Doom Patrol #88

Doom Patrol #88 (1964)
by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani

This is pretty important: the origin of Chief.

We begin with The Baron, the unimaginatively named villain of the story, robbing a yacht’s casino.

After pulling another spectacular robbery, The Baron announces what he’s going to rob next… and the Doom Patrol shows up to stop him.

Alright, this is the ACTUAL panel. Elasti-Girl really should consider wearing pants, though.

I get the feeling the police wouldn’t react this way to Superman.

Sure enough, The Baron robs the place.

I can’t help but feeling The Baron is underwhelming.

You’d think Negative Man would patrol the sewers to find the dynamite that The Baron is speaking about, but nope! They just let him go!!!

Turns out the The Baron is actually working for General Immortus.

The mention of the General is what makes Chief start narrating his own origin.
He started off as your typical arrogant genius…

…who gets paid by a mysterious benefactor, in exchange for becoming the first man to gets to be a test subject for Chief’s experiments to extend human lifespan.

2 million dollars in 1964 would be 20.1 million dollars on 2024.
Even though the flashback is from earlier, so it would be even more… but still: isn’t that a bit cheap if Chief really has found a way to delay old age?

As mentioned several times, I’m keeping track on whether Grant Morrison’s post-Crisis retcon on Chief… that he was an amoral psycho with no compassion for his test subjects… to see if it works with the pre-Crisis stories.
And HOLY CRAP does this issue fit with the retcon!!!

Eventually, Chief finds a way to identify his benefactor…

…who might be the master criminal with the worst security ever.

The benefactor is of course General Immortus, who casually compliments Chief as being the smartest man since Galileo.

Immortus has a fantastic origin. I’m not sure if we EVER find where he first got his immortality chemical, but the fact that his goal is just finding geniuses to help him recreate this mythical substance is very unique.

As an incentive to keep his mouth shut while also working on the chemical, Immortus plants a bomb inside Chief’s body that he can detonate remotely.
So basically General Immortus just invented the Suicide Squad!

It’s a bit unclear if Chief has solved the problem of recreating the chemical or not.
On one hand, he does age later so he shouldn’t have it.
On the other hand, he keeps thinking that he can’t give it to the General.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to try getting out of this because, you know, you have a bomb in your chest implanted by an immortal villain?

Chief’s plant to get rid of the bomb is ABSOLUTELY NUTS.
Because it starts with him crashing the General’s bedroom at night threatening to shoot him!
Seriously, just how bad is the General’s security!?

That’s not the crazy part. It’s that Chief did this ONLY because he wanted Immortus to shoot him!

Chief then stumbles back into his own laboratory, where a robot will operate on him after he dies. (!!!)

However the robot takes too long to remove the bomb, and Chief’s brain remains without oxygen long enough for him to lose the use of his legs.

Chief, did you really SHOOT THE ROBOT because you wanted to destroy all knowledge related to your experiments, as you say… or is this revenge for botching the operation?

To recap, this was Chief’s plan:
1) get shot by General Immortus
2) hope the General doesn’t shoot him in the head
3) hope the General’s guards don’t shoot him in the head
4) hope the General doesn’t activate the bomb instead of killing him
5) hope the General lets him get away without activating the bomb
6) hope he survives walking back to his lab despite being mortally wounded
7) die
8) allow the surgeon robot to remove the bomb and resuscitate you
9) destroy all evidence of his work and vanish from society

Sounds legit.

Now I’m no genius, but I would humbly suggest a slightly simpler plan:
1) stop your heart in any way that doesn’t require being shot
2) die
3) allow the surgeon robot to remove the bomb and resuscitate you
4) destroy all evidence of his work and vanish from society

But let’s go back to The Baron, whose latest scheme involves a “house-moving truck”.

This obviously doesn’t stop the Doom Patrol…

…but the General’s tech does.

Elasti-Girl gets out of The Baron’s trap by shrinking, but then he traps her inside glass.
I feel like she SHOULD be able to break it by returning to regular size, but apparently not.

So now we have all the three Doom Patrol members captured.

Wait wait wait, you mean to tell me that the character who only uses the same weapons and tactics of General Immortus is actually… General Immortus? What a shocker!

Time for the showdown. Will Chief surrender to the General?
After all he doesn’t have anything to fight with.

Except his FLAMETHROWER WHEELCHAIR!!!

With the Doom Patrol now free, General Immortus tries to escape with his train…

…WHICH IS ACTUALLY A ROCKET.

A SPACE ROCKET.

Considering Negative Man can only stay out of his body for 60 seconds, this means that the General’s rocket got into space in less than that!
Until it explodes, because of course.

As a man who looks like he’s 90s in his best days, General Immortus has no way to survive an orbital explosion.

By which I mean he’ll be back in 8 issues.

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Historical significance: 10/10
I believe this is still the origin of Chief. We also learn his real name of Niles Caulder.

Silver Age-ness: 6/10
For a millennia-old mastermind with advanced technology, General Immortus sure has crappy security and relies on just a couple of henchmen.

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
Sillyness aside, it’s still rather solid. The flashback is by far the best part, but the way it’s integrated in the rest of the story is very clunky.
The three main heroes don’t get to do much, but I’m fine with it since it’s a showcase on Chief.
I’m a bit ambivalent on General Immortus. In the flashback he’s this larger-than-life figure and a clever schemer, but he’s not very impressive in the present.
No wonder he’ll get paired with the Brotherhood of Evil for basically the rest of the run.

Times Robotman has been damaged: 5 

Issues when Robotman is never damaged: 5

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Interesting letters: I’m not too surprised Robotman won the popularity contest, but I didn’t expect Negative Man second since he definitely got far less screen time than Elasti-Girl.