Reviewer: John Babos
Story Title: A New End
Written by: John Arcudi
Penciled by: Tan Eng Huat
Inked by: Tan Eng Huat
Colored by: Dave McCaig
Lettered by: Bob Lappan
Editor: Harvey Richards
Publisher: DC
Well, the Doom Patrol itself has, yet again, lived up to its nom de guerre. Issue #22 marks the end of DC‘s current incarnation of the team, in a series that had much promise, but low readership.
While the previous issue seemed to wrap up most plot threads, it was done so in an uncharacteristically un-entertaining fashion by the book’s typically solid writer, John Arcudi. I had hoped that the current issue would provide Arcudi with a platform to end the series in a way that would be fitting for a book titled Doom Patrol (or one titled Suicide Squad, but I digress).
While this issue began in a fashion that had me reminiscing of legendary author Philip K. Dick‘s, classic sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which spawned the cult-classic 1982 Harrison Ford movie Blade Runner, it really was not up to the high-quality standards of issue 1 through 20 of this series.
The previous issue was disappointing, as was this one. Two poor issues out of a twenty-two issue run isn’t bad, but I had hopes that the series could end in a more interesting fashion. This really is an anti-climatic end to a series that was better than many of the books on the shelves today, but never caught fire, as it were.
This issue’s penultimate page ties up the Cliff Steele subplot in an underachieving The Usual Suspects kind of way, while the very last page of the issue shows the remaining team members fade off in a very pedestrian, unimaginative fashion.
While John Arcudi under delivered for two issues in a row on the writing side, artist Tan Eng Huat continues to dazzle. His growth over the series is noticeable and while he has always been solid, never a slouch, his work today is far better than his early issues — which themselves are still better than some of the “work” that some of those high-profile hacks, masquerading as “artists” today, pass off as pencils or inks. I was gratified to read that he will have life after the Doom Patrol, and will be filling for the odd issue of The Authority and JLA respectively, while also working on a Batman maxi series. His future is very bright.
I hope we can see “a” Doom Patrol again, maybe under DC’s mature reader Vertigo imprint. There is still a lot of untapped potential for this franchise.
What obituary would be complete without donation information? So, if you’d like to send flowers or a funeral wreath to DC to commemorate the passing of another Doom Patrol series, you can do so by forwarding your shrubbery to DC comics at 1700 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Put a fork in her, the Doom Patrol’s done.
