Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Doom Patrol: Musclebound

The problem with Grant Morrison as a writer is that although he is great, he usually only goes about 10 issues on a book tops before everything stops making sense. New X-Men is the longest run he's ever done and stayed coherent, but by the last three storylines (Fantomex, Xorn/Magneto, weird future I don't even know what???) the book was far out there. His current run on Batman didn't even go three issues before it stopped making sense. Anyway, he's a great writer, and I pretty much pick up anything he writes without thinking about it, but I think in all of history the best book ever for Grant Morrison was Doom Patrol. Doom Patrol is a group of weird outcast superheroes, and when Grant Morrison picked up the book in the late 80s he made them even weirder, including Robotman (just a dude's brain in a robot body, but he was always there), an ape face little girl with powerful imaginary friends, Crazy Jane, a woman whose multiple personalities each have a different power, and Danny The Street, a living street who could take them anywhere. From issue one of his run it was just totally bizarre, and this trade is no different. The thing is that the bizarreness was always expected, and is part of the allure of the book even, which makes Morrison's writing perfect. In this collection there are two main stories - the first involves a secret government plot to rid the world of imagination which is thwarted when guest star Flex Mentallo turns the pentagon into a circle, and the second story has the evil (?) Brotherhood Of Dada stealing Albert Hoffman's bicycle which has the power to send everybody on an acid trip, which the Doom Patrol must stop. Well, this review stopped making sense I think and also is way long, which probably gives you a good idea of Grant Morrison as a writer, so check it out if you like to be totally freaked.

RATING: 76%

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