Doom Patrol #105 (1966)
by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani
Last chapter of Robotman’s solo adventures.
I still don’t understand how Robotman could POSSIBLY not know the real identity of the man who put his brain in a robot body, considering Chief is called out on national television…
…and Robotman answers to the call! Also: Chief’s real name was a mystery for the rest of the team for the first few Doom Patrol issues. Try to reconcile THAT as well with the events of this story.
Also: Robotman is consistently and VERY publicly treated as a threat by the authorities throughout this entire serial, and I have a really hard time believing they could give him the benefit of the doubt in the first Doom Patrol issues.
Robotman is enjoying his supervillain phase a little too much.
Come on, there HAS to be a better way to fight than REPEATEDLY removing your limbs!!!
He also falls for a rather obvious trap.
He manages to free himself before he could be buried alive.
At least he’s not gone completely insane!
“Completely” being the key here.
If there’s a character you can easily sympathize with, that’s Robotman… and I’d be willing to cut him some slack if he was just losing control in anger… but he’s all over the place in this serial, to the point I can’t really get on his side.
The way to Chief’s location is blocked by the cops, so Robotman finds another way.
I was SO sure he was going to use this to repair himself!
But no, it’s to get inside the water system.
First the arm and now the leg? Robotman, I know you were suicidal at the beginning of the series, but this is getting ridiculous.
I’m sure it was worth it.
Crazy thought, Robotman, but if you want people to stop treating like a menage could you at least try avoiding threatening to kill people???
Robotman repairs himself off-panel… SOMEHOW… and then finally gets inside the building to meet Chief.
This is canonically the moment the original members of the Doom Patrol meet. If you acknowledge this story, that is.
Robotman then decides he doesn’t want to kill Chief… because he offers to “cure his madness”.
Which is an attempt to make this work with the early stories, sure, but that doesn’t exactly address Robotman’s point. He hates Chief for making him a robot, how does this affect it?
And that’s how the serial ends, presumably continuing into My Greatest Adventure #80.
Needless to say, but this doesn’t work with the original version of the story.
AT ALL.
First of all, all four people had never met before.
Second, Robotman discovers Chief is the one who made him a robot DURING THAT STORY.
And he won’t know his name for several issues.
You COULD excuse part of this on Robotman’s side by saying that the way Chief “cures” him from his madness… OFF-PANEL… lead to memory loss.
But that still doesn’t explain why both Elasti-Girl and Negative Man don’t know Chief’s real name, which was a plot point for a couple of issues.
I wouldn’t be so harsh in this if the story added something new that was worth exploring or modernizing… but did we REALLY need any of these retcons?
The next serial to act as a backup feature will star Negative Man. Hopefully that one won’t break continuity.
Historical significance: 0/10
I’ve ranted enough about how much this is forgotten.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Shockingly no.
Does it stand the test of time? 1/10
As a one-off story this could potentially work. But it’s a much worse version of the origin story, it repeats A LOT of points from the earlier chapters, and it makes little sense if you think about it for more than five minutes.
When Robotman gets inside the mansion, there’s a whole police squad outside thinking he went inside to kill Chief. When he doesn’t… what, is the police just going home?
Even if Chief told them Robotman isn’t evil anymore, they SERIOUSLY don’t take him into custody? Plus I know this is the DC Universe of the Silver Age but I still have a REALLY hard time believing the public would accept Robotman as a hero THAT EASILY after everything he went through.
The Premiani artwork would typically be worth at least a couple of points, but everything drags it down so much.
Times Robotman has been damaged: 21
Removing his own arm AGAIN, plus a leg.
Issues when Robotman is never damaged: 12
Hey, so I know the ‘mission statement’ of the first review was that you’d be looking at just the original run, but do you have any plans to look at the later runs? I’m asking cause I just read the Morrison run and was utterly blown away.
The Morrison run is a highly recommended masterpiece but unfortunately it’s outside of the scope of the retrospective, as I have way too much other stuff I want to talk about.
I will probably talk a little about the first Doom Patrol revival, as it’s probably not all that well-known.
Would love that. I know the Doom Patrol of the s not as well regarded as the first and Morrison runs, but I found it interesting in its time. And it was interesting enough to get a reference in the TV show.