, taking him into custody. We could tell ourselves that bringing Brunovich to the proper authorities would take Cable out of the DP's lives for the moment, if not for the caption at the bottom of page11: "In the light of dawn, Matt Cable drags his prisoner back to Doom Patrol headquarters to wait once again for its occupants..." We never see that second confrontation. This issue ends with the Cossack in pieces and the four new teammates leaving the scene together. The fate of the robot horse is unclear. Overall the story suffers from an over-dependence on there being future issues. It is written with the presumption that (a) anything written further on will have to be foreshadowed here in the present and that this foreshadowing is so important that it is given precedence over providing backstory for the readers here and now and (b) that the readers here and now will bother following the series into future installments when so much is kept so cryptic.

.....Perhaps you should give your eyes a rest while I hose off my brain and gear up for a following installment in which I try to piece together a hypothetical proposal for an ongoing series that could have followed this Showcase arc. (Obviously, I can't give a critical review of something that didn't happen, so this would only deal with plotting rather than style or execution. It should be much shorter.) This post has under gone several rewrites, some of them weeks apart from one another, so if something doesn't seem quite coherent it could be that I wiped a sentence I hadn't intended to. Feel free to point out any shaky syntax in the comments section, as well as any points you feel I may have missed.

[Final draft posted October 25th, 2010]

DP02-02 Showcase #95(10-11/77)[a]

.....[Happy Birthday Matthew Cable! (see below)]

.....FYI: This is a critical review of a comic book published over thirty years earlier. It was the second issue of a three issue arc. For the perspective of events leading up to the arc, use this blog's internal search to search the term DP02-01[a]; for the review of the previous issue, search DP02-01[b]; for trivia regarding all three issues, search DP02-01[c].

.....A couple of months ago while I was rereading this Showcase arc for review, it occurred to me to try and reconcile conflicting ideas about when exactly in continuity this story takes place. Aside from free standing graphic novels, which don't necessarily need to take place in continuity at all to make sense (even when they feature famous recurring characters), this is always a good first step in reviewing comics. It comes under the heading of an author establishing an environment. If "Wuthering Heights" had taken place in downtown Rio de Janeiro it would have been a very different story. In serialized stories, the other chapters add more than merely events and locations to the readers' understanding of what they are reading at hand. They can give you the frames of reference of the various characters in the story.

.....Choosing an existing character rather than creating one tailored to your story's needs is usually done to cash in on either a character's popular recognition quotient or their critical gravitas. When the character isn't known to have much of either, as was the case when Matt Cable was picked to be the government agent sent to retrieve errant cosmonaut Valentina Vostok, then the choice may be to tie-in further, related characters later (in his case, Swamp Thing). It could also reflect a decision to circumvent the need for exposition or flashbacks to fill out the back story of what will amount to a supporting character whose purpose is to advance the plot, especially when you have a finite number of issues to work with. Why go to the trouble of creating and fleshing out a character when you have one from a title cancelled just a year earlier?

.....For the past two decades comics readers have known Matthew as the raven sidekick to Morpheus in Sandman. He spent the preceding two decades as a human supporting character in Swamp Thing (in the 70's) and then Saga Of The Swamp Thing (in the 80's). He spent the later half of the 80's in a coma and died while dreaming, thus making him eligible to remain in Morpheus' kingdom as his subject. The details of their arrangement, if not his transformation into a raven, are in Swamp Thing #84(03/89), pages 15-21.

.....To get my bearings with regards to where in Cable's life he confronts the Doom Patrol I took some time to scrawl through the priceless chronology at Rich Handley's website "Roots Of The Swamp Thing" at http://www.swampthingroots.com/index.html because while there are plenty of data-rich comics-related sites out there, Handley cites his sources for each event, and in the case of ambiguities where order can't be conclusively determined he steps in to explain his reasons for placing events where they are. Some of what I found I already knew: that Cable was the bodyguard/liaison for the Hollands assigned by an agency called the D.D.I. When they were killed by an organization called the Conclave for refusing to hand over their valuable research for the Conclave's illicit purposes, Cable became personally driven to bring the killers to justice and tracked the Swamp Thing because he believed him connected to the deaths. The leader of the Conclave is paralyzed by a fall trying to escape Swamp Thing and Batman in Swamp Thing #7(11-12/73) and Cable learns the monster is really what's left of Alec in the last issue written by Len Wein, #13(11-12/74).

.....Since I don't own half of the remaining issues of the series Handley's website filled in the missing pieces (and more). The balance of the run is written by David Michelinie and Gerry Conway in turns. Michelinie leaves his first arc (#'s14-18) with a clean break with Alec in the Florida swamps so that Conway's story, intended for a giant sized special of some kind, can begin and end there. This would enable Michelinie to pick up his narrative where he left it in the ongoing series for regular readers who didn't get the special. In the Conway story, a duplicate Swamp Thing, which grew from a severed arm discarded back in the Wein/Wrightson days, wreaks misunderstood-monster havoc and Cable witnesses it being blown up, assuming it's Alec. The plans for the special were scrapped, so the Conway story ran in Swamp Thing #19(10-11/75) and 20(12/75-01/76), right after Alec's first (and for a while only) appearance outside his own title. Oh, and I also learned that Matthew Cable was born June 2, 1948.

.....Brave And The Bold #122 (10/75) is a single issue Bob Haney story in which a showman captures Alec in the swamp and displays him on a flat bed truck for money. While in Gotham, D.D.I. screws up the transport of a biological weapon, unleashing a weed that proceeds to overrun and strangle Gotham. Batman frees the Swamp Thing to attack its root (saving the city), then strong-arms his captor into returning him to the swamp where he belongs. The rest of the Swamp Thing's own series takes him away from the swamp and Matt Cable doesn't appear in it. It was therefore long presumed that the Doom Patrol story running in Showcase in 1977 would naturally take place after Swamp Thing was cancelled in 1976. Yet, on page 10 of Showcase #95, Matt is standing in Midway City across the street from Caulder's mansion and next to a newspaper display box with the headline, "SLIME MONSTER EATS GOTHAM!". Unless there's a Batman fan out there with uninterrupted runs of Batman, Detective, World's Finest and Brave And The Bold who could point to a 1977 story of a giant monster eating Gotham City, my guess is that's the Haney story. If not for this panel, possibly an inside joke on Joe Staton's part or even Paul Levitz (editor of Showcase and assistant editor of Swamp Thing), the Haney story could just as easily taken place before as after the Conway story. But as Rich Handley points out, before Martin Pasko left Saga Of The Swamp Thing in 1983 he described the fallout in the wake of the Swamp Thing's presumed death. Pasko (either forgetting or unaware of the DP connection) explains why readers hadn't seen Cable since the Conway story. He returns to the Fenwick Military Academy (where he was still working in Showcase #94) to close the Swamp Thing file. His superior sees the department's inability to secure the monster to be an embarrassment and considers eliminating anyone with knowledge of it, including Cable. Rather than lose an agent to sudden death, he tries to wipe Cable's memory with electro-shock therapy. It doesn't work, but Cable pretends that it did to avoid being murdered, then quits the service and surfaces later. If the Showcase arc had taken place after the Conway story, Cable would have seen the headline about Gotham, realized that Swamp Thing was still alive and reopened the file. This means that the order of the stories should be:

1. The Michelinie story in Swamp Thing #18(09/75)
2. The Haney Batman team-up in Brave And The Bold #122(10/75)
3. The Doom Patrol arc in Showcase #94(08-09/77)- #96(12/77-01/78)
4. The Conway story in Swamp Thing #19(10-11/75)- #20(12/75-01/76)
5. Pasko's flashbacks in Saga Of The Swamp Thing #17(10/83)- #18(12/83)
6. Michelinie returns in Swamp Thing #21(02-03/76)- #22(04-05/76)
7. Conway finishes in Swamp Thing #23(06-07/76)- #24(08-09/76)

.....In light of the review of the previous issue, DP02-01[b], I've already established that the compression of time between the devastation of the original Doom Patrol in Doom Patrol #121(09-10/68) and Robotman's restoration in 1977 is a reasonable, possibly necessary conceit for the feature to go forward. (Cliff was the most likely survivor for the sake of maintaining team identity, but only given a narrow window of time to salvage him.) So, the mere fact of the Showcase arc taking place contemporaneously to comics published two years earlier is not a problem in itself. The problems arise when trying to reconcile Will Magnus' cameo in #94, since at the time of the previous issue of Brave And The Bold, #121(09/75) with Batman and the Metal Men, Magnus was still receiving psychological treatment. When their title was revived in Metal Men #45(04-05/76), Magnus was in the care of Dr. Rosen and therapist Isobel Sullivan. Sullivan disappeared without mention after issue #50(02-03/77) despite the fact that there were increasing indications that she was intended to grow into a love interest for Magnus. She's also absent from the Metal Men's guest spot in Brave And The Bold #135(07/77)- #136(09/77), which most databases place during the break between Metal Men #47(08-09/76) and #48(10-11/76). From #48 to #53 there's a continuous storyline ending with the robots walking out on their creator. They are reunited when the series ended with the robots gaining rights as World Citizens in #56(02-03/78).

