#rita farr x original superhero

[ladyorlandodream]

Chapters: 12/? Fandom: Doom Patrol (TV)

It took me ages to update this FF, but here it is Chapter 12

[the-antiapocalyptic-man]

What's going on with the Headverse Doom Patrol?

Good question actually. I forgot how much of this I had in my notes and how much I hate Niles lol. Ironically I do have to kind of focus on his history as he’s kind of the through line that the team develops and restructures around, up until he’s out as a general (and literal) monster.

so the Patrol’s history stretches back to 1900. Pulling from a few different sources, Niles is now one of the Century Babies alongside Robert Crane, the original Robot Man. After surviving Doc Brass’s failed attempt to replace Diana’s defunct Society, Caulder cannibalized Crane’s mechanical body for his own research, never quite matching Robert’s work, but publishing enough data that William Magnus and T.O. Morrow could innovate on it. Caulder in the head verse is kind of a parody of the omnidisciplinary genius father figure; while he always lacked the imagination to truly create something of his own, his savagery and extended lifespan gave him the time and resources to build his “superhero” teams, the Patrol being a kind of perverse reflection of what Niles saw the Justice Society: monsters acting out the will of a mighty leader’s vision. If that sound a little fasc…well yeah

Anyway, a decade or so after killing Crane, Niles gathered his original team: stock car driver Cliff Steele, Hollywood star Rita Farr, and test pilot Larry Trainor (later changing their name to “Rebis”). He wanted metahumans who were powerful, but also easily manipulated due to either emotional trauma or—in Cliff’s case—a literal remote control mechanism installed in his hardware. Once he’d established the team’s credentials, taking on a lot of the “weird” threats that the Challengers of the Unknown used to fight, Niles began his next grand plan: a school for young heroes. Getting Mento aka Steve Dayton a “real superhero” gave a sense of authenticity and prestige to this venture, but of course he was just harvesting vulnerable person for his own ends. One of the head educators at the Caulder Institute was Elinore Stone, whose disappearance while working for Niles would greatly effect her son, Victor.

Niles also had an interest in mysticism and new age psychokinesis (of course he did. He’s an evil immortal fascist white guy) and in pursuit of more power, recreate the Lane-Kent Tulpa Machine of Earth-45, summoning a bespoke villain of his own design: the Harvest, master of NOWHERE. He had an assistant around this time, Walter Sage, who went missing, something that would haunt Walter’s son Wally Sage over the decades.

Harvest allowed Niles to be in two places at once, running his hero school while also experimenting on young meta humans, going so far as to traffic some of them to Team 7, including the parents of much of what would become known as Gen13, as well as a young man named Slade. As Harvest, Niles made contact with an entity that identified itself as “Red Jack” and that entity’s master: The King of Tears.

Throughout these years, Crazy Jane, Flex Mentallo, Coagula, and Space Case would join the team. Coagula was briefly a Teen Titan during their lost era, but kind of became the Patrol’s unofficial leader after Mento absolutely lost it in public and fled to parts of unknown (ironically continuing to work for Caulder as an Agent of NOWHERE).

By the present day, Caulder’s unsavory activities and multiple murders have been outed and the school’s restructured under director Dr. Joshua Clay, with Caulder’s daughter Dorothy naturally developing her own, more powerful version of his tulpa generation abilities and on track to become the team’s new leader. The team was also involved the Crisis, though their experience was generally odder than most of the metahuman community’s during this era. (Don’t ask Casey about Milkman Man).

so I guess the tl;dr: Niles in the headverse punches up the Prof X parody aspect, being over a century old and generally causing a lot of pain and suffering in pursuit of his personal vision of a new world.

[silveragelovechild]

TEN COMMENTS ABOUT “DOOM PATROL”

Doom Patrol is a superhero team from DC Comics, first publish in “My Greatest Adventure” #80 (June 1963); it’s a team of misfits shunned by society and led by a scientist in a wheel chair (predating the X-Men by 3 months).

It was reinvented in 1988 by writer Grant Morrison as a surreal journey through the strange and bizarre.

