Doom Force is a parody of many conventions of Dark Age of Comics from the 90s. Spinning-off from Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, the single issue appearance doesn’t amount to much. But true to the style of Morrison, it’s a thought in the back of everyone’s mind. So what is Doom Force and what are you going to get out of reading this?
Background
Before we go any further, we’re going to have to talk about their source material. The Doom Patrol combines the melodrama of science heroes with the absurdity of superheroes. With how bizarre the situations get, the Doom Patrol’s leader Niles Calder the Chief is usually the one pushing the plot. But it’s the dysfunctional humanity of Robotman, Negative Man, and Elasti-Girl that readers relate with. They aren’t exactly a family like their contemporaries the Fantastic Four, they’re more like a nonsensical support group. The adventures they have tend to be very amusing with antagonists being equally as complex. Also it was very similar in aesthetics to the original X-Men.
But now let’s get to the 90s, an era of reinventing the comic book wheel. Enter Grant Morrison, a writer who embraces the avant-garde style of Dada. With how surreal the Doom Patrol gets, it’s a match that defines the team into the modern day. As does its reoccurring antagonists the Brotherhood of Dada, led by Mister Nobody. Most of the Doom Patrol streaming series takes influence from this era; the key takeaway being the normalization of oddities rather than pack them away or push to extremes. Which is where the concept of Doom Force comes in.
Doom Force Origins
The team debuts in a one-shot after Morrison’s last issue of Doom Patrol. It is essentially a What If? style story where Niles Calder completes his plans. In Doom Patrol, Niles reveals that he was the one responsible for giving the founding team powers that separate them from society. Niles was a believer in trauma making people better, think the Saw franchise but on a grander scale. His next plan was creating a catastrophe that would destroy half of Earth’s population and replace it with “freaks”. That’s pretty much the setting of the spin-off had the Doom Patrol and an evil imaginary friend not gotten in the way.
In this new world, Niles now a disembodied head that connects to a nanite supercomputer leads a new team. The costumes, anatomy, poses, and attitudes are meant to parody X-Men spin-off X-Force. The most notable among them is probably Scratch, a blatant Wolverine parody in the style of Rob Liefeld. I need to note that Liefeld has a reputation for making Wolverine knockoffs because he likes the character so much. Some like Wildmane often get presented with Liefeld overcompensating with aesthetics. So yeah, this title and lineup doesn’t just parody the rumors of X-Men ripping off the Doom Patrol, it parodies trends of the 90s.
What’s Wrong With the 90s?
In the 1990s, a number of artists started to use more gritty art styles unique to them. The most famous come from the group that founds Image Comics including Liefeld. Only problem is, these gritty art styles and characterizations focus on style over substance. The purpose was to distance away the campier styles that comic critics label as for children. To look more “mature” characters and stories emphasize violence and sexual content; for example, poster boy Cable carries bizarre guns and a few female characters get sultry designs. Sometimes recognizable characters get replaced by outright psychotic stand-ins like Azrael for Batman. But a closer look reveals the inability to tell the difference between maturity and adolescence.
Doom Force: Parody Played Straight
Granted, that’s not all of the comics especially with people like Grant Morrison at the wheel. Doom Force pushes Morrison’s dada writing to its very limit to make nonsensical commentary. While Spinner avoids the sexualization of other female characters like her teammate Flux, she now lacks any of the complexities that come with her psychic powers. Apparently manifesting imaginary friends is too child friendly. Did the Head reprogram her personality and powers? If so, Doctor Zero serves as a good villainous foil with his dominating personality. The guy forces his own sister into an even skimpier outfit. Meanwhile, Una has all the power to Zero’s extortion plan, yet is subservient to him. But does Doom Force question any of this? No this is very normal for them.
But here’s the thing, the reader isn’t meant to question this either. Not because of designated heroes or anything, but because it’s all so over the top that it’s impossible to take it all seriously. It certainly helps that the artists Morrison works with make the Liefeldian art avant-garde. So what if the cast has Youngblood’s Disease, the pure spectacle of Flux, Crying Boy, and Living Mountain live on. I mean Shasta the Living Mountain deserves it for being treated like dirt by Wolverine knockoff #67.
The Potential of Parodies
In short what makes Doom Force stand out amongst parodies like Teen Titans Go! or Animaniacs is that it avoids direct commentary. Instead of pointing out the flaws of the likes of Youngblood, it embraces the campy nature that gritty artists were in denial of. According to Tom Peyer, Morrison actually had a lot of names to put on the team if a series would continue. It almost sounds like it’s the Suicide Squad cast as they’re ready to be killed off. Because let’s be real, a team full of dipsticks is perfect fodder for artists to go nuts. It’s not like anybody’s gonna miss them; the next meme will always be around the corner.
What do you all think? Did Doom Force have the potential to compete with Lobo for 90s parodies? Would you read Morrison doing Youngblood? Leave your thoughts in the comments.