October 11, 2010

5 Reasons We Need An Animated Doom Patrol Series

Recently, I caught the "Last Patrol" episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold (featuring one of my favorite teams), and the episode got me thinking...

What America needs, now more than ever, is an animated Doom Patrol series

You may be asking yourself, But Gordon, why exactly do we need this? Well, taking my cue from another, better blog, here are five reasons for an animated Doom Patrol series:
  1. Immediate Audience Identification - an animated series geared more towards early-mid adolescents would hit upon the themes of alienation, dysfunction, and support. Everyone, at one point, feels like an outsider: these are characters who anyone can identify with...and in all honesty, that makes for better drama. Speaking of which...
  2. We need an animated DC series that doesn't quite take itself so seriously - if Batman: The Brave and the Bold proves anything, it's that you can do a slightly tongue-in-cheek animated series without going over the top. Given that the source material had a slightly loopy sense of humor - and that most animated DC features are "tentpole" events - bringing a Drake/Giffen-esque sensibility to animation would make it all the more appealing.
  3. Bruce Campbell as the voice of Larry Trainor, aka Negative Man - There. I said it. I will fight you if you disagree.
  4. I smell "franchise"...and I hate that word:  If you're reading DC's Legacies miniseries, it's established that the Doom Patrol's "demise" began a darker age in the DC universe. The fact that the group has left and been reinvented several times over says that there's life in this team. Let's face it - this is a concept that could easily be, say, an Addams Family-esque take on superheroes. And we need more of that in our animated entertainment.
  5. So many different takes = one consistently engaging series. I've written about my love for the series multiple times...and at least one blog post was highlighted by pal Chuck. With such a diverse range of stories, an animated Doom Patrol series would be many things...except boring
So come on, America - who do we hassle to make this a reality? Who's with me?
Admit it - you would watch this. Seriously.

3 comments:

Doug said...

Amen, sir. You are preaching the DP gospel to me.

There are teams and concepts that work well in comic form, but don't bounce well from comics to the screen. There are other concepts that translate well from comic to other media. So it goes to say that there just might be other concepts that excel in other media even though they don't necessarily do well in comics. I think DP is custom-made for translation to other media. Video games? Perfect range of powers and persolnailities. Movies? Limitless potential. Cartoon? Hell yes. They may have once been panned as a knockoff of the X-Men, but a cartoon with this team would prove they are so much more than that.

Gordon D said...

Doug,

Thanks for your comments - and for your own excellent Doom Patrol blog as well.

Gordon

MrKa said...

i will prefere to see a DP series on adult swim

more creative freedom the better will get