.....So, the 1977 B&B story could not take place before Metal Men #45 because Magnus was still recovering from his mental condition then. It could not take place between #53 and #54 because it features Magnus and the robots together. Finally, it could not take place after the series ended because one of the key plot points of the B&B story is that robots don't have the same inalienable rights as humans, a problem they circumvented by becoming World Citizens. That leaves the break between #47 and #48. So where is Magnus' Showcase #94 cameo in all this? Ordinarily I would put it between Metal Men #53 and #54. That's when he wouldn't be with the robots and his therapist was already gone. He would be free to do a favor for Caulder (or himself) without anyone knowing. The problem is that the cameo takes place "weeks" before Matt Cable is standing next to a newspaper headline describing Brave And The Bold #122, but the break after Metal Men #53 takes place after Brave And The Bold #'s 135- 136. If it were generally acceptable for B&B #'s 135-136 to take place between #'s 121 and 122, we would have more options to placing the cameo. To the best of my reckoning, the least controversial sequence of events should be:

1. Brave And The Bold #121(09/75) Batman teams with the Metal Men, w/o Magnus
2. Metal Men #45(04-05/76)- #47(08-09/76) Magnus returns to activity (cured?)
3. Showcase #94(08-09/77) pages 1-4 (or just page 4; Magnus rescues Cliff)
4. Swamp Thing #15(03-04/75)- #18(09/75) Matt and Swamp Thing get separated in Florida
5. Brave And The Bold #122(10/75) Batman teams with Swamp Thing
6. (lots of intermediate Batman continuity)
7. Brave And The Bold #135(07/77)- #136(09/77) Batman teams with the Metal Men and Magnus
8. Metal Men #48(10-11/76)- #53(08-09/77) Metal Men fight Eclipso, etc. and leave Magnus
9. Showcase #94(08-09/77) pages 5-17 Matt reports to Fenwick Military Academy and is assigned to find Val before the Russians do (specifically, page 9).
10. Showcase #95(10-11/77) Matt stands next to terribly out of date newspaper headline
11. Showcase #96(12/77-01/78) Matt's involvement with Doom Patrol ends (not resolved during story)
12. Swamp Thing #19(10-11/75)- 20(12/75-01/76) Matt witnesses destruction of ersatz Swamp Thing and believes Alec is really dead.
13. [flashbacks] in Saga Of The Swamp Thing #17(10/83)- #18(12/83) Matt ends the search for Alec
14. [Note: In the letters' page of Saga Of The Swamp Thing #6(10/82) either Martin Pasko (writer) or Len Wein (editor) say, "As far as we're concerned, the stories published after #21 [in 1976] never happened, that is, Alec never became predominantly human, he never had a brother,... etc". It is a popular myth that Alan Moore's "Anatomy Lesson" story was the reason for them being 'retconned' out of DC history, but the truth is that such was the case before he even plotted the book. Moore's story famously asserts that Swamp Thing was never Holland but a plant creature born with Holland's memories and believing it was once human. However, these stories don't conflict with Moore's any more so than the first Wein/Wrightson Arcane story in which the Swamp Thing temporarily takes the shape of a human Alec Holland. In both cases artificial means were used to change the plant monster's body to conform to his self image. In both cases it was temporary and its plant nature inevitably reasserted itself. Fortunately, the sequence of events as I've spelled it out above should hold regardless of whether the last four issue of the first Swamp Thing series are in continuity or not.]

.....Well, now that that's settled...

