Doom Patrol is a 2016 ongoing series by Gerard Way and Nick Derington, published by DC Comics. The series is the sixth volume of Doom Patrol.
Launched as part of Gerard Way's Young Animal imprint at DC during the DC Rebirth era, a new ongoing title launched as the imprint's flagship book, written by Way himself. This run reinstates the team's pre-Flashpoint history and made their New 52 appearances Canon Discontinuity, with Way's run picking up from elements of Giffen's.
The series ran for twelve issues, ending in 2018, and would be followed by Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds, still written by Way.
Doom Patrol (2016) provides examples of:
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: "Little girl", "little miss", "young lady", these are all the things that Casey's son called her. She appears to be in her early to mid-20s while he's in his late 20s to early 30s (he's a warped incarnation of Superman).
- Absurd Phobia: Flex Mentallo mentions that he's afraid of bicycles.
- An Arm and a Leg: When inside Danny the Street, one of Casey's legs pops out of existence.
- Anthropomorphic Transformation: Lotion the Cat was once a normal cat until he was fed a full box of $#!+, an alien foodstuff peddled by Terry None, and gained a humanoid form.
- Archnemesis Dad: Invoked: Since Casey's an in-universe comics character brought to life, her dad Terminox is her "archnemesis"... that we've obviously never seen before and gets sorted out quite easily with a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Artificial Limbs: Casey replaces her missing leg with that of a Robotman possessing Niles Caulder's face.
- Badass Driver: Casey Brinke's an ambulance driver known for driving like a crazy person, but always getting patients to the hospital on time.
- Badass Family: In Una-Kalm, all three of the Reynolds family literally level up: Valeria becomes an archer; Lucius becomes a mage; and Samuel becomes a tank.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Surprisingly ignored. No attention is brought to the fact that Lotion and Casey had sex despite being a cat and a human respectively. Possibly justified in that Casey's a tulpa and Lotion's a mutated humanoid cat, so it's a bit trickier to determine exactly if they're commiting bestiality at all.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Valerie is controlled by Dr. Harrison to be part of the cult. Later, she reveals while Dr. Harrison kept her in the cult, Valerie initially joined under her own free will as she felt she was missing something in her life.
- The Bus Came Back: The comic establishes that the entire history of the Doom Patrol before Flashpoint still happened, picking up where Keith Giffen's run ended and acknowledging most of Morrison's run, with no mention of the team's New 52 appearances.
- Canon Discontinuity:
- As far as Gerard Way's Doom Patrol is concerned, the team that appeared in the New 52-era Justice League don't count, and instead the series picks up an ambiguous amount of time after Giffen's series endednote . The Doom Patrol is relatively rare among DC titles in that it's never had a true reboot (except for John Byrne's, which rapidly got un-rebooted), and all the previous series "count" to some extent.
- Danny mentions last being a planet before becoming a brick, retconning his appearances in Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans out of continuity.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: In one of the earliest scenes, there's a murder of someone in a cape, a girl lying on the ground, and a man in a suit holding a bloody brick that has the words "I'm so sorry!!!" written on it. Later on, the scene is partially explained for Casey's origin - Danny the World tells her that he was then Danny the Brick and traveling the universe with Crazy Jane when someone ambushed them and used Danny as a weapon to murder someone. This scene reappears again to start the Milk Wars, it turns out the victim was the God of Superheroes and he was murdered by Retconn so that they can take the stories of the Trinity and corrupt them.
- Creating Life: Danny's evolved from housing people to creating his own. He's even made a few superhumans.
- Dating Catwoman: Casey realizes her feelings for Terry None, the daughter of supervillain Mr. Nobody, while they concoct a scheme to destroy reality.
- Death by Origin Story: Casey's father was corrupted into an evil being in one of her darker comic stories.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Casey is only seen taking two romantic partners: Terry None, her roommate, after which Terry becomes magically pregnant as both Terry and Casey are women, and she also made out with her male cat Lotion, who was turned into a humanoid cat.
- Face–Heel Turn: "D" or The Disappointment used to be a superhero called Haxxalon the Star Archer, but the cancelation of his comic book right before he was to be married to the love of his life, Starlene, turned him into a deicidal Yandere obsessed with bringing about the matrimonial story that never was.
- Fragile Speedster: Casey's not much for taking hits, but she's fast enough to easily dodge an angry Kryptonian.
- Glory Days: During his probationary leader stint, it becomes subtly clear that the Chief's desperate to recapture the happiness he felt running the Doom Patrol in the Drake era. This includes dressing the team in their old outfits, calling Casey "Rita" by accident, and slipping back into his old manipulations. He can't understand why the team gets fed up with him so quickly.Niles: But... I had a plan.
- Happily Married: Valerie reveals before joining the cult, she felt she was missing something in her life, which was why she left. After rejoining her family, she takes some time finding herself but eventually realizes she truly loves her husband and son.
- Hero of Another Story: While the Doom Patrol deals with their own shenanigans, The Reynolds' are brought into a magical world they are destined to save.
- Hijacked by Ganon: The reality-warping villainess Terry None, who is distributing the sinister miracle condiment $#!+, turns out to be the daughter of and frontwoman for the team's long-standing enemy Mr. Nobody.
- Homosexual Reproduction: Casey Brinke manages to accidently get her friend Terry None pregnant, despite the fact both of them are cisgendered women. It's later explained that this was possible because technically neither Casey or Terry 'exist' as they were both created by their respective fathers' reality-altering superpowers.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Casey initially, when Danny explains her backstory. She comes around in the end.
