Just a week after the upcoming DC Universe streaming service announced that a live-action Swamp Thing series would be joining their line-up of shows, DC has announced another new series to premiere on their platform in 2019, an adaptation of the classic super team The Doom Patrol. The brand new series is coming from DC-TV guru Greg Berlanti, along with DC’s Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, and together with producers Jeremy Carver and Sarah Schechter. Below is DC’s logline for the series. as well as the series’ first official logo:
“Doom Patrol is a re-imagining of one of DC’s most beloved group of outcast Super Heroes: Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and Crazy Jane, led by modern-day mad scientist Dr. Niles Caulder (The Chief). The Doom Patrol’s members each suffered horrible accidents that gave them superhuman abilities — but also left them scarred and disfigured. Traumatized and downtrodden, the team found purpose through The Chief, who brought them together to investigate the weirdest phenomena in existence — and to protect Earth from what they find. Part support group, part Super Hero team, the Doom Patrol is a band of super-powered freaks who fight for a world that wants nothing to do with them. Picking up after the events of Titans, Doom Patrol will find these reluctant heroes in a place they never expected to be, called to action by none other than Cyborg, who comes to them with a mission hard to refuse, but with a warning that is hard to ignore: their lives will never, ever be the same.”
With the DP first set to appear on episode five of Titans, it would be safe to assume that the main actors cast for these characters on that show will be returning to the roles for their own series. This official synopsis for the series also gives us some tantalizing clues for what to expect not only from this series, but Titans as well. First off, a brief history of Doom Patrol for those unfamiliar with the comic book series. The Patrol dates back to 1963, and was a DC book about a wheelchair bound genius who gathers together a group of freaks and outcasts and turns them into a superhero team trained to defend a world that fears them. While this may sound like an X-Men knock off, the DP actually hit newsstands a good several months before the X-Men’s first issue did. Both series were niche comics in the ’60s, but in the ’70s, the X-Men revival became one of the biggest books of all time. Meanwhile, several attempts to revive the Doom Patrol never really clicked…until the ’90s that is.
Writer Grant Morrison, later known for his psychedelic comics like The Invisibles and Animal Man, wrote a Doom Patrol series that was unlike anything that anyone had ever seen in a superhero team book at the time. Although he kept certain key characters from the original run, like the Chief and Robotman, he added bizarre new characters like the intersex hero Rebis, and most notably, Crazy Jane. Jane was a woman with 64 different personalities, each with its own unique super power. The addition of Jane alone propelled Doom Patrol into becoming one of the wildest and most imaginative comics published by DC in the ’90s. Ever since Morrison’s run, other versions of the teaml have come and gone, including one running right now from Gerard Way, but his remains the gold standard. The inclusion of Crazy Jane in the line-up means that they are likely heavily drawing from Morrison’s run, with a healthy dose of the original ’60s incarnation as well.
One more thing the synopsis mentions that is worth noting for Titans fans: it mentions that the team is called to action by Cyborg. Now, Cyborg is one of the founding members of the New Teen Titans in the comics, and a big part of the team from the animated series. Because of his use in the DCEU, where he is played by Ray Fisher, it was thought that the character was off limits to the TV branch of DC Entertainment, but this suggests otherwise. This means there is a good chance Cyborg will appear on Titans alongside Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven and Wonder Girl, which should make longtime fans thrilled.
Are you excited about this off-kilter DC series making it to live-action? Could it become the wildest comic based show since Legion? Be sure to let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.
Images: DC Comics
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