In 2019 a live action TV series of the Doom Patrol premiered on the DC Universe streaming service starring Timothy Dalton, Alan Tudyk, Brendan Fraser and Matt Bomer garnering a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The show put the characters and stories into a salad spinner and created something unique, adult, and entertaining.

Matt Bomer plays Larry Traynor, a test pilot who gets merged with a strange energy being from outer space; a crash unfortunately makes him look like crispy bacon necessitating body bandages that are a metaphor for hiding secrets (one of which is that he’s gay); Negative Man is one of my favorite characters.

April Bowlby plays Rita Farr, a Hollywood actress who got exposed to strange gases that cause her body to periodically morph into a blobby substance; although the effect isn’t perfect, Bowlby’s performance is my favorite; her story arc is the most interesting.

Brendan Fraser plays race car driver Cliffe Steele who suffers a major crash where only his brain survived; Nile Caulder (Dalton) rescues him by placing the brain in a clunky looking Robotman body; I can’t say Robotman is a favorite characters - he’s always angry, yells and swears too much.

Diane Guerrero plays Crazy Jane who suffers from Dissociative identity disorder and has 64 personalities each with their own superpower; Guerrero is a great actress effectively creating multiple personalities but unfortunately her main character is also angry too much, yelling and swearing like a trucker; and in general I find split personality characters can be over done.

Joivan Wade plays Vic Stone (aka Cyborg); in the comics (1980) Cyborg was originally a member of the Teen Titans but in 2011 DC decided to retconn him into an original member of the Justice League but waiting 4 years to give him his own comic; he’s bummed around DC properties included a forgettable appearance in the “Justice League” movie; but maybe the character has found the perfect home - he fits in with the Doom Patrol and Wade is likable in the role.

Season One of “Doom Patrol” is now on Blu-ray so if you’re looking for something that isn’t the same-old-same-old check it out but fasten you’re seat belts because you done what to be Niles Caulder’s next victi—- I mean next patient.

Bonus: Doom Patrol” is the oddest show on TV (or streaming devises) and features some of the weirdest characters you never expected to see, such as Alan Tudyk as Mr. Nobody, a literally fragmented supervillain; Alec Mapa as the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man; Devan Chandler Long as Flex Mentallo who can alter reality by flexing his muscles; and Baphomet, a profetic talking blue horse’s head.

[aion-rsa]

Stargirl: What is Eclipso?

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This article contains Stargirl spoilers.

“I know you’re in there, Eclipso.”

With these words burgeoning supervillain Cindy Burman has introduced a whole new world and threat to Stargirl. After killing her father and attempting to defeat Courtney and co. it’s clear that the Dragon King’s daughter is keen on getting revenge, which is lucky as she’s just invoked the name of a deep cut character who could be a way of introducing an entirely new supernatural layer to the series.

Get ready to meet Eclipso. 

1963 was a massive year for comics. At the House of Ideas, the X-Men, the Avengers, and Iron Man were bursting from the pages, changing the future of comic books and ultimately Hollywood forever. Meanwhile, their Distinguished Competition saw the Silver Age as a time for reinvention, taking classic characters like Green Lantern and The Flash and turning them into legacy characters. That doesn’t mean that new characters weren’t being created, though, and in sci-fi horror anthology House of Secrets #61 Bob Haney and Lee Elias imagined a new type of archetype for the publisher. It was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde style creation who was both hero and villain and first appeared in the story “Eclipso: The Genius Who Fought Himself.”

After a trip to Diablo Island to take a photo of a solar eclipse, Dr. Bruce Gordon ignores the warnings of the indigenous population and ends up offending a god, Morphir, and then killing him. So basically your average colonizer shenanigans. It’s a surprisingly nuanced take on what could have been some classic comic book racism where instead the blame is solely on Dr. Gordon and his ignorant and arrogant actions.

After killing the god by tripping him over a cliff, he heads back to his homeland to complete his work on the Solar City, a futuristic utopia fueled entirely by the sun. Alas, he is nearly thwarted by the god he apparently killed when an eclipse struck during the ceremony… but the big reveal comes in the in media res opening page when it’s revealed that the villain is none other than Gordon himself, becoming his own literal worst enemy. The split is explained by Morphir cutting Gordon with his black diamond before he falls to his death, and in a humorous twist the villainous side of Gordon always hides his costume and the black diamond he took from Morphir before his good side wakes up. 

