Doom Patrol (1964) 121

Doom Patrol (1964) 121
Sep/Oct 1968

The Death of the Doom Patrol
By Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani

Madame Rouge returns looking for revenge. She drops a bomb on the Brotherhood of Evil’s HQ, killing the Brain and Monsieur Mallah. Her next target is the Doom Patrol. Her first attempts to kill them are violent enough to cause considerable collateral damage. The US Government steps in and demands that the Doom Patrol leave the country.

The Chief has a contingency plan. He leads the rest of the team to his new island base. Madame Rouge and Captain Zahl strike the island. The Doom Patrol repels the initial attempt to kill them. Zahl threatens to destroy a small fishing village in Maine unless the Doom Patrol allow themselves to be killed in place of the fishermen. The Doom Patrol do not find a way to out smart the villains and willingly give up their lives in exchange for the villagers lives. I thought this was a very strange twist.

The story is book ended by a couple panels in which the creators of the Doom Patrol ask the readers to decide if this will be the final issue of the Doom Patrol. Despite having seemingly survived death numerous time before, this, the original incarnation of the Doom Patrol, did not return.

Epilogue 1

In 1977, 9 years after the original Doom Patrol was killed, a legacy team started to make sporadic appearances, most of which were written by Paul Kupperberg, until they finally got their own book in 1987, which was also written by Kupperberg.

- Showcase 94-96 (Aug 1977 - Jan 1978)
- Superman Family 191-193 (Sep 1977 - Feb 1978)
- DC Comics Presents 52 (Dec 1982)
- The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl 8-10 (Jun - Aug 1983)
- Secret Origins Annual 1 (1987)
- Doom Patrol (1987) 1-18 (Oct 1987 - Jan 1989)
- Superman (1987) 20 (Aug 1988)
- Doom Patrol Annual 1 (1988)
- Doom Patrol and Suicide Squad Special (1988)

The team also made appearances in crossover and reference books like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Invasion, and Who's Who.

Doom Patrol (1987) ran for several years. The new team was killed in issue 18. Grant Morrison took over writing the book with issue 19 and took the book in a different direction which eventually led to it becoming a Vertigo title.

I have a few of the issues listed above but I have not read any of them yet.

Epilogue 2

The New Teen Titans teamed up with Robotman in New Teen Titans (1980) 13, 14, 15 to track down Madame Rouge and Captain Zahl. I have read and written about these issue within the past year.