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 particularly on Flex Mentallo. If you remember the old Charles Atlas adverts in comic books, this is essentially Mac, the skinny fellow who eventually beats the beach bully. Flex radiates ‘Hero of the Beach’ and is super-strong. Considering Niles Caulder’s disdain for the super-strong, there is some emphasis on that here, as well as Flex’s 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 the team to be moved wherever they are needed.
I should point out that Morrison moves away from the Doom Patrol itself from time to time, or reduces the focus to just one or two members. ‘The Beard Hunter’ is a lovely wind-up of the Punisher, with its title character shooting his victims and shaving off their beards. It’s inevitable that he eventually comes across Niles Caulder in a supermarket.
Cliff Steele also gets a new robot body, still the same golden colour but with more elaborate arms and legs.
The final issues are harder to describe, as the Brotherhood of Dada returns alongside a lot more experimental artwork which, depending on your taste, is either deliberately crude or apparently rushed. Looking at it objectively now, I have a feeling the artists involved were giving their impression of what Dada is rather than exploring how it could work most effectively on a comic-book page.
The result radically alters the Doom Patrol themselves rather than making it clear that they have walked into a world that is not their own. An art movement turned into a comic book, perhaps, which is certainly very Grant Morrison.
GF Willmetts
August 2026
(pub: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2006. Graphic novel softcover. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-40120-299-6)
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