Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Doom Patrol -- Create Your Own Team

BTW did I get the main five Crisis world's right ?


1. Earth X - Phantom Lady
2. Earth 2 - Dr Fate
3. Quality Comics - Blue Beetle
4. Captain Marvel
5. Flash, Changeling, Wonder Woman, Dr. Light

6. Qward for good measure

Nine characters to match the original Justice League (Maguire version)

AH! I almost forgot apparently Dee Tyler has a non-powered friend named Sarah Moss that made some of her technological weapons for her (?) She could fill the Oberon role in the team.

Hmm, a team with members of each of the 'big' Earths 'big' teams.

Earth 1 - Green Arrow
Earth 2 - Starman (Ted or Jack Knight) and / or Firebrand (Danette Reilly) and / or Amazing Man
Freedom Fighters - Neon the Unknown
Shazam family - Mary Marvel
Charlton heroes - Nightshade

It was actually trickiest to pick someone from Earth 1 that didn't have a doppleganger on Earth 2 (which has it's own Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Flash, Atom, Hawkpeeps, etc.), since I wanted to avoid heroes with doubles.

Why Green Arrow btw? I would tend towards Cyborg I think. Or Metamorpho for non doubles.

Or a team with all doubles might be cool.

( But Nightshade is one of the coolest characters ever! And she has no double. )

Earth 1 - John Stewart
Earth 2 - Tsunami
Freedom Fighters - Quicksilver
Shazam - Captain Marvel (Basically Supes ... kinda constrained in options ha!)
Charlton - Blue Beetle (Batman character)

Qward - Superwoman
30th Century - Dawnstar


Thats pretty cool.


I could see the Monitor cultivating a team of unique characters from their worlds to stop some crisis.

I haven't thought of a good group yet tho. I'll think on it.

Classical elements team:

Fire
Ice
Windfall
Terra III (the good, non-crazy one)
Mera

I think they would have some good inter-personal dynamics going on

[quote=Set
It was actually trickiest to pick someone from Earth 1 that didn't have a doppleganger on Earth 2
[/quote]

But there *is* an Earth-2 Green Arrow! That's who was in the 7 Soldiers of Victory!

You could have an All-Archers from Different Earths team (2 Green Arrows, Golden Arrow, the Spider), except I don't think Charlton had one...

The Crisis of Infinite Green Arrows!

COIGA

One problem I had with the team is that it seemed like everyone from 'Earth Shazam' was a Marvel. Boy Marvel, Girl Marvel, Fat Marvel, Dog Marvel. Yawn. I think I'd be tempted to pick Tawky Tawny, the tiger-dude, just to get away from all the same-same-y Marvels.

Then again, I just noticed that Ibis the Invincible and Kid Eternity are also part of the 'Shazam' universe, if I'm reading Wikipedia right, so perhaps they could replace 'X Marvel.'

West Coast Avengers since the title is relaunching .....

My team is older than the new Marvel line up.

But would still have

1. Kate Bishop who is based in LA. Also, I'd like to see her more Taskmistress with the Swordsman's sword and the bow again.
2. Living Lightning - he could fly back and forth to his adventures in Texas (?)
3. Wonder Man - acting again in LA or running some sort of pacifist super hero non profit with lots of media attention
4. Dazzler - working on her career
5. Pasty Walker - LA radio or tv personality
6. Skybreaker - the insufferable inhuman


I'd like to include some others some how:

the latest Sunwoman
Moon Girl
Debrii or Hellion
Chase Stein

I guess I could replace Skybreaker with Debrii
Namorita might also work in LA.

I'd like to at least have some cameos by Mantis, Sunfire, Miss America, Cloak and Dagger ...

Maybe there is a financier team and a young action team:

Like Patsy, Dazzler and Wonder Man kinda run things , Moon Girl, Chase, Whiz Kid and Sunwoman build stuff, but then there is a strike force:

1. Hawkeye
2. Debrii
3. Living Lightning
4. Namorita
5. Skybreaker
6. Miss America
7. Devil Dinosaur

I had an idea for a Janet Van Dyne's Avengers.

