Doom Patrol #4 (DC – Giffen / Justiniano / Livesay )
When BLACKEST NIGHT falls, skeletons start coming out of the closets — and no one has more skeletons in his closet than Niles Caulder, founder of the Doom Patrol. Caulder has been playing god for years, and the time for a reckoning has come. The Doom Patrol thought they knew darkness. Find out how wrong they were in this BLACKEST NIGHT tie-in issue!
Meanwhile, in the Metal Men co-feature, trendy meets grotesque when the robots battle a group of living mannequins.
I can say that I was suckered in by the Blackest Night banner on this book. I think the cover is the coolest thing about this book. Serious Doom Patrol fans may have gotten more out of this book than I did with the Black Lanterns taking control of the Chief’s wife, among other former members/adversaries/friends. There are a few panels in the book that are a little intriguing: Negative Man’s “spectrum view,” all will with a heart of fear; Caulder’s unshaking avarice; and Robot Man coming face to face with his human body. I guess I should have said SPOILER ALERT, but lets be honest, it is a Doom Patrol book. The Metal Men second feature is pretty weak by comparison to what I read of their run in Wednesday Comics. This book also has yet another preview of the Batman/Dov Savage story. I think the Man of Bronze is pretty cool, but putting the preview in nearly every book still isn’t going to get me to buy it, Dan.
Issue Grade: D
