“Are all black holes this condescending?”
–Negative Man
By the time I picked up the second issue of Keith Giffen and Matthew Clark’s Doom Patrol at the shop, issue #1 was sold out, and I haven’t managed to locate one quite yet. This was obviously a little frustrating, but a few factors warmed me up to the story midstream: 1) Oolong Island. DC’s home to mad science in 52 is one of my favorite locales, and after seeing a few of those villains show up in Red Tornado #1, this was a bit of a bonus for September. 2) Is it just Matthew Clark’s art, or Livesay’s inking that make him look like an aspiring Howard Chaykin? 3) At the risk of making a second Doctor Who comparison in a week, Giffen’s major plot arc here reads like a Cyber Men/Dalek takeover plot, with the black-hole faced minions and such.
And on a bonus fourth note, T.O. Morrow’s excerpt from the Extreme Science Journal was a niblet of vintage Giffenian brilliance.