Cheap Elastic..?
Once again, I am reminded of just how -- inappropriate DC Comics could be in the heyday of the Silver Age.
I recently checked out The Doom Patrol Archives, Volume 2 (2004), which collects Doom Patrols #90 -- 97 (Sept. 1964 -- Aug. 1965), via interlibrary loan. The Doom Patrol started in My Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963); the anthology/try-out mag was renamed Doom Patrol as of #86 (Mar. 1964), but the series ended with the apparent deaths of all of its members with #121 (Sept. - Oct. 1968).
The team was revived with almost entirely new members by writer Paul Kupperberg and artist Joe Staton in 1977, but didn't get their own title again until ten years later; the title didn't really take off until British (well, Scottish, actually) writer Grant Morrison took the reins with issue #19 (Mar. 1989) in the wake of DC's "Invasion!" cross-over event; DC moved Doom Patrol to its "New Format" -- a predecessor of its Vertigo line of comics, intended for "mature readers" -- with Morrison's arrival. Morrison left after #63 (Feb. 1993), and, for me, the series and the team essentially jumped the shark and landed in the Great Cosmic Comic Book Loo in the Sky, so the less said about its subsequent iterations, the better.
While Morrison took DP to giddy heights of weirdness, transgressiveness, grossness, pathos and black comedy, the book and the team were pretty gosh-darned odd even in their first, 1960s version. Writer Arnold Drake and artist Bruno Premiani (an editorial cartoonist for anti-fascist newspapers, which is what prompted his fleeing Italy for Argentina and, briefly, the U.S.) brought a style of corny, smart-alecky, semi-surreal melodrama to DP that was far more in keeping with the style at Marvel Comics in the 1960s than with DC. For this and other reasons, comparisons were forever made between DC's Doom Patrol and Marvel Comics' X-Men.
Doom Patrol debuted in an issue cover-dated June 1963; the X-Men debuted in their own title which was cover-dated September 1963. The Doom Patrol's major team of antagonists debuted in the March 1964 issue of their own title (the first issue that My Greatest Adventure gave way to Doom Patrol); the X-Men's opposite numbers debuted in the March 1964 edition of their title (Vol. 1, No. 4). The Doom Patrol's opposing numbers were called The Brotherhood of Evil; the X-Men's were called The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Drake became convinced, as the years went by, that Marvel ripped off the basic concept of the Doom Patrol for the X-Men (both teams were led by wheelchair-bound older men who were scientific geniuses; both teams were comprised of members who were mocked, feared and hated as freaks by the general public [although, for my money, the X-Men took the brunt of far more out-and-out hatred, even in the Silver Age, than the Doom Patrol ever did]); while DC apparently did have a greater lead time between creating an issue and publishing it than Marvel did, this still wouldn't have resulted in more than a three month gap between the debuts of the respective teams, and certainly no more than a couple weeks' gap between the debuts of their respective Brotherhoods.
But this is all preamble, and perhaps not terribly necessary preamble at that. What I really want to demonstrate is what I rediscovered by reading Doom Patrol Archives, Volume 2.
I say "rediscovered" because the -- inappropriateness -- contained within the pages of DPA, V.2 was originally published in Doom Patrol #91 (Nov. 1964), an issue that I actually possess, although it's essentially untouchable due to being in storage.
Doom Patrol #91 is noted among comic book nerds for containing the introduction of the DP's alien nemesis, Garguax (described in Roy Thomas' introduction to this volume as "a green Sydney Greenstreet"; p. 8), as well as its sometime-ally, Mento, a.k.a. Steve Dayton, the fifth richest man in America, and the would-be suitor of Rita Farr, the DP's very own Elasti-Girl.
Doom Patrol #91 should also be noted for one particular panel of Elasti-Girl, on p. 21, below:
Presumably the editor at DC had enough presence of mind to tell Premiani to partially obscure the panel (unless Premiani self-censored...), so that it wouldn't be even more painfully obvious that lovely Rita, growing maid, had her bare legs flung wide open with a ginormous puddle of a foamy, frothy, creamy -- um, substance -- gushing between them.
I mean, holy. Crap. What were they thinking?!
The very next issue, #92 (Dec. 1964), led off with a rather demure "upskirt" shot of Rita straddling a building, below; there was an even more suggestive one collected in DPA, V.1, but I neglected to scan it:
I've always been amazed that DC's editors didn't insist that Elasti-Girl wear pants instead of that cheerleader outfit; horndog that Stan Lee was, he never made this kind of error (??) over at Marvel, despite the fact that the cousin that he worked for, Martin Goodman, also published quite a line of "men's magazines."
What was that lyric from that Tubes song? "'My God!' I screamed in my distress / 'Got a fifty-foot woman / In a five-foot dress.'" Uh, yeah.
It was in the second story in another early issue of DP that I own, #94 (Mar. 1965), that Elasti-Girl's powers were first differentiated from the relatively straightforward size-changing abilities of Henry Pym (a.k.a. Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, and soon-to-be Yellowjacket) over at Marvel Comics: unlike Pym, she could grow or shrink certain body parts at will (and don't even try to apply real-world physics to that particular ability....), as seen on p. 4 of "The Chief Stands Alone" below:
Can't wait to check out the subsequent volumes of Doom Patrol Archives to see if there were any "oopsies" in the depiction of this use of her power; but surely the DC editors weren't that comatose (or perverse...) -- were they?
