Doom Patrol #94 (1964)
by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani
Giving Chief his own solo story is a neat idea, but calling giving it this title because he’s in a wheelchair… ooof.
We begin with the Doom Patrol exploring a volcano.
Specifically, they decide to have Negative Man do some of the exploration…
…forgetting that in this period he’s shockingly useless: EVERYTHING seems to be disrupting his energy body!!!
Surprisingly this is technically correct, active volcanoes DO emit radio waves!!!
Calling them “radioactive” because of this is a bit of a stretch, though.
The pressure in the volcano is building up, so Robotman decides to relieve some pressure.
What did you expect, Cliff???
I wonder if Chief had to explain to the team how they should NOT deal with a volcano next time.
With that mini-adventure out of the way, we can finally focus on Chief…
…and his fully armed new wheelchair!
And then SUDDEN BIRD!!!
That’s the calling card of The Claw, a new bird-themed supervillain that you can call if you can’t afford the Penguin or are not in the same company of the Owl.
But don’t worry, the Police has some Doom Patrol weapons that can shoot down birds.
I’m guessing they ran out of coat hangers.
Because apparently nobody else could come up with a gun that shoots birds, The Claw figures out his opponent is Chief.
Chief falls completely for the trap.
Doom Patrol: Animal Cruelty.
These are NOT robot birds, by the way: they’re regular birds with some armor.
That is some Riddler level deduction.
And just in time, because Chief’s chair is out of juice.
Not that Chief needs any weapon to take down this loser.
It’s not your chair that needs work, Chief, it’s your villains.
Historical significance: 0/10
As far as I can tell, NOBODY uses The Claw again.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Robbing banks with armored birds.
Does it stand the test of time? 2/10
Yawn. The least interesting thing that you could do with Chief is giving him a superpowered chair… or so I thought, until I saw who he was up against. The mystery is also very boring.
The most interesting part is the throwaway initial scene in the volcano, which doesn’t have an impact on anything.
Even Premiani, who returns to this story after leaving Part 1 to Bob Brown, can’t salvage this one.
Times Robotman has been damaged: 10
Issues when Robotman is never damaged: 7
Number of Robotman robot bodies: 3
Going by the cover dates, this issue hit the stands perhaps four months after “X-Men” #8-9.
In those issues (and those alone) Charles Xavier uses an “action wheelchair” of his own, replete with all sorts of tools and weapons.
Possibly just coincidence; it is not all that difficult to think of such an idea.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence because they’re owl themed villains, but the Claw looks a lot like the Talons from the later Court of Owls Batman storylines.
Armed wheelchairs seem to be a popular motif. Quincy Harker had one in Tomb of Dracula, and we’ve recently seen them in Doctor Who. Not to mention that according to The Simpsons, Stephen Hawking had one.
Thank you for not also remembering the wheelchair in that godawful Wild Wild West movie. More people should not remember that film. Pretty much everyone, really.