I've been re reading several of the last major Marvel events, Civil War, Skrull Invasion, House of M, Initiative and realized how they revolve so much around Captain America and Tony Stark (and Scarlet Witch) so how about the often neglected founder gets a chance to rebuild the Avengers in an inspirational way.

I think she'd go back to a core group of members based off of her time as leader, around Avengers Under Siege, and choose members not very involved in the in fighting of these big events. Thor came back to the Avengers just in time to help rescue the Avengers from the Masters of Evil during the Under Siege storyline. Monica / Captain Marvel II also played a key role.

Wasp and Thor worked with Sunfire in Uncanny Avengers, I just like him and it would be nice to have a mutant representative on the team. Black Crow is an old ally of Captain America, has super human strength and mystical abilities and fills a Dr. Druid role on the team. I'd also like an inhuman on the team and Crystal seems like the best one and has been an Avenger before. There is some overlap of powers but .... I imagine Scott Lang and Dane Whitman, also friends from Wasp's era of leadership would regularly work back of house doing science and tech support. Maybe some quick cameos every few issues by She-Hulk, Namor, Hercules and Captain America.

Creating Janet's team I was inspired by these two teams.





I realize these teams were more muscle heavy, and my version is more elemental energy use heavy.

Ive had some news on my JL 3000 idea.

It starts with Lyrl. He travels through time or is just long lived. I'd want no other Coluans around, maybe they are a reclusive culture or very above the rest of the humanoids. A nice bookend with REBELS and LEGION.


Earth at this time is spearhead by the Asian continent. The United States is a source of governance and research, technical skills much like the Uk might be considered now, but Asia is really where everything happens in 3018.

Daxxamites aren't around either, they might be reclusive scientists that never figured out their powers work, or could even have been exterminated by a rival race, Psions or Dominators, that discovered it first. (Maybe one or two are left around and might make an appearance later in the series ; ) ).


Dragonmage is possibly Earth's greatest actual hero at this point, using the energy of the star heart.

XS is the United States greatest hero but she is more like a pop star, not debauched, but just not had many challenges other than being a figure head.

Violent crime is roughly nonexistent in many places in 3018. Or handled by oppressive surveillance or some other means.

Lyrl shows up, tries to start making waves, shows up with an oddly costumed Super Girl. She is saccharin sweet. She starts doing heroic deeds to solve problems to get herself and Lyrl attention. She is a mystery. Possibly these mirror Supergirl's original tryout for the Legion, and possibly are all contrived by Lyrl to get attention. He wants a one world order .. with himself as head ... for some possibly genuine reason ... like being able to meet an impending antagonist in a united front.

OK lets get to the real action:

Chameleon Chief is a revolutionary or terrorist, depending on who's talking, he's fighting for Durla which has been exploited as a weapons testing ground and his people have not been treated well. Possibly due to them being shape changers or a previous historic war. (all of the above).


But somehow he enters the picture and is roughly heroic.

Jo Nah, hes on Rimbor, a very neglected colony of Earth's. He's the real deal, he fights gangs and crimes one power at a time. Id give him virtually an unlimited amount of powers depending on some delivery system, electronic or constant biological upgrading.


Shikari is a nomad, she roams the galaxy fighting pirates and Khunds etc. She's a bit of a mystery too. A robin hood character at times. She may even run with a hive.

But for right now this Supergirl is a symbol of heroics.


So after the first story arc or two this band will get shaken up, some of the more savory ones will be out, and some fresh blood in.

Now who to make the big bad that brings them together? Zaryan?

Something else else classic maybe but also something maybe Lyrl might be tied to. Robotica has been done, and Computo as well. A redo of Prophet and Omen?!?

Maybe Mongul is still around (something totally different). Omega?

A later storyline would be interesting is to say that the Phantom Zone is breaking down and all these super baddies are about to escape, or escaping gradually, and a Legion is needed to stop them. Kinda still tied to Superman/boy.





So this is sparkly clean Utopian civilization not used to action or violence except on the neglected colonial fringes like Rimbor and this book would be about fending off the impending darkness or doom rather than ... just getting dark and destroying that world.

