Doom Patrol Vol. 4: Muscle Bound by Grant Morrison, Richard Case, Mike Dringenburg, Mark McKenna, Jamie Howlett, Steve Yeowell and Ryan Hughes (graphic novel review)

This fourth volume of ‘Doom Patrol’ covers # 42-49, focusing on Flex Mentallo. If you remember the Charles Atlas adverts in the comicbooks, this is really Mac who eventually beats the beach bully. He radiates ‘Hero Of The Beach’ and super-strong. Considering Niles Caulder’s distain for the super-strong, there is some emphasis here and his encounter with the Men From N.O.W.H.E.R.E.. What does make Caulder happy is Danny the Street offering himself as a base for the Doom Patrol allowing them to be moved where they are needed.

I should point out that Morrison moves away from the Doom Patrol itself or down to one or two members from time to time. ‘The Beard Hunter’ is a lovely wind-up of the Punisher as he shoots and shaves off any beard of his victims. Its inevitable he comes across Niles Caulder in a supermarket.

Cliff Steele also gets a new robot body, still the same golden colour but more involved arms and legs.

The end issues are hard to describe as the Brotherhood of Dada returns with a lot more experimental art that, depending on your taste, is either crude or apparently rushed. Objectively, now, I have a feeling the artists involved were giving their impression of what Dada is than how it could work on a comicbook page, radically altering the Doom Patrol team themselves than understand that they had walked into a world not their own. An art movement in comicsbooks.

GF Willmetts

August 2026

(pub: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2006. Page graphic novel softcover. Price: varies. ISBN: 978- 1-40120-299-6)

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