Though Eclipso’s early adventures are incredibly fun to read, the version of Eclipso that we’re more likely to see came to the DC Universe many years later. From his debut in 1963, Eclispo evolved in the pages of House of Secrets, his powers becoming less directly connected to solar eclipses and expanding to more general light phenomena.

But it was in 1992 when Eclipso was reintroduced in the gem-heavy Eclipso: The Darkness Within event (there’s literally a plastic gem on the cover of the first issue… I know, I own it!) that we get to know the new version of the character who was revealed to in fact be a villainous spirit who had possessed Gordon rather than Gordon himself. That is clearly the version that we’re dealing with in Stargirl, so if you want some idea of where the story might be going in season two then keep reading. 

In this iteration Eclipso is discovered by a maniacal and murderous treasure hunter who once again goes against the wishes of the native population, this time in “The Upper Congo.” His quest for riches leads him to a black gem which he kills his partner to possess and then has chopped into thousands of pieces in a London jeweler in the 1800s. Stealing from indigenous people and trying to get rich has bad consequences (shock!), and 100 years later Lar Gand discovers a strange planet where the demon Eclipso has been collecting the pieces of his shard and hiding. We then meet modern day Bruce Gordon who still believes he is to blame for the creation of Eclipso. He soon learns that isn’t the case when he discovers other shards of the black diamond which the spirit is using to possess and control super powered earthlings. 

Read more

TV

Stargirl Season Finale Ending Explained and Unanswered Questions

By Rosie Knight

This concept of Eclipso as a sentient being that lives in or is connected to the black gem known from here on out as the Heart of Darkness is a consistent part of the villain’s modern lore. That’s why when you saw Cindy pick up the black diamond shape gem in The Wizard’s basement, she referenced the rogue who we could then hear laughing in his shiny prison.

In Eclipso: The Darkness Within, they build on the connection and struggle between the villain and Gordon by adding a motivation that Eclipso wants to destroy Gordon’s solar research as solar power and light are what defeats the villain and keeps him trapped in his jewel shards. We know that Blue Valley and the project for New America was keen on clean energy and there is a likelihood that Eclipso was trapped after trying to stop the Injustice Society and their plan to keep his power. But there’s a different theory that I am far more inclined to believe, and it’s one that would introduce a new teen hero. 

It’s likely that Cindy will probably try to harness the power of Eclipso, likely becoming its host like many DC characters before. One of his most formidable vessels was Jean Loring who readers will remember is the ex-wife of Ray Palmer and the superhero murderer in the controversial comic event Identity Crisis. All of that is to say that there is a precedent for Eclipso being a woman, though honestly Stargirl hasn’t been too worried about following conventions in the past.

But whatever route the creative team decides to go with Cindy and Eclipso, there’s a chance that they’ll decide to explore his origins and stray from the somewhat problematic aspect of colonial explorers and the theft of native artifacts to use a story and vision for the character that was introduced during the New 52 era of DC Comics. Excitingly, it’s an arc that ties Eclipso to one of DC’s strangest and most fantastical fantasy spaces: Gemworld. 

Read more

TV

Stargirl Episode 13 Review: Stars & S.T.R.I.P.E. Part Two

By Lacy Baugher

During DC’s New 52 era, Eclipso was reimagined as Lord Kalaa, an ancient inhabitant of Gemworld who’d turned on his own people and become a tyrannical leader after his powers were sparked by a… you guessed it… eclipse. If this doesn’t sound familiar, don’t worry as it took place in lesser known series like Team 7 and Swords of Sorcery: Amethyst.

The important part to note is that here Eclipso is part of the Gemworld royalty born from the House of Onyx and the House of Diamond who, after enslaving and oppressing the House of Amethyst, was imprisoned in a gem by the then Princess of House Amethyst, Lady Chandra. But he returns and is defeated by Princess Amethyst, but not before he kills her family. Now that Cindy has the Heart of Darkness, there is a large chance that we could see DC finally bring Amethyst Princess of Gemworld to the small screen. 

