Doom Patrol #106 (1966)
by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani
cover by Bob Brown
The problem with shapeshifting villains is that they can be unrecognizable on the cover: this is the second time in a row Mr.103 is the bad guy, but he looks completely different.
I don’t often congratulate Bob Brown on the covers, as I tend to prefer Bruno Premiani. But I have to admit he does an amazing job with Elasti-Girl here.
We begin with Chief testing his freezing ray (???) on Elasti-Girl, who however is protected by a new invention: a plastic coat that can resist its cold.
Why is Chief bringing this up? Because the coat is apparently made from the space element they recovered from a meteorite, and that’s apparently Mr.103’s weakness.
But that will have to wait, because Elasti-Girl has to deal with another emergency.
She’s *gasp* late for dinner!
I do like how she does have a reason for why she needs to cook even if she married the third richest man in the world.
Keep in mind that Elasti-Girl says she has TWENTY MINUTES to prepare dinner. And she says this before driving back home, so she has even less.
Either she has super-speed or her husband took considerably more than 20 minutes to get home!
Also who cooks in this pose???
They’re definitely having fun having her use her powers in a domestic setting. Almost makes you forget her powers are supposed to kill her, both how is she going to drink otherwise?
I normally give Mento a hard time for being just. The. Worst… but this little moment makes me feel sorry for him. The fact that he considers dining alone with his wife to be “a kookie idea” suggests to me that he’s lived a very lonely life unable to connect with people.
Although I’m probably reading too much into it, considering this is the same person who makes a scene when he discovers that his wife wants to talk about anyone else but him.
She BARELY mentioned Beast Boy when he got angry at her, but now he doubles down when she wants to *gasp* actually help people!
Not only that, but he’s STILL insisting she leaves the superhero business.
You would expect any woman in her right mind to leave this jackass… AND SHE DOES.
You can’t say I haven’t been warning you about Mento being scum from day one, girl.
We then move to Mr.103 being visited in his secret base by one of his underlings.
He has flowers because the base is beneath a cemetery… which is apparently the best moment to get his payments.
Mr.103 has gone completely off the handle at this point. Don’t expect a subtle performance from him.
His benefactor is, quite predictably, Beast Boy’s corrupted legal guardian Galtry.
It should be noted that Galtry knows Beast Boy is hanging around the Doom Patrol, but apparently he doesn’t know that Beast Boy has powers.
This also means that his involvement is completely useless for the plot, because Mr.103 already shared his goals.
The Doom Patrol is currently tracking places with radioactive signatures, meaning Mr.103 easily leads them into a trap into an old theater.
Mr.103 continues to be a little too powerful adversary for the Doom Patrol.
But now I want to see a story where Robotman fights Clayface.
Meanwhile, Mento goes to Chief to complain about his wife being a superhero.
And his priority is STILL to make her quit the team!
He shouldn’t be TOO worried, the Doom Patrol is doing just fine.
Even if it’s not like Mr.103 has to actually put up a fight to win.
This results in him RIPPING ROBOTMAN’S HEAD OFF.
Will Mento save the day???
No. He will not.
Mr.103 then proceeds to CRUNCH Mento’s ridiculous helmet.
Mr.103 then transforms into an atomic pile… because.
The Doom Patrol tries to hit him with Chief’s freezing ray, the only thing that could stop him before… but now it doesn’t, because he can just eat it.
Sounds legit.
Side effects of ingestion include being stuck into your latest shapeshifted form and a mild rash.
Being stuck as an atomic pile is a big problem for Mr.103, since he’s literally consumed himself. But by an amazing coincidence, Chief has JUST discovered a cure.
And Mr.103 agrees to surrender if he’s cured… despite the only thing needed to save himself was a glass of water.
Naturally Mr.103 has no intention to actually respect his pledge, but he does help the Doom Patrol by revealing Beast Boy’s legal guardian was his benefactor… a fact he divulges for no real reason.
And so we end with Mento using his resources to free Beast Boy from his legal troubles.
Out of the goodness of his heart, I’m sure.
Historical significance: 6/10
Incredibly, this is the last Silver Age appearance of Mr.103. So maybe he DID respect that pledge.
But he’s also instrumental in starting the plot that will have Beast Boy officially join the team and have a huge change in his personal life.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Chief just happens to run into the perfect solution to defeat the villain seconds before he needs it.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
The best part of this otherwise relatively dull part of the Doom Patrol series continues to be Elasti-Girl pushing to keep her independence. I expected to see some resistance to this in the letters page, but so far everyone is praising the marriage. After all, the wife keeping her career after marriage would have still been controversial in 1966.
As I’ve complained extensively in the past, however, Mento is just way to unlikeable to make this work, and he’s at his worst here.
On the superhero side, Mr.103 continues to be a mismatch for the team and he’s way too stereotypical to be interesting: I have a really hard time a guy like this wouldn’t just kill the Doom Patrol in a couple of scenes.
Times Robotman has been damaged: 22
Issues when Robotman is never damaged: 12