.....Showcase #95 takes place almost entirely in General Immortus' headquarters except for three partial page scenes and an extended flashback. It opens with Robotman (Cliff), Negative Woman (Valentina) and Tempest (Josh) imprisoned and witnessing the villain subjecting Celsius (Arani) to a "psycho-probe". I'm going to stop right here for a moment not merely for 'spoiler' announcements (I consider this blog's banner to be a blanket spoiler announcement) but to reassure anyone who's had the patience to slog through the disambiguation above to get to this review that I am not stupid. I realize that this scene and much of what follows is a textbook "Scott Evil" moment. Scott was the son of Dr. Evil, the villain of the Austin Powers movies. While Powers and the Dr. were literally frozen in time since the 1960's and are content to be living cliches of that period's adventure fiction, the Dr.'s son has no patience for the conventions of the roles they feel so comfortable perpetuating. Why put your enemy in an elaborate, expensive trap with an opportunity to escape? If you have no moral qualms about the trap being potentially lethal, why not simply kill them? A savvy audience knows, or could guess, that the situation becomes a door for exposition as well as a chance to give the hero/protagonist a concrete, quantifiable accomplishment to achieve. But that's only the writer's motivation. What is the villain's?

.....Here we have a villain about whom we have known little for the fourteen years he had repeatedly resurfaced. He is presumed to be immortal (how?). He has had a part in major international military conflicts for thousands of years (why?) He seems always capable of raising armies at a moments notice (how?) If someone were as old as he claims to be and played decisive roles in landmark battles as he claims to have, then even if he were always on the winning side-- especially if he were on the winning side-- then he would know better than anyone the transitory nature of power. The Khan dynasty and Roman Empire were rarities. Most regimes come and go in mere decades. Why squander something as rare as immortality on that? A clue may come in the opening caption; a hint at why he would be so careless- or arrogant- that he would imprison the DP all in the same room so that they could communicate with each other as well as witness the valuable information he is trying to extract from Celsius. The caption reads, "What does a man do with immortality?" The name Fu Manchu comes to mind. I can't think of an earlier fictional villain who routinely led his enemies into a succession of lethal traps requiring not merely an expert grasp of advanced technologies to create but considerable advance planning just to spring. And again in his case there is the factor of immortality. He can afford to play and experiment; he expects to live long enough to try again. He really doesn't need to kill his enemies; he could choose to outlive them. Where Fu Manchu differs from Immortus is not only in personal style (cool and aloof vs. blustering martinet) but in motive. Fu Manchu believes in his innate superiority to others and that his control of the world could only improve it. With Immortus, one is never sure if his perpetual lust for warfare is a means to some unspoken end or an end in itself.

.....Immortus has always been a threat simply by his short term goals. In the case of this story (and the last) his short term goal is the pursuit of the formula for an immortality serum. On pages 6-9 the reader sees the result of the "psycho-probe", a flashback from Arani's memories of meeting Caulder while he was a young medical school graduate volunteering in India. That first half of the flashback takes place before the Caulder's own flashback revealing his own origins to the DP in Doom Patrol #88(06/64), which had been recently reprinted in Super-Team Family #9(02-03/77)- #10(04-05/77). Two pages into the Chief's origin story, Arani's flashback in Showcase resumes with her in the care of "a sect of holy men" to whom Caulder entrusted her. They develop her powers as Celsius and Caulder returns telling her of an anonymous benefactor (revealed as Immortus in the reprints) funding immortality research. He marries her and gives her the first (only?) dose of what he tells her is an immortality serum. Where Arani's flashback ends, Caulder's 1964 flashback continues for another six pages in which he explains discovering Immortus' plans to abuse his work and faking his own death to escape the situation.

.....Telling a story by having two flashbacks weave in and out of each other is a risky venture under the best of circumstances (see the Byrne Period synopsis, DP07-AA). Trying it with flashbacks in different issues compounds the difficulty. When the earlier flashback is an unheralded reprint, split across two issues and published six months earlier in a different title with a higher price point... This could be explained as poor planning, wishful thinking or deliberate obfuscation. I would prefer to believe that Kupperberg's relative inexperience and Levitz' excessive workload were more likely causes than a prior intention to craft a story so that it could be followed only by a small coterie of broad-based collectors. It's almost inevitable that longtime fans will get an enhanced experience reading stories with characters who have a large back story. But that perspective shouldn't be necessary with new characters.

.....Otherwise Showcase #95 is fairly pedestrian. Although Immortus was able to obtain a formula from Arani's memories, he didn't understand that it was customized for her biology and it only works long enough to make him look too young for his troops to recognize him. Unwilling to accept his much needed direction, the DP manages to overpower them and escape. That ending was more in the mold of Stan Lee or O. Henry than Gardner Fox. The question is how this, the new team's first real adventure, would compare to the style of Arnold Drake, the only relevant precedent. It's almost an apples and oranges comparison because of the absence of the Chief, who loomed large in much of Drake's plotting. Celsius may be the new group's leader but she does not function in a script as a 'Chief' character. One element of the older stories that could have transfered to the new group and didn't was the tendency for enemies to plan their strategies around the original DP being put into positions that would threaten their lives unless they complied with the villains' wishes. The DP members, faced with a losing proposition, would surprise their enemies by choosing to 'lose' and suffer injuries (or collateral damage in Cliff's case) to turn the tide. Here they are simply restrained and escape by escalating their efforts. There's no wit or poetry to it.

