It's Classic Comic Week: Doom Patrol to Warner Bros

And now for the bad news, from Variety--Akiva Goldsman is in charge.

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From Wikipedia:

"The Doom Patrol is an idiosyncratic DC Comics superhero team that has been through several incarnations. Created by writers Bob Haney and Arnold Drake, and artist Bruno Premiani, the original Doom Patrol first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80 (April 1963).

The first Doom Patrol consisted of super-powered misfits, whose "gifts" caused them as much alienation and trauma as they did abilities beyond normal human beings. Although superficially similar to the X-Men, who debuted the same year, the Doom Patrol are considered one of the most unique superhero teams of the Silver Age. However, the team failed to find a large audience, and Drake killed them off in 1968.

After their apparent deaths, the team developed a cult following and several subsequent Doom Patrol series were launched. Each of these attempted to utilize the spirit, if not any of the line-up, of the first. The most successful was perhaps the 1989-1992 run by future star writer Grant Morrison. His writing utilized elements of surrealism previously unseen in mainstream American comic books."

Also from wikipedia:

"The X-Men is a team of comic book superheroes in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, they debuted in The X-Men #1, published in September 1963."

Note the dates. Doom Patrol was six months before the X-Men. They lacked Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and the clever "mutation" premise, however, so it was not successful.

Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run, however, was amazing and bizarre.

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Morrison's run on Doom Patrol is one of the great comic-book masterpeices of the late 20th Century.

It combined alchemy, with modern storytelling techniques, and leaped light-years ahead of just about every other comic-book on the market.

Dark City ripped it off, so did The Matrix, The 13th Floor and a million other comic books - including '1963', by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Think '12 Monkeys' meets 'X-Men' meets 'Twin Peaks' meets 'Withnail and I'.

I can't imagine how they could make Morrison's run into a watchable film.

Unless Terry Gilliam took the helm and they put Willoughby Kipling at the centre of the story...

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Hmmm. Could be an excellent movie. The comics were so excellently strange, there is a lot of potential here. Why do I get the feeling this will be pushed back to infinity (A la Preacher and watchmen)?

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Morrison's run on Doom Patrol was fun and Dadaist, but what was most interesting for me about DP was watching him find his voice for The Invisibles.

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I can't see a Morrison Doom Patrol making it to the screen in anything close to his style. It was too out there. If they make a movie it will be the classic Patrol feel.

I would guess the feel will either end up like the recent Teen Titan's cartoon version, or (hopefully) the Teen Titans comics, which feature a darker, more troubled group.

As long as I get a love struck Brain/Mallah combo, I'm set.

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If DC wