Doom Patrol volume 4 - Musclebound - is out on the shelves tomorrow, reprinting DP #42-50. I'm excited! It's got the origin of Flex Mentallo, Man of Muscle Mystery; the horror of the Beard Hunter; and the "terrifying secret beneath the Pentagon." There's some old art in it by Jamie Hewlett, who co-created Tank Girl and is the artistic half of Gorillaz. I'm not sure why they keep using these Brian Bolland covers for the collections; Bolland's work is too straight-laced, simple-lined and straightforward for the Doom Patrol, super-heroes far past the verge of a nervous breakdown and onto the surrealistic planes of bodies in the middle of horror. The Doom Patrol should be a horror comic disguised as super-heroes.
Who was in this particular era of the Patrol? Cliff Steele, a former race car daredevil killed in a brutal, body-burning car accident right up until his brain was transplanted into a robot body, incapable of standard sensations, with controllable brain chemistry, suffering from full-bodied castration. Crazy Jane, a woman broken into sixty-four seperate personalities, each one possessing its own super-power. Rebis (my favourite), a white man and a black woman merged together into a hermaphroditic being possessed by a negative radiation creature and wrapped mummy-like in bandages because of hir dangerous radioactivity. Rebis had wonderful fashion sense.
And! The Beard Hunter! Finally, I'll get to read the Beard Hunter story! Arr! He hunts your beards, yes he does.
I need to go shave before he gets here.
Also: the three-year anniversary tomorrow.