.....In fact, the issue has four real points of interest. One is Arani's flashback, which does add genuinely new information to the pot in that it provides an origin for one of the new members. It raises other questions, but at the time it was not written in stone that an ongoing series would not follow. The second point of interest are the handful of panels on the tenth, fifteenth and last pages featuring Matt Cable at the DP mansion waiting for the DP to return to arrest Val. Their purpose is obvious- to lay ground for the next issue and facilitate pacing in this one, and they succeed on both counts.

.....The third point of interest is an 'unexpected twist' moment in which the team discovers that Immortus' headquarters is on the moon by trying to bust through a wall and nearly being sucked out into the vacuum of space. It could have been a more dramatic moment if Staton had not been limited to 17 pages and could use a full page panel to emphasize that what the characters are experiencing is the sudden realization that they are operating on a different scale. Still, Jack Kirby only had 12 pages to work in the first S.H.I.E.L.D. story in Strange Tales #135(08/65) when Nick Fury throws a chair (with bomb attached) out a window and the readers see for the first time that the story has been taking place in their flying Headquarters. With Kirby's full page panel of the exterior and tiny chair to show scale the effect is immediate and lasting. The panel with the 'reveal' on page 13 is about the same dimensions as the panels on page 11 in which the team strain against their bonds. Containment and claustrophobia shouldn't be the same size or feeling as being dwarfed.

.....The fourth point is the O. Henry moment in which Immortus has temporarily (and unwittingly) traded his authority for youth, which alone is worthy of Drake. The next issue raises the action quotient and should be a fun read. The next post will be about popular music at the time the 1977 revival was on the racks.

DP02-01 Showcase #94(08-09/77) [b]

.....[continued from part a]


.....According to the full page ads, Showcase #94(08-09/77) went "on sale May 31st!" This comic not only revived the team name as a feature, but the Showcase title itself, which originally ran from #1(03-04/56) to #93(09/70). Keeping with the spirit of that earlier run, this would be the first of three installments seeking to lead into an ongoing series. The only credits are for the four contributors who will see through all three issues: writer Paul Kupperberg, penciller Joe Staton (who presumably inks himself here), colorist Liz Berube and story editor Paul Levitz. As noted in part [a], Levitz had been dropping hints that this project was in the works for at least a year while working as story editor for managing editor Joe Orlando in a few other titles. In the letters' page of one of those titles, he mentions that shuffling of personel at the time had left Orlando in charge of nearly two-thirds of DC's titles (which I've yet to verify) and relying on his story editors to keep on top of details. The details of this debut story are, using a journalist's perspective, in the concretes: who, what, when and where, but not in the abstracts: how and why.

.....With only 17 pages to work with (roughly two-thirds the average story page count of the 1960's), Kupperberg and Staton make great economic use of them to positively establish the names of both old characters such as Robotman, General Immortus and Matt Cable and new characters Celsius, Tempest and Negative Woman. They also briefly cover the nature of the DP's powers. It places the events of Doom Patrol #121(09-10/68) as happening "Mere months ago..." and Cliff's upper body (minus an arm) reaching the shore as "Short weeks ago". The main body of the story takes place "now" in the original Midway City mansion headquarters and stays there (except for a three panel "interlude" on page 9 for foreshadowing). That takes care of the four concretes and all done very concisely. What isn't covered in the minimally invasive captions is worked into conversations without that familiar feeling of running into a brick wall one frequently gets from exposition. By putting the reader so solidly into the events they can be forgiving about the lack of explicit reasons for what they are witnessing.

