Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds

Gerard Way’s “Young Animal” imprint may not have amounted to much after its initial hype.  Still, we at least got some decent series out of it.  The “Cave Carson” books were fun, as was Mike Allred’s “Bug!” miniseries.  Standing at the forefront was Way’s “Doom Patrol,” which got off to a strong start before being sunk by scheduling issues.  “Weight of the Worlds” is the writer’s attempt, with co-writer Jeremy Lambert, to finish things off and send the imprint out on a high note.  Which they do as the title team tackles the kind of strangeness you’d hope to see from them.  An alien species being driven to perform acts of fitness, Space Divorce between planets, Larry Trainor the Negative Man manifesting positive energy, Flex Mentallo’s return to Destiny Beach to face off against the new owner of the Secret Spandex…  The weirdness goes on.

The seven issues collected here have a self-contained feel to them that initially comes off like the creators are trying to get out all of their stray ideas for the series.  A collection of fill-in stories as it were alongside an actual (good) fill-in story from Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad.  These issues, including the actual fill-in, still dazzle with their ideas and art, from incredible new find Jeremy Harvey, respectable pros Evan “Doc” Shaner, Nick Pitarra, and Omar Francia, and original “Doom Patrol” artist Nick Derington.  Yet there’s one thread tying them all together as a now-human Cliff Steel finds out that humanity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  This leads him to a new life of earning upgrades by helping people that turns him into an ersatz Unicron that wants to consume the galaxy.  That may sound nuts, but Way and Lambert still find a way to make it work and tie it into the stories they’ve been telling here.  It’s all good enough to make you wish that they had been able to go further with their take on the “Doom Patrol,” even though what we’ve got here with these three volumes is still plenty entertaining.