Doom Patrol #91 (1964)
by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani
cover by Bob Brown
This issue has two milestones: the introduction of a new recurring villain and of a future member.
We begin with the Doom Patrol being called to disarm a bomb.
The all fail because of, let’s face it, very contrived reasons.
That sounds like a job for Mento, a.k.a. “Nobody’s Favorite Doom Patrol Member”.
Mento has the power of telekinesis and to lack any fashion sense whatsoever.
After dealing with the bomb, Mento wastes no time whatsoever making himself as unlikeable as possible, insulting the Doom Patrol guys to hit on Elasti-Girl.
But Elasti-Girl does show some interest, if only to see how unlikeable this guy can possibly be.
It also helps that this guy is ridiculously rich.
He’s basically a billionaire genius playboy philanthropist.
Yeah that’s not raising any red flags.
Okay, jokes aside, but Mento DOES serve a good role in Doom Patrol history: he’s the temptation for Elasti-Girl to leave the team.
It’s perfectly understandable for her to have doubts about this, but… why exactly is she thinking she could have “returned to the normal world” if she stayed with Mento?
Is it because she wouldn’t be seen with so-called “freaks”? It can’t be because she’d quit her superhero career, considering Mento is also (allegedly) a superhero.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, is when the story turns bonkers.
Yes.
NOW.
These guys may look like rejects from the Metal Men rogues gallery, but they’re shockingly effective!
Oh good, Mento is still around. Couldn’t possibly have the story without him.
Hmm, considering how easily they’re defeated, perhaps those androids ARE Metal Men villains!
However that’s only the first impression. Ironically, the fact that they’re easy to defeat is the whole point.
It does take a lot of effort, but eventually the Doom Patrol prevails.
I didn’t know Robotman still has a sense of smell.
Chief informs them that the androids come from space!
But first, Mento reaches the space station with his own private rocketship.
The villain of the story (besides Mento) is the alien Garguax.
He’ll become a recurrent adversary, but unlike the Brotherhood Of Evil he doesn’t seem to have been able to branch out to fight other heroes.
Well at least Mento doesn’t accept teaming up with an alien evil overlord.
Talk about a leap in logic for Chief!!! To make this deduction he has to assume:
A) That these are Earth letters and numbers and not alien ones
B) That the 2 refers to Earth days and not literally anything else
C) That Garguax would telegraph his attack like this
Then again, Garguax is not exactly the brightest alien conqueror so he might just be dumb to do just that.
Mento falls victim of Garguax’s very mild mind control. Perhaps I gave him too much credit.
Negative Man IMMEDIATELY knocks him out, which for some reason is all Elasti-Girl needs to fall in love with him.
I know he gets tons of character development and a tragic fate later on, but… specifically in this period, does ANYONE like Mento!?
The team then tries to escape and we get a, let’s say, interesting Elasti-Girl pose.
The Doom Patrol is helpless against a giant fan (???) so Robotman has to sacrifice himself again.
Poor Negative Man is consistently useless in this story.
So it’s up to *sigh* Mento to save the day.
And so we end the story with the tease that Mento will return.
Sorry, did I say tease? I meant threat.
Historical significance: 10/10
As far as the Doom Patrol is concerned, it’s pretty hard to ignore Mento. No matter how hard I try.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Garguax is pretty ridiculous on his own, but then there’s Mento being so rich he has his own rocket ship. Not TOO far-fetched for the DC Universe, granted, but it still counts.
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
Could they possibly have made Mento any more unlikeable?
And I typically LIKE characters that have insufferable personalities and are full of themselves!
So what makes Mento any different from people like Doctor Doom and (most versions of) Brainiac 5?
Well, besides looking more ridiculous… Mento doesn’t have any charisma or depth here.
I like those characters because they’re very complex and have likeable qualities even when they’re unsufferable. The fact that Mento also insults 3/4ths of the team and gets away with it doesn’t help.
While Garguax is pretty underwhelming, his androids were surprisingly cooler than anticipated and the action was great.
You can ALMOST make this work today… give more credit to the Doom Patrol guys and have Mento at least show some charisma or regret for his words, and it can be done.
Also: did you notice that we never even find out who planted that bomb? I’m betting it was Mento just to impress Elasti-Girl.
Times Robotman has been damaged: 7
Issues when Robotman is never damaged: 6
Interesting letters: how good is Premiani’s artwork? Dave Cockrum was a fan!
It’s incredible that people were already complaining about Elasti-Girl’s codename being a terrible choice for her (a complain that I agree with).
Actually Garguax has shown up recently in the Shazam book by Mark Waid and Dan Mora, where he’s just chilling on the Moon as an overlord of a city full of robots, and flirting with Queen Bee.
The Brotherhood of Evil shows up everywhere, fighting anyone. Garguax doesn’t, but he has shown up most recently in Shazam!, where he’s ‘dating’ Queen Bee.
I wonder what Mantis Morlo would think of the Plastic Men.
Cliff had a sense of smell as far back as the first Doom Patrol story. The Chief told him that his human brain still thrills to his five senses.