.....After a non-story splash page and a two-page "Epilogue" briefly recapping the origins and 'deaths' of the original foursome we find the first real new story on page four. (Why did Madame Rouge want to murder them? She was their "old foe". To be fair, in the 1960's that was often enough.) The whole page tells in four panels how Cliff's remains washed up on shore, drawing parallels between the racing accident that ended his human life and his most recent carnage. Is that observant or perfunctory? Is it poetic license and being selective, or is it simply something you'd be stupid not to notice? I'd go with observant and largely due to context. At this point in the team's history they may have known failure or being misunderstood, but they had never died. Death would only become a constant companion to the Doom Patrol with subsequent incarnations. Arguably Cliff hadn't died here, either, but he was immersed in the event that he believed was the death of his friends and the team as a unit. Also, without a readily available explanation for the survival of the other members (it is at least rational that a robot body could withstand the blast) the other obvious way to connect to the team name is by parallel events. Just as in the first story in 1963, the new team convenes in the mansion before setting forth in an adventure involving General Immortus. What better way to prepare Cliff for that experience than to have an echo of what brought him to that first meeting? It also focuses the reader on something to distract them from unanswered/unraised questions. The first being, exactly how long can Cliff's organic brain go without nourishment? Without a digestive system, it's fed by a nutrient tank housed in his chest. It's true that it's as likely to have survived the blast as his brain was, but the attack was "mere months ago"and he surfaced "short weeks ago", meaning that the tank would have needed to feed him for over a month. Well, so be it. Nine years I would have had a problem with, but if Kupperberg had the foresight to know that would be problematic, enough to begin by compressing the length of their absence, I can live with a month or two.

.....Next unanswered question? As Cliff crawls onto the beach in the last panel he begs for help from a figure wearing brown pants and an orange plaid jacket and casting a shadow of a man smoking a pipe. Now, isn't it more than just slightly coincidental that Doc Magnus, DC's resident good-guy robotics expert would happen to be standing on a beach in the Caribbean when a MIA robot hero washes up on shore? Also odd is the decision to not positively identify him. That faceless, one panel cameo is his only appearance in the arc. He is only ever mentioned again on the following page when Cliff reaches the mansion and notes, "It's a good thing the doc was able to reconstruct the code-pattern implanted in my hand..." to bypass the mansion's automated security systems. If Cliff didn't know or couldn't remember what the code-pattern was, how could "the doc" (and we can just call him Magnus from here on out, since he would be identified in much later stories) have known what he was looking for or recognized it when he found it? Even the smartest man in the world needs something to work with. The code is a minor point, but coupled with his fortuitous presence on the island at just the right time and his strong affiliation with the U.S. military in the contemporaneously published Metal Men revival, it makes a strong argument for the possibility that the Chief escaped the blast as well and was manipulating events remotely. Over a decade later Kupperberg would have the Chief emerge from the shadows to reveal he was doing sensitive work for the U.S. government for which they indulged him much. Morrison would have him bring in Magnus as a formal affiliate of the group, as did Pollack initially. Arcudi even had Cliff dreaming of Magnus (as Veridium) converting his friends to robots. After this mysterious cameo only Byrne did without Magnus, although it's not inconceivable that the Metal Men were among numerous 1960's touchstones he would have eventually revisited as he did Metamorpho, had he been given the time.

.....Page 5 shows Cliff entering the mansion; pages 6-8 depict the confrontation between Cliff and the new team, a textbook way to demonstrate the super-powers of each and distinguish them from one another early on. The authors of that particular chapter of the textbook were Lee and Kirby, of course. (Ditko was never one for team books.) Beginning with The Fantastic Four they often used scuffles amongst their heroes as quick tutorials for new readers. It might expose a hero's neurosis, but that in turn could be a more believable plot device than the then-common gimmick weakness (wood, fire, the color yellow...). To my memory only Thor's arbitrary time limit for losing contact with his hammer (lest he revert back to human form...verily...) survived as a gimmick weakness beyond Marvel's early days. They were much more commonly associated with DC, so much so that in political circles a game-changing element that could cost an otherwise strong candidate an election or the passage of a bill is referred to as their "kryptonite". It's a fair bet that's not a reference to bicycle locks. Arnold Drake was one of the first writers at DC to intuitively understand that many of the standards for super-hero behavior that their editors adhered to with the tenacity of a religious acolyte weren't really painting the characters in the good light they were assumed to. If Lee's and Kirby's characters came off as slightly neurotic when squandering their powers, DC's characters would often inform the readers of their abilities by working explicit descriptions of their powers and limitations into what would otherwise be casual conversations and sounded like total asses. A decade later when Kupperberg employs the 'in-fighting' technique, it has already been the basis for nearly every issue of Marvel Team-Up and random issues of various titles from both publishers. While far from innovative it has been used effectively by limiting the scene to three pages and incorporating the new characters' code names into the action.