^ That's a fantastic pic of Dragonmage! I've never seen that before.

That character has so much potential.

Another image of my Uncanny Avengers ... this team might really be into the avenging part ha! Scarlet Witch as leader.




I thought about cutting Legion due to this discussion but replacement slick Chamber, while salty, just aren't damaged enough to fit in. How about a Legion character who is in recovery, cuts off the enormous hair, and basically is a telepath and trying to model himself after Charles. he's still got other powers but the more power he uses the more another personality might take over. He's really up there with Scarlet Witch in that way.

Elixir might also fit into this group.

Here's an update on the transitional team right before the Giant Size X-Men. Kinda takes the wind out of the sails of Giant Size X-Men because this team is also international. but oh well, I think its cool. That character on the right is Diana Fox ... an other dimensional Sage/Tessa character ... so I retconned Sage as the Fox into this team. She's unrecognizable from her future Tessa persona. This is before she goes undercover, this way she gets to be an X-Man and it makes more sense for her to be so loyal if she has a history with the team.

I'm too lazy to photoshop it, but here's my attempt at one of those bizarre eclectic teams in the spirit of Champions or Outsiders, with a bit more eclecticism because I mixed Marvel and DC.

Supergirl, 80s Cheerleader Edition, and Leader
Moondragon
Nightwing
Thing
Songbird
Deadman
Nightcrawler
XS
Zatanna
Bruce Banner as in-house comic book science guy, Hulk only comes out to play on rare occassions

It would only run briefly, but have a long-lived cult following based mostly on how weird a mishmash it is. Supergirl and Nightcrawler become the main romantic paring, Songbird and Zatanna the "buddy" duo. Moondragon, of course, is the conflict stirring antihero. When isn't she?

Drawn by Allred ?

escalating tensions between Supergirl and Moondragon would be good to read.

Is that Joanna Cargill/Frenzy to the right of Sunfire?

I know she's reformed, but I still have a hard time forgiving her for killing Sharon Friedlander.

Ooh, I love Frenzy. (Yeah, I know, Sharon, but if we can forgive Wolverine for stabbing Northstar and Rachel Summers in the heart, perhaps after Sharon gets her inevitable resurrection, we can forgive Joanna as well?)

And Dust! My favorite of the New X-Men generation! (Along with Hellion, Elixir, Bling! and Wind-Dancer.)

It's cool that this line-up has Wanda, Pietro *and* Lorna on it, as well as one of the lesser-used 'All-New' X-Men, with Sunfire, who, IMO, never really has gotten a chance to shine. (Indeed, neither Marvel nor DC seems to have much use for Asian *male* characters.)

There are so many X-adjacent folk like Frenzy and Unuscione and Cecelia Reyes and Scaleface and Fixx and Wicked and Chimera and Omega Sentinel that have been more or less forgotten, and yet I'd love to see more of.

And yeah, like so many other X-'Men,' it seems like it's the X-*women* that are way more interesting!

About the only 'classic' X-peeps I really care about these days are Cyclops and Nightcrawler. (And some lesser-used breakouts like Madrox.)

Create Your Own Wacky Doom Patrol!!!!!!

(or not so wacky)

I have a few ideas but one strategy was to think of all the wackiest DC characters I could and put them together!


1. Shade the changing man -- his emotional spectrum force field was really cool and bizarre and hard to define in the old Suicide Squad.
2. Halo (or maybe a different Halo) -- Her Aurakle (sp) possession and one color for every power could be wacky goodness.
3. Platinum -- taking over the Robotman role -- and getting out from under the Metal Men that don't appreciate her and seemed to have programmed her ... in a sexist manner.
4. Zatanna -- the backwards speaking girl from the Life During Wartime comic was a whole lot cooler and creepier than our usual super hero Zatanna and I think she has some wackiness in her. Her own last series was a little curious and wacky.


That's the sketch for my core so far, we've got space opportunities, inter dimensional opportunities, tech story possibilities and magic.


