I have to confess, that I know nothing of Doom Patrol. I'm not super familiar with the superhero world from DC Comics, Marvel, Vertigo, etc. I probably know their names and their surface story but not the entire universe. So, my review will be based entirely on the plot/writing itself, and how it made me feel.

​Here we go, first of all, I honestly had no clue of what was going on but that's okay, it's a small price to pay when it comes to joining something new to you. Readers are introduced to the main character, an EMT named Casey Brinke and her partner, Sam Reynolds. I love these two, even though their moments together are sometimes too brief (in my opinion... what am I saying? everything here is in my opinion anyways...)

The pace of the story is consistently fast and intriguing, it kept me on my toes. I got a lot of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Neil Gaiman's Coraline vibes while I was reading this. I think it's a good feeling, it's the kind of feeling that I always look for in a story. A mixture of wonder, curiosity and disorientation. I can't say if superfans of Doom Patrol would love this but I certainly did enjoy it. It's been a fabulously wild ride!

An enchanted colostomy bag belches into existence The Bliznar, an anthropomorphic multi-gender entity whose left testicle is running for Mayor of Kandahar and who wants to write this year’s Christmas No. 1 jig. But a ragtag team of anti-hero pro-superhero anti-hairdressers called Bloom 50 Squad have to lose the intergalactic atomic race and lock up the evil Princess Bitchtacular before the FixFaxes obliterate the comics universe of the 12th Dimension! Better gwant up the pooble before sippy revs the teeser!

Ok, that was deliberate gibberish I just made up (and kinda reads at the end there like something from Rick and Morty’s interdimensional cable) but it makes about as much sense as Gerard Way and Nick Derington’s unreadable first volume of the relaunched Doom Patrol. If this title is an indicator of the quality to follow in DC’s new Young Animal line (which Way is also curating) then it’s gonna be Rebirth 2.0.

I can’t pretend to be a fan of or know much about Doom Patrol as I’ve only read the first Grant Morrison book and it didn’t grab me, so forgive me not knowing pretty much every character in this book. Not that Way makes any effort to make this book accessible - it’s basically Morrison fanfic for uber fans of Morrison and Doom Patrol. He so desperately wants to be Grant Morrison and falls short by several light years.

So the premise is: a magic ambulance/sentient godlike entity called Danny is a portal to another realm where Flex Mentallo lives - now that character I do recognise from the excellent Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely book from the mid-90s (highly recommended over this tripe). The robot dude on the cover is living in a gyro - yes, the wrap snack many people enjoy on the reg - and some dude called Niles Caulder is doing one-page skits for no reason.

None of the Doom Patrol can remember who they are for some reason (maybe it ties into the end of Morrison’s Doom Patrol, I don’t know, I never read it, but it might well do given Way’s obsession with Morrison) and this book is about gathering them together once again to stop some evil intergalactic corporation from turning people in hamburgers. There’s more nonsensical art school bollocks but it’s not worth going into - it’s like enduring atrociously, outstandingly bad Avant-garde filmmaking.

Incoherent storytelling, incompetent writing that mostly reads like cast-off Danger Days-era My Chemical Romance lyrics (Way’s former band), obnoxiously pretentious, and incomprehensible in general, I have no idea what the fuck this nonsense was but I know I was mega-bored and thoroughly unimpressed with it. You may as well zone out when reading this and come up with your own story because at least then something will entertain and make sense to you. Gerard Way and Nick Derington’s Doom Patrol is all the reasons why Doom Patrol will never be a good comic.

Teese up that sippy, poobles!

Look, if you think I'm going to be biased toward a comic book featuring a Casey with red hair cut in a similar style to mine...okay, you might be on to something. But really, Doom Patrol is weird. Refreshingly weird. Where else are going to read a metaphor about life being like a gyro and find yourself nodding along at the accuracy of it all? This is a promising title and makes me curious about what strange adventures the Patrol will go on next. (Also, definitely needs more Lotion.)

This didn't live up to the previous Doom Patrol titles. I've really tried to like Way's writing for DC, but this is another title that just isn't cutting it for me.

There's good weird and then there's bad weird. I'm not even sure what kind of weird this is,

Gerard Way says in the afterword that "we want you to feel like it's 3:00am and you have no idea what's going on - but somehow you do?" and he succeeded admirably in this goal. This was a surrealist, touching, ingenious postpostpostpostmodernist masterpiece. Seriously, put postmodernism (and a whole lot of brilliance) in a blender for a few hours and this will pop out, probably.

Another thing Way mentioned in the afterword was that a reviewer said that you can't really review this book, because it's a book to be experienced rather than reviewed, and I completely agree; mainly because if I say anything at all about the plot, it will spoil a little bit of that experience.

One thing I can say: this was incredibly well-written, with probably the best character development and storyline of any comic I've ever read. It made me cry, but in the best possible way.

And everyone should read it, at once.

I was drawn to this book because of the author. I'm a huge fan but that's about as far as my interest went. Try as I might, I could not get into this story. I loved the art and the design, but it just felt like a chore to me.

This is not your father's Doom Patrol. How do I know, well I read some of the original Doom Patrol comics back in the 60's. This is more of a current era Doom Patrol. After having read it I did some research (Thank you Wikipedia) about the history. Seems that mine was not the only Doom Patrol there was.
So, not knowing the history of the more recent incarnations I was not really prepared for what was to follow. I am sure that for recent readers of the story that this comic made a lot more sense. While comics should always be re-read for what you missed, for me it was an absolute requirement to have the story make any sense whatsoever. That is not the fault of the story as I was not aware of the history of the characters.
I did enjoy it once I got to understand the characters a little bit more and would recommend it as a good read.

I'm new to this author, but I loved this graphic novel's art and story line.