.....When Cliff recovers, the strangers identify themselves by their real names: Valentina Vostock (Negative Woman), Joshua Clay (Tempest) and Arani (Celsius), "three true names that must remain forever secret!" on page 9. The first half of the story ends at the bottom of the page with a three-panel interlude at Fenwick Military Academy, where Dr. Gilary discusses his examination of a Soviet jet salvaged from the Caribbean with Lt. Cable, whose next assignment is to find Lt. Col. Valentina Vostock, "the defecting Russian cosmonaut who stole the jet..." [More on Matt Cable and this story's position relative to Swamp Thing's continuity, as well as Will Magnus and the Metal Men in the upcoming review of Showcase #95.] This is an obvious, deliberately framed mystery and not an oversight. Anyone who had been reading comics at the time knew, at the end of the story, that no one 'forgot' to explain Vostock's back story. In fact, that scene is an implied 'promise' to reveal something in a future story, sales willing. No, the real mysteries, some of which have not been satisfactorily revealed to this day, come from Arani. First of all, she gives only one name. Second, she claims to know as much about the DP as Cliff himself, but will not say how. She claims to know that General Immortus poses an imminent threat and it is because he may soon replenish his immortality serum. She claims to have brought Josh and Val together to stop him, but doesn't explain how that happened when both "have our reasons for staying hidden from the world". How did she even know to look for them, let alone how to find them? How did any of them acquire the access codes to the mansion? If they need to stay one step ahead of Immortus, why go to the mansion headquarters of the one group who was ever able to stop him in the past and take up their name? For years to come, Arani would become a rarity among comics characters: a designated bottomless pit for plot holes. She's far from being the only character with unresolved questions or mysterious motives. In fact, I can't remember a Mort Weisinger story where anyone had anything resembling a human motive for what they were doing. But Arani seemed to exist to generate these questions. As long as the other characters around her were transparent to the audience (even if they lied to each other or themselves), Arani would remain opaque and readers gradually came to accept that that was who she was. One way of achieving this was to have at least one of her seemingly paranoiac declarations pan out for every three or four she came up with. It would keep readers willing to guess what she really knew, what she thought she knew and what she wanted people to believe. Even more so than in the sixties, Cliff became the readers' proxy after this point and Arani may have been a large part of that. You'll note that in future stories, Cliff is often the first to voice his exasperation over Arani's secrecy and her claims to know things with absolute certainty for reasons she refuses to indulge. And yet, like the readers, he sticks around because he can't risk the chance that she may be right.

.....The final six pages are reserved for an attack by General Immortus and his current army. In the midst of the action, though, a little tidbit about Tempest's past slips out-- two bits, actually. The first was that "even as a child, Joshua Clay knew he possessed unusual powers..." and the second is that he hid those powers "until the day he killed" with them. Obviously (hopefully?) that's a teaser for a more detailed origin, but one we won't be getting in this arc. We also don't get an explanation of why Negative Women remains bonded with the Negative Energy Being when activated, instead of projecting it the way Negative Man and Rebis did. One has to wonder, with only three issues scheduled for the trial run, and of course actual plots such as Immortus and Cable to deal with on top of these backstory mysteries, if it was always Kupperberg's and Levitz' intention to answer these questions in an ongoing series or anthology feature. All of these could be foreshadowing actual intended storylines that were never produced. The difference in Negative Woman's powers could possibly be a gaffe on Staton's part, or not, but the bits of Tempest's past are explicitly stated in the middle of a fight scene. Nothing about that says 'casual banter'. If you're writing captions on the fly (for a book you were planning for a year, keep in mind) you might say any number of things, but you're not likely to blurt out, "Oh, yeah and he killed somebody, too. Now over here on the left we have..." That might have been shrugged off in the mid-1990's, but not in the mid 1970's. With the team captured by General Immortus in a cliff-hanger ending, I'll leave it until the review for the next issue to discuss which questions are addressed (if not answered) and compare them to which are not. I'll do the same for the third and possibly speculate on what an ongoing series might have looked like had it been published.

.....The next post will be devoted to the trivia and historical context surrounding this issue and this arc. There's quite a bit more than I could integrate into the above review, or the history/background essay in part [a], without turning them into mini-books. Therefore, part [c] will be high-concentration geekery which you can skip over if you're just looking for old plotlines in the reviews.