If Cindy unleashes Eclipso it could be an easy way to introduce Amethyst to the DC TV universe. The young Princess could head to Blue Valley in order to get revenge on the creature who killed her parents or simply to trap him back inside the gem for the good of the universe. Either way it seems like a far more interesting route rather than trying to tie it to his early origins, especially as DC Universe played with some similar aesthetics and themes with their recent representation of Rita Farr and the origin of her powers in Doom Patrol. 

Whichever route Stargirl goes, this is a very interesting twist into the supernatural for the series. The first season has leaned into an Americana nostalgia that despite featuring giant mechs, superpowered teens, and numerous supervillains felt very grounded. It’ll be really exciting to see what happens now that a totally cosmic and creative new threat has been introduced, especially in the hands of someone as maniacally messed up as the iconic Cindy Burman. 

The post Stargirl: What is Eclipso? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[listdepot]

Top 5 Superhero Teams

5. The Marvel Family

A team of particularly do-goody do-gooders, the Marvel Family are the offshoot of Captain Marvel, the alter ego of child reporter Billy Batson. A team of people mainly granted the power of the amoral yet morally convicted wizard Shazam (he needs an avatar to fight the forces of evil and puts the onus of it all onto a 7 year old), the Marvel Family includes Billy’s sister Mary Batson as Mary Marvel and his friend Freddy Freeman, who sheds his disabilities when he becomes Captain Marvel Jr.

There’s also the Lieutenant Marvels (Tall Billy, Fat Billy and Hill Billy, three men who share Billy Batson’s name) and Uncle Dudley, a dumpy old man without powers who believes he’s the Uncle Marvel, who the Marvels took a liking to. There’s also Tawky Tawny who is quite literally a talking tiger who often wears a tweed suit. Its great. He’s great.

The Marvel Family, similar to Superman’s family, is part of that general “idea” of ideal superheroes. Just... weirder. That’s what makes them great. Its what makes Captain Marvel wonderful. “Superman but a little weirder” works wonders for this character and his team.

4. Justice League Dark

When Metallo is rampaging through Metropolis, you call Superman. When Sinestro or Atrocitus are attacking planets, you call the Green Lantern Corps. These basic villains are often easy solutions when matched with their respective heroes. But what do you do when eldritch creatures from dimensions in between space and time invisibly swarm the planet? Will the Justice League stop that? Or do you need a Darker Justice League?

That’s where Justice League Dark (get it) comes into play. DC’s supernatural side is, I believe, their greatest strength overall. And with a team staffed by, among others, magician Zatanna, magician/conman John Constantine, actual ghost Deadman, avatar of nature and protector from horrors Swamp Thing, and chimp detective Detective Chimp, these creatures certainly have a reason to shake in their boots.

The forces of Heaven and Hell, the occult, the reemergence of Vertigo characters into the main DC canon. Justice League Dark deals in all of these themes, creating a heavy, interesting series of constant world-threatening events within the pages of their comics.

3. Agents of Atlas

A spy, a spaceman, a siren, a mermaid, a robot, a gorilla. One of Marvel’s oddest teams have nothing in common except for a single IRL connection: all six of them first appeared (and then mostly disappeared) in Marvel’s early years during the 40s and 50s, back when the company was known as Atlas.

In the canon, ATLAS was formed by the FBI to rescue President Eisenhower from the forces of the Yellow Claw. Claw’s archenemy Agent Jimmy Woo recruited the Venusian Marvel Boy and siren Venus, before also fixing the mute “Human Robot” M-11 and gaining the aid of Gorilla-Man, a soldier of fortune CURSED TO LIVE FOREVER IN THE BODY OF A GORILLA UNTIL SOMEONE KILLS HIM which is an idea that is incredibly stupid and part of the reason I love this garbage. Also not soon after, the Atlantean Namora (who had refused to help Woo initially) joins the team as well.

Inheriting the Claw’s Atlas Foundation front, the team works mostly in the dark, fighting the forces of evil. Most recently, (2009, they don’t get used often enough, basically) this espionage team has opted to take on the identity of “supervillains” as resistance against Norman Osborn’s regime as head of SHIELD. Again, this was 2009. They need to get out more.