Some possible villains:
Count Vertigo
Master Disaster
Klarion the Witch Boy
Twister
Hybrid -- Gorgon, Harpy, Touch and Go, Behemoth etc.
Gold Face
Null and Void
Rainbow Raider (verses Halo)
Mind boggler and Plastique
Nocturna
Johnny Sorrow

Some supporting characters or cameos:

Jemm
Mikail Thomas
Obsidan and Jade
The Tattooed Man
OwlWoman
Dr. Mist
Rising Sun
Ice
Amazing Man
The Green Man (preferable with a flight ring).

Now it strikes me how I think the Doom Patrol is similar to the Outsiders and maybe Suicide Squad and other misfit composed teams, with the subsequent story lines. Because Aparo's Outsiders had some wacky villains and so did the JLI but I guess the trick would be to keep the Doom Patrol a little edgy or creepy.

Or to have a Doom Patrol that was always doing different things, space one issue and magic the next.

Some Doom Patrol thoughts...

An odd thing about the Terrifics knowingly taking a lead from Marvel’s Fantastic Four, is that they only had to look at the Doom Patrol to see that they already had their own version. The Challengers or the Newsboy Legion that both inspired the Fantastic Four, would have been two more examples already with DC. Lots of Kirby there, and Arnold Drake also worked on Challengers.

FF had the smart fatherly one, the two bickering ones and the mediator. This is top level bickering. It’s right up there with the early Avengers or X-Men or Thing/ Torch. The Doom Patrol was exactly the same. I’ve only glanced a tone Terrifics issue, but I’ll hazard a guess that Mr Terrific is the brains, Metamorpho and Plastic Man bicker and Phantom Girl doesn’t. It’s not a coincidence for the Doom Patrol. Drake wrote a several page document explaining why Marvel were ahead of DC. He must have been channelling some of that feeling for the Patrol.

I don’t know enough about FF to know if Ben Grimm ever fancied Susan Storm along with Reed, but that’s a dynamic that’s in the Doom Patrol and the early X-Men. X-Men also had a smart leader, a few bickering males and a female mediator.

Not to mention the wheelchaired leader and the outcast heroes thing… just like the Doom Patrol. It seems that Drake was so in tune with what Marvel were doing two concepts were created in parallel.
That was something else that the Terrifics missed. There, a Giant Plot Device forces them to be physically close to each other. “Even nipping to the shops for milk without the other three could mean certain death!” could be the cover blurb. But the books it’s take a lead from had much deeper reasons.

Heroes had problems too. The Doom Patrol were heroes because they had nowhere else to go. They considered themselves to be freaks and outcasts. Like Ben Grimm, there was also the chance that Niles Caulder could help them and that they could help each other against an uncaring world.

“You three are victims of cruel and fantastic fate. I’ve summoned you here to give you an opportunity to cheat that fate by offering you the challenge to experience adventures more incredible than any humans have ever known.”

On powers Cliff Steele stood in for the Thing; Negative Man for the Human Torch; Niles Caulder for Mr Fantastic’s brain while Rita Farr had his shape changing powers and Susan Richard’s female presence on the team (because just having a woman on the team was considered quite enough back then without giving her little things like a life that didn’t revolve around men or a personality)

Taking all this on board you have:-
A small team (4-5)
Sense of being an outcast
Tragic origin
Powers with flaws

As I’ve mentioned before, Mark Waid made a really snooty comment to a reader in the Morrison. He said that the reader just didn’t get what they were trying to do. In fact, the reader’s suggestion was a perfectly feasible one. All Waid showed was that he neither understood what Magpie Morrison had solidly based his ideas on or what underpinned the characters. It’s always bugged me (dormant until I came on these boards )

The reader’s idea was one of the Clayfaces, probably Matt Hagen, as a reformed villain. Hagen meets the criteria and considering the moral greyness of the some of the cast, then the villainous side wouldn’t have been a problem either. Just the sort of character that the stories were built around. To give it a direct link, the original Clayface could disguise himself as anyone he liked. In his mind he became them. So much so that the personalities lingered, fragmenting his mind. He’s in Kay Challis’ support group.

As a seemingly daft example, let’s take another Drake creation: Stanley and his Monster. It’s actually quite similar to the Fury idea above. But for the Doom Patrol that was, Stanley is a good fit for a character that became pivotal in the Morrison run, but that I can’t give details on, as someone may be working their way through them.

A couple of tweaks of his origin and you’ve got a traumatised kid with access to something beyond his control. The character fits the criteria (which is why a lot of the Doom Patrol supporting cast are frequently dumped), and stories can be built around them. Drake did and Morrison mined that.

Should anything happen to Cliff then you could do worse than go back a few years before his first appearance when the first Robotman was still being published by DC. This would be the Robert Crane version who I’ve read was very much like Plastic Man later in his run (another Terrifics link) with extendable arms and legs etc. This was before DC had come up with things like multiple Earths. Peebs’ Platinum also fills this role, and is actually closer to the original Robotman than the Cliff Steele version.

The man trapped in a monster concept of Robotman, Hulk, Thing etc also applies to DC’s Metamorpho. Another Terrifics link. His visual powers are a natural for the medium. He brings plenty of subplots and angst with him too. Metamorpho didn’t join the JLA but was one of the Outsiders.

That concept of being an outsider, working in the shadows for a world that might not appreciate it, was in the ad blurb for the Outsiders, if not the series itself. It’s a good fit to the Doom Patrol. An alternate Outsider, used in The Nail, was Shade and he’s a decent fit there, and is on Peeb’s list. I see the Outsiders is mentioned too.

In addition to the Outsiders, the Doom Patrol also influenced the dynamic of the Teen Titans.

Cyborg is a stand in for Robotman anyway. Raven has plenty of issues and plots (Morrison spoiler removed). Gar Logan was a member of both and an early Titans plot involved the hunt for the killers of the original team. Logan was riddled with guilt about the death of his former team, and struggled to forge relationships as everyone kept dying on him. Steve Dayton eventually broke down partly as a result of this (also due to Moore’s Swamp Thing) and tried to form his own version of the Doom Patrol: The Hybrid (also listed by Peebs).

Some others can be tweaked to fit.:-
Kid Flash and Robin are two who seem a bit vanilla. But Wallace West’s powers are killing him and Grayson was getting traumatised by villains when he was a kid. Starfire just need to lose the Red Sonja and embrace the alien side of her origin.

Revised entirely:-
The Fury: Donna Troy is the embodiment of Greek myth. Except she either represents one of the Gorgons (Dayton’s Hybrid) or Roy Thomas’ transforming version of the Fury. Her power outbursts, possibly avoiding the on the nose Cat People concept of sexual repression, have resulted in numerous deaths. She’s hunted until contacted by Professor Caulder (who oddly also finances the museum/ dig connected with her origin)

Other possibles include another Drake creation; Deadman, who has to inhabit the bodies of the rest of the cast to have any semblance of life.

There’s a fantastic Drake interview in Twomorrow’s Alter Ego #17. Digital copies are exceptional value and this interview is a gem.

Dragging the Doom Patrol thinkymeats to the concept of a Legion version of the Doom Patrol, with Rene Brande taking on the role of Niles Caulder, which Legionnaires would best fit the concept?

Wildfire, obviously. He's unable to function as a man, stuck as disembodied energy that is only kept in the shape of a person by a special containment suit. He's got Doom Patrol all over him.

The Furball incarnation of Timber Wolf, perhaps, would work. Or Blok. Or Tellus. Or Quislet (who, admittedly, might not fit the tone...). Someone unable to 'pass' for a traditional UP race, and who draws stares, or perhaps even law enforcement by showing their face (lacking basic rights of citizenship, if nothing else).

Infectious Lass? From a quarantined world, she's gotta make people uncomfortable just walking around...

Mysa / the White/Black Witch? The future is pretty tech-friendly and mysticism-free, at least on Earth. Could she be seen as subversive or disruptive to the status quo? Could Earth no longer be a welcoming 'safe space' for magic, or practitioners of magic? Could this actually affect her powers and make them less reliable, and, ironically, more dangerous and deserving of this bad reputatin, in sort of a cycle that perpetuates itself?

Besides Wildfire, Ferro Lad seem like the other obvious one.

Ooh, great choice! I always forget him...