Rating: 
Summary: Most human and humane super-heroes ever created
Review: I'd never read any Silver Age Doom Patrol cartoons, and picked this up just because I liked the idea of a team of freaks banding together. But they're so much more than freaks, they're individual characters, each with his own personality, which was unusual in a DC comic from the 1960s. And they do their best, sometimes fail, and in the final story of this book they recommend therapy and treatment rather than incarceration for one villain because he is mentally imbalanced! Wonderful stuff. Can't wait for Volume 2!
Rating:
Summary: The most beautiful DC Archive I've seen
Review: If, like me, you were turned on to Doom Patrol during Morrison and Case's run in the early 90s (a classic in itself, but that's another story) and want to find out more, then you must buy this book! I didn't have access to the original tales from the '60s by Drake, Haney, and Premiani, so I had to settle for the summary in Secret Origins Annual. Now I can have the real thing with Volume 1 of the Doom Patrol Archives. I must admit that the basic plots are cookie-cutter, but the characters are great, and Premiani's art stands out with lots of detail and effective use of shadow. Plus, you can see that this comic started out by embracing all that was weird; it didn't become that way later on! The reproduction is crystal-clear, much better than I've seen for other editions. This is a good investment for fans of DP both young and old, as well as a sterling example of what was good about the Silver Age of Comics.
Rating:
Summary: About Time
Review: The Doom Patrol was my favourite comic book when I was a child and it is wonderful that DC brought this book out. In it are some of the best stories from the original run of the comic book. The art is good and the stories are ripping!
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Freaks
Review: The Doom Patrol was one of the great lesser known DC series of the Silver Age. A group of "freaks" joined together to form a super-team. The Chief was the wheelchair bound genius leader. Robotman was a human being with his brain trapped in a robot body. Negative Man could cause a radio-energy being to leave his body at the speed of light, but had to keep his body wrapped in bandages to protect people from his radioactive skin. Elasti-Girl could grow really big or really small. (Actually, she not all that "freakish". No more so than any other super-hero, anyway). Besides being considered "outcasts", the Doom Patrol was different than other DC heroes in that they actually had personalities. Robotman and Negative Man often had arguments with each other, and they both had moments when they felt bitter about their situations. This book features the Doom Patrol's first ten comics. Besides meeting the heroes, you will also meet their legendary enemies; General Immortus, The Brotherhood of Evil, and Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. (Yes, that last one has a goofy name, but he's still a pretty cool villain.) I think that anyone who is a fan of Silver Age comics should get this book. While it's true that the stories aren't as "sophisticated" as today's comics, they have a charm that most of the current comics can't duplicate.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Freaks
Review: The Doom Patrol was one of the great lesser known DC series of the Silver Age. A group of "freaks" joined together to form a super-team. The Chief was the wheelchair bound genius leader. Robotman was a human being with his brain trapped in a robot body. Negative Man could cause a radio-energy being to leave his body at the speed of light, but had to keep his body wrapped in bandages to protect people from his radioactive skin. Elasti-Girl could grow really big or really small. (Actually, she not all that "freakish". No more so than any other super-hero, anyway). Besides being considered "outcasts", the Doom Patrol was different than other DC heroes in that they actually had personalities. Robotman and Negative Man often had arguments with each other, and they both had moments when they felt bitter about their situations. This book features the Doom Patrol's first ten comics. Besides meeting the heroes, you will also meet their legendary enemies; General Immortus, The Brotherhood of Evil, and Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. (Yes, that last one has a goofy name, but he's still a pretty cool villain.) I think that anyone who is a fan of Silver Age comics should get this book. While it's true that the stories aren't as "sophisticated" as today's comics, they have a charm that most of the current comics can't duplicate.
Rating:
Summary: Doom Patrol what we have been waiting for.
Review: The Doom Patrol was one of those odd books DC played with in the early 1960s. I know that everybody knows that Doom Patrol and X-Men hit the stands at nearly the same time but in retrospect the 1960s Doom Patrol was more fun to read than the X-Men (especially after Kirby left).When you read the Doom Patrol you feel they took a slight fork in the road from the rest of the DC Universe of that time. Other DC heroes seldom crossed paths with the Doom Patrol and the oddball menaces they fought could only have been fought by them. The art by Bruno Premiani (a really unsung hero of the Silver Age) gives the stories an air of realism that makes the fantastic elements in the stories all the more fantastic. I wait impatiently for a second volume.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Review: This volume is among the best of the DC Archives volumes I've read so far. Apparently DOOM PATROL was a cult favorite back in the 60's, but its reputation has been obscure enough to discourage any sort of systematic reprinting up until this book. In a pointless lifetime of reading comics, this is the first time I've run across the original series. DC benefited from a number of excellent pencil artists back in the 1960's, such as Curt Swan, Neal Adams, and Murphy Anderson. Bruno Premiani is a name that never seems to appear in that list, but it really should. The artwork here is really impressive, comparable in places to Alex Raymond or Lou Fine. The Arnold Drake stories are also consistently entertaining, although you have to get used to a style of dialogue and characterization that smacks strongly of 50/60's-era horror and science fiction films. But the writing is at least as good as anything being done in that period at Marvel or DC. In some ways the storytelling reminds me of some non-superhero DC titles from the time, like STRANGE ADVENTURES or MYSTERY IN SPACE. Highly recommended to anyone who likes Silver Age comics.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Review: This volume is among the best of the DC Archives volumes I've read so far. Apparently DOOM PATROL was a cult favorite back in the 60's, but its reputation has been obscure enough to discourage any sort of systematic reprinting up until this book. In a pointless lifetime of reading comics, this is the first time I've run across the original series. DC benefited from a number of excellent pencil artists back in the 1960's, such as Curt Swan, Neal Adams, and Murphy Anderson. Bruno Premiani is a name that never seems to appear in that list, but it really should. The artwork here is really impressive, comparable in places to Alex Raymond or Lou Fine. The Arnold Drake stories are also consistently entertaining, although you have to get used to a style of dialogue and characterization that smacks strongly of 50/60's-era horror and science fiction films. But the writing is at least as good as anything being done in that period at Marvel or DC. In some ways the storytelling reminds me of some non-superhero DC titles from the time, like STRANGE ADVENTURES or MYSTERY IN SPACE. Highly recommended to anyone who likes Silver Age comics.
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