Pimp a Current / Newish Fandom Week: Doom Patrol

[slashmommy]

 Newish / Current Fandom #3: Doom Patrol (Available on DC Universe)

 

Doom Patrol is DC’s strangest group of outcasts: Robotman (Brendan Fraser), Negative Man (Matt Bomer), Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby) and Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero). They are led by Dr. Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton). They are eventually joined by Cyborg (Joivan Wade) and they all fight against Eric Morden (Alan Tudyk)

These aren't the heroes you want, these are the ones you get stuck with. Crazy Jane has multiple personalities and each one has its own powers. Elasti-Woman was a movie starlet who basically got turned into the blob. Negative Man has a strange alien living in him and Robotman, well, he's a human brain put into a robot. These are not people who wanted to become superheroes and yet, here they are.

 

The show is well written, funny and poignant.

• Larry, played by Matt Bomer, was a military test pilot before being hijacked by an alien. He was married with kids, but he also had a boyfriend on the side who he loved.
• Cliff, aka Robotman, was a Nascar driver who was unhappily married and was attempting to get himself together after his wife left him and the whole family was in an accident. His wife died, for a good chunk of time, he thought his daughter died, and all that Niles was able to save of him was his brain. He's mentally there, but everything is a rather junky looking robot. There's even a whole plotline about a rat getting into him and sending him haywire.
• There are great recurring characters as well like Danny the Street - a sentient, genderqueer, teleporting street who is on the run from the Bureau of Normalcy and there is Willoughby Kipling (Mark Sheppard) who shows up a couple of times (and hopefully more to come) . Sheppard described Willoughby at Dragon Con as a cross between Mad Eye Moody and Constantine.