- Malicious Misnaming: Mr. Nobody calls the team the "Dumb Patrol" in the tenth issue.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl:
- Casey's noted for her upbeat attitude and perkiness.
- A non-romantic example with Terry None. She just shows up at Casey Brinke's apartment one day, does a tap dance for her birthday because she thought Casey looked sad on the subway, and accidentally blows up Casey's asshole roommate before moving in with her. Though after Lotion makes himself scarce, Casey decides to have sex with Terry in the meantime.
- Mind Screw: Although the Doom Patrol were always considered weird, this really came to a head with all of Grant Morrison's and Rachel Pollack's runs. While it was toned down later, Gerard Way made a return to the unfiltered strangeness.
- Older Than They Look: Both Larry and Cliff (who's been given a human body again after the Milk War) look to be in their late 40s to early 50s. Rita took advantage of the end of the Milk War to retcon herself back into the story and being reborn this way has made her look to be in her early 20s.
- The Pollyanna: After the revelation of her origin, Casey loses her Manic Pixie Dream Girl zaniness and grows to be this. She's unflappable even when she's facing death with her son, Milky Milkman.
- The Quincy Punk: Lotion dresses like this, complete with leather jacket. He even "smokes" cat nip.
- Recessive Super Genes: Lucius' grandmother, Samuel's mother, reveals that magical potential skips a generation. This is why Lucius is adept at magic while Samuel is not.
- Retcon: The comic re-establishes the previous Doom Patrol series as having happened, and implicitly throws aside their New 52 -era Justice League appearances.
- Ruder and Cruder: Like Grant Morrison's and Rachel Pollack's runs before it, Gerard Way's run has considerably stronger language than the other eras due to having a mature rating.
- Shock and Awe: One of Casey's superpowers, which she can use to override machinery. According to the comics by Danny, she gained this power when she was in war between some alien races.
- Shout-Out:
- The cover of issue #1 and the first volume parodies the cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico, using a sticker of a gyro in place of a banana.
- In issue #10, when Agantha appears and then takes Lucius and his family to the Daemonsphere, the sound effect used both times is "VWORP", which in Doctor Who Expanded Universe comics is the sound effect used for a materialising or dematerialising TARDIS, originating in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.
- In issue #11, the sad story of Haxxalon the Star Archer is a parody of the real-world situation relating to ROM Spaceknight, a moderately successful Marvel comic based on an unsuccessful toyline from Parker Brothers. Because Marvel did not own the character, they were
unable to reprint the comic, or several other significant issues of other characters' comics that Rom had made guest appearances in, until a deal was finally done in 2023. - Also in issue #11, Haxxalon's seemingly bizarre plan to marry Rita before having her and most of the other characters massacred by gunmen is a (by the 2010s) obscure shout-out to the notorious "Moldavian Massacre" subplot in Dynasty (1981).
- In issue #12, Margoth, the Evil Overlord of the Daemonsphere, is named in reference to Morgoth, the Satanic Archetype villain from Tolkien's Legendarium.
- Stealth Sequel: At first, it seemed like Gerard Way's run would be a reboot of the franchise, especially since it was the debut title of the Young Animal imprint and does not acknowledge the team's then-most-recent appearance in Geoff Johns' Justice League run. However, issue 3 makes it clear that both Grant Morrison and Keith Giffen's runs did indeed happen, by having Robotman reference events within those series.
- Talking Animal: After Lotion was transformed, he is able to talk fluently.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Lucius, thinking both of his parents don't want him, joins Mr. Nobody's Brotherhood of Nada as the magic wielding The Great Ludini, the Teenage Nothing. After some convincing, he decides to turn against Mr. Nobody.
- Time Travel: Casey's main power is the ability to travel through time when she drives fast enough.
- Token Evil Teammate: The Brotherhood of Nada seems even less malevolent than their Dada predecessors with the very notable exception of the Brutalist who feeds on the pain and misfortune of others by beating them to death.
- Token Black: Lucius Reynolds fulfills this position in the Doom Patrol, notably being the first African-American member since Joshua Clay was killed off late in Grant Morrison's run.
- Truly Single Parent: Mr. Nobody willed Terry None into existence without a mother of any sort involved.
- Tulpa: Casey was thought into existence when Danny the Street developed Reality Warper powers and was under threat from aliens.
- Unfazed Everyman: Before the Doom Patrol appears in her life, Casey was largely unfazed by weird stuff happening around her. This includes Terry accidentally exploding Casey's roommate with her tap dancing and finding her cat Lotion transformed into a humanoid form, and having sex with him. She also has sex with Terry, which leads to Terry somehow becoming pregnant.
- Whole Costume Reference: Terry None's costume, makeup, and hair make her look like the classic kaiju Dada from Ultraman. This may be a nod to her dad, Mr. Nobody, who led the Brotherhood of Dada.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Casey's roommate thinks this about Lotion's name.
- Worf Effect: Like usual, Cliff Steele/Robotman gets destroyed alot. Casey Brinke sees Cliff get smashed to bits by a garbage truck at one point and notes that Robotman is much lighter and not nearly as durable as she expected.
- Younger Than They Look: Casey appears to be in her twenties but she's created during the time when Danny the Street was attacked by the Vectra.