I recently checked out The Doom Patrol Archives, Volume 2 (2004), which collects Doom Patrols #90 -- 97 (Sept. 1964 -- Aug. 1965), via interlibrary loan. The Doom Patrol started in My Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963); the anthology/try-out mag was renamed Doom Patrol as of #86 (Mar. 1964), but the series ended with the apparent deaths of all of its members with #121 (Sept. - Oct. 1968).
The team was revived with almost entirely new members by writer Paul Kupperberg and artist Joe Staton in 1977, but didn't get their own title again until ten years later; the title didn't really take off until British (well, Scottish, actually) writer Grant Morrison took the reins with issue #19 (Mar. 1989) in the wake of DC's "Invasion!" cross-over event; DC moved Doom Patrol to its "New Format" -- a predecessor of its Vertigo line of comics, intended for "mature readers" -- with Morrison's arrival. Morrison left after #63 (Feb. 1993), and, for me, the series and the team essentially jumped the shark and landed in the Great Cosmic Comic Book Loo in the Sky, so the less said about its subsequent iterations, the better.
While Morrison took DP to giddy heights of weirdness, transgressiveness, grossness, pathos and black comedy, the book and the team were pretty gosh-darned odd even in their first, 1960s version. Writer Arnold Drake and artist Bruno Premiani (an editorial cartoonist for anti-fascist newspapers, which is what prompted his fleeing Italy for Argentina and, briefly, the U.S.) brought a style of corny, smart-alecky, semi-surreal melodrama to DP that was far more in keeping with the style at Marvel Comics in the 1960s than with DC. For this and other reasons, comparisons were forever made between DC's Doom Patrol and Marvel Comics' X-Men.
Doom Patrol debuted in an issue cover-dated June 1963; the X-Men debuted in their own title which was cover-dated September 1963. The Doom Patrol's major team of antagonists debuted in the March 1964 issue of their own title (the first issue that My Greatest Adventure gave way to Doom Patrol); the X-Men's opposite numbers debuted in the March 1964 edition of their title (Vol. 1, No. 4). The Doom Patrol's opposing numbers were called The Brotherhood of Evil; the X-Men's were called The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Drake became convinced, as the years went by, that Marvel ripped off the basic concept of the Doom Patrol for the X-Men (both teams were led by wheelchair-bound older men who were scientific geniuses; both teams were comprised of members who were mocked, feared and hated as freaks by the general public [although, for my money, the X-Men took the brunt of far more out-and-out hatred, even in the Silver Age, than the Doom Patrol ever did]); while DC apparently did have a greater lead time between creating an issue and publishing it than Marvel did, this still wouldn't have resulted in more than a three month gap between the debuts of the respective teams, and certainly no more than a couple weeks' gap between the debuts of their respective Brotherhoods.
But this is all preamble, and perhaps not terribly necessary preamble at that. What I really want to demonstrate is what I rediscovered by reading Doom Patrol Archives, Volume 2.
I say "rediscovered" because the -- inappropriateness -- contained within the pages of DPA, V.2 was originally published in Doom Patrol #91 (Nov. 1964), an issue that I actually possess, although it's essentially untouchable due to being in storage.
Doom Patrol #91 is noted among comic book nerds for containing the introduction of the DP's alien nemesis, Garguax (described in Roy Thomas' introduction to this volume as "a green Sydney Greenstreet"; p. 8), as well as its sometime-ally, Mento, a.k.a. Steve Dayton, the fifth richest man in America, and the would-be suitor of Rita Farr, the DP's very own Elasti-Girl.
Doom Patrol #91 should also be noted for one particular panel of Elasti-Girl, on p. 21, below:
Presumably the editor at DC had enough presence of mind to tell Premiani to partially obscure the panel (unless Premiani self-censored...), so that it wouldn't be even more painfully obvious that lovely Rita, growing maid, had her bare legs flung wide open with a ginormous puddle of a foamy, frothy, creamy -- um, substance -- gushing between them.
I mean, holy. Crap. What were they thinking?!
The very next issue, #92 (Dec. 1964), led off with a rather demure "upskirt" shot of Rita straddling a building, below; there was an even more suggestive one collected in DPA, V.1, but I neglected to scan it:
I've always been amazed that DC's editors didn't insist that Elasti-Girl wear pants instead of that cheerleader outfit; horndog that Stan Lee was, he never made this kind of error (??) over at Marvel, despite the fact that the cousin that he worked for, Martin Goodman, also published quite a line of "men's magazines."
What was that lyric from that Tubes song? "'My God!' I screamed in my distress / 'Got a fifty-foot woman / In a five-foot dress.'" Uh, yeah.
It was in the second story in another early issue of DP that I own, #94 (Mar. 1965), that Elasti-Girl's powers were first differentiated from the relatively straightforward size-changing abilities of Henry Pym (a.k.a. Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, and soon-to-be Yellowjacket) over at Marvel Comics: unlike Pym, she could grow or shrink certain body parts at will (and don't even try to apply real-world physics to that particular ability....), as seen on p. 4 of "The Chief Stands Alone" below:
Can't wait to check out the subsequent volumes of Doom Patrol Archives to see if there were any "oopsies" in the depiction of this use of her power; but surely the DC editors weren't that comatose (or perverse...) -- were they?