2. X-Statix

Marvel, for some reason beyond my understanding but that I won’t question for reasons you’ll soon find out, decided to hand over the X-Force title to Peter Milligan and Mike Allred. X-Force was a comic known for both portraying a gritty. more aggressive form of X-Men and for being the most Rob Liefeld thing prior to him creating characters with names like DEATHSTRYKE and KILLBLOOD or whatever for his own comics label. Peter Milligan, meanwhile, was known for his mind-bending postmodernist works like Shade the Changing Man and Mike Allred’s pop art sensibilities seemed like the furthest possible artistic style from Liefeld’s grimacing over muscled footless monsters.

And when X-Force #116 premiered, it was not only incredibly different, but it introduced a whole new team of vapid, self-obsessed superheroes. An early 00s take on celebrity through a superhero vein, the original issue takes a turn when the last page features the collective death of all but 3 of the new team, immediately setting up a whole OTHER new team to remember after being introduced to the interpersonal relationships of this ego-driven team of mutants.

Its smart and pretty sharp and the constant retooling in the book itself by scummy mentor and amoral super rich investor creates an odd reality TV aspect of these strange heroes with their constantly shifting, often dying team (even Dead Girl, a mutant whose power is she’s already a ghost/zombie and can return to near-life after dying), all ready to be filmed, in moments of heroism or tragedy by their cameraman, Doop, a character I refuse to go into any more detail for because you should experience Doop for yourself. Just Google Image Search Doop thanks.

There’s a LOT to say about X-Force, who eventually changed their name to X-Statix due to the negative reaction from the 00s comics crowd, which sorta proves they were totally before their time, and, truthfully, its the best to just check it out on your own. There aren’t a lot of runs that I’d tell you to just hey look it up but hey

Look up X-Statix. Its really good.

1. Doom Patrol

The Doom Patrol can, perhaps, best be described by their classic original tagline: “THE WORLD’S STRANGEST HEROES” and hoo boy does that apply. Founded by Niles Caulder, the Doom Patrol features actress Rita Farr aka the size changing Elastigirl (eat it, Pixar), test pilot Larry Trainor aka the radioactive Negative Man, and race car driver Cliff Steele aka Robotman, a robot man.

And things were fairly odd for a while for the Patrol, up to and including the Doom Patrol’s presumed deaths at the hands of General Zahl while saving the small town of Codsville, Maine.

Then Grant Morrison happened.

Grant Morrison never met a comic book convention he didn’t love to openly embrace while also flipping it into some metatextual nonsense (and I can’t help but love it every time). Morrison took the Doom Patrol and created a comic based around Dadaist art and literature, William S Burroughs-esque cut and paste writing and just general absurdity. Negative Man Trainor merges his Negative Spirit with Dr. Eleanor Poole, becoming a multiracial, divine intersex radioactive being who refers to themself as Rebis. New characters were introduced like Kay Challis aka Crazy Jane, a woman with multiple personalities, each of which have different superpowers, and Danny the Street, a street. An actual sentient street. Who is also a drag queen. Its better than it sounds I swear.

The Doom Patrol soon became well... strange. Stranger than the strange they used to be. Their only recurring enemy was a 2 dimensional supervillain named Mr. Nobody who founded the Brotherhood of Dada, a team less about world domination or getting rich, and more about just like... idk? They don’t really recognize good or evil as simplistic concepts and prefer to just mess around like a bunch of dickheads, really.

Soon came Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol. Pollack, a trans woman, used the Doom Patrol’s debut in the Vertigo imprint. to discuss issues like identity, bisexuality, Judaism, creating an equally intelligent and mature comic, just on a separate level than Morrison’s. And a decade later, after a few changes in guards all around, Keith Giffen had a Doom Patrol run, letting the team go through a more humorous bent, notably featuring the inclusion of the fouth wall-adjacent comedy hero Ambush Bug. Most recently, Gerard Way (yeah, the dude from My Chemical Romance) has been creating his own Doom Patrol for DC’s Young Animal imprint, a mix of his own ideas and the classic Dadaist Doom Patrol that Morrison created.

