Doom Patrol #115 (1967)
by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani
The last backup feature of the original Doom Patrol run is the end of Beast Boy’s extended origin story. Which after green monkeys, sacred jewels, international thieves and severe emotional trauma brings up Nazis.
Meanwhile Beast Boy is in South Africa stealing bananas.
Last issue, also set in South Africa, showed people not caring about a green kangaroo.
And now they don’t find the green gorilla weird.
Considering the nemesis of the main Doom Patrol series is a French brain-in-a-jar whose right-hand man is a gorilla, it’s QUITE impressive that Beast Boy manages an even worse kind of villain: Nazis animal-hunters!
Beast Boy’s versatility when it comes to changing into animals goes a long way back.
I wasn’t kidding about these guys being Nazis, by the way.
What could possibly be weirder than an army of Nazi Gorillas created by Nazi animal-hunters?
Why, PARATROOPER Nazi Gorillas created by Nazi animal-hunters, of course!!!
South Africans don’t find it weird to see green kangaroos and green gorillas, and now Beast Boy’s legal guardian doesn’t find it weird that he’s a green child.
BE IMPRESSED, DAMMIT!!!
And then Beast Boy incites the Great Gorilla Rebellion.
But the legal guardian finds Beast Boy. This is THE NEXT PANEL, I didn’t cut any part of the Great Gorilla Rebellion!!!
The scumbag takes full credit for foiling a Nazi plot (HOW????), and that’s already the end.
Historical significance: 0/10
I was hoping for a connection between the trained gorillas and Monsieur Mallah, but nope!
Silver Age-ness:1,000/10
Paratrooper Nazi Gorillas created by Nazi animal-hunters. ‘Nuff Said.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
With 7 ½ pages it’s not particularly shorter than other backup features, but this one felt very rushed.
The plot is non-existent, Beast Boy is annoying, the ending is incredibly forced, and while Premiani delivers a couple of good gorilla panels… there’s really nothing there in this story.
It looks to me that Arnold Drake decided to do an extended origin but ran out of steam in the first part. I’m guessing there wasn’t anything worth exploring beyond the basic origin.
Out of the three backup features dealing with the origins, Beast Boy’s is definitely the weakest.
How do you make a story featuring PARATROOPING NAZI GORILLAS boring???
I had no idea that Baron Strucker did some moonlighting for DC.