Doom Patrol is a team of the strange, the outsiderest outsiders of DC, a team initially brought together by tragedies (unknown to them caused by their sociopathic leader), and who soon grew into an ersatz family of freaks. A loving museum of the weird who defend Earth from just the craziest nonsense imaginable,even if the rest of the superhero community don’t respect them. They do what they do because they have to, and because no one else can even wrap their mind around what they do. They’re the Doom Patrol, The World’s Strangest Heroes.

[mrmichaelchadler]

DC Universe Expands with Promising Doom Patrol

At its best, the latest offering from the streaming service known as DC Universe (yes, that’s a thing now on the ever-expanding landscape of places to go for entertainment) reminded me of two things I loved as a kid—comic books and classic monster movies. While it’s main source material is the former, adapting the DC comic Doom Patrol, which premiered in 1963, to the screen for the first time, it undeniably has echoes of classic creature features like “Frankenstein,” “The Blob,” and “The Invisible Man.” Only one episode was allowed to be screened for press (the studio provided a second but I’m embargoed for over a week on it so didn’t bother yet) and so it’s hard to tell what “Doom Patrol” will become, but I found the first hour of this oddball adventure far more enjoyable and consistent than DC Universe’s “Titans,” enlivened by sharp direction and a great ensemble.

Believe it or not, this is technically a spin-off of “Titans,” which premiered on the new streaming subscription service back in October. That series aired what is referred to as a back-door pilot for its fourth chapter, called, you guessed it, and introducing us to a few of the characters on this now-standalone show. Lest you think WB and DC are cutting corners, the team in front of and behind the camera for the premiere of “Doom Patrol” is a notable one, especially for anyone who has ever bought a Comic-Con badge. It’s produced by Greg Berlanti, arguably the king of the modern superhero show as the producer of “Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Supergirl,” “Legends of Tomorrow,” and “Black Lightning.” Oh, he also produces the great “Riverdale,” smash hit “You,” and “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” and he directed last year’s clever “Love, Simon.” The guy’s busy. And he knows a thing or two about how to fashion an entertaining superhero show.

All of this is to say that “Doom Patrol” looks as good as anything that would air on The CW or basic cable (unlike “Titans,” which sometimes looks a little cheap). And the cast is remarkably strong. The premiere is narrated by the great Alan Tudyk (“Serenity”), who also plays the villainous Mr. Nobody. He introduces us to the Doom Patrol, starting with Cliff Steele, played by Brendan Fraser. Cliff is a macho competitive car racer who gets into a horrible accident, waking up trapped in the metal can that will become known as Robotman (Fraser will continue to do the voice while Riley Shanahan does the on-set work). We meet other lost souls forever transformed by accidents, including actress Rita Farr (April Bowlby) and pilot Larry Trainor (Matt Bomer). Rita has an on-set accident that basically turns her into a version of The Blob whenever she’s scared or insecure. She literally melts and destroys everything around her. Larry gets into an accident too and is transformed into Negative Man, covered in bandages a la the classic Invisible Man. Finally, there’s a young lady known as Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero) and all of her 64 personalities appear to have different superpowers. Uniting this motley crew is the Professor X or Dr. Frankenstein of it all, the great Timothy Dalton as Niles Caulder aka The Chief.

Dalton, Fraser, Bomer, Bowlby, Tudyk – this is a remarkably talented crew of actors bringing their quirky best to “Doom Patrol,” and they all keep the premiere afloat in their own way. Dalton adds a nice gravity to his reticent leader; Fraser has the smarmy charm thing down pat; Bowlby is convincingly apprehensive; Bomer would have been a household name in the era of the Universal monster movie so it’s nice to see him in something inspired by them; and Tudyk serves as a great narrator. The only issue with a review of “Doom Patrol” is how heavily the premiere relies on origin stories makes it pretty unclear what the program will look like from week to week. So consider this more of a review of a single episode than the whole season. Although, even with the glut of superhero shows on TV, and the gauntlet-throwing challenge from Mr. Nobody that critics are “gonna hate this show,” I’m going to check out what happens next.

Series premiere screened for review.

  from All Content http://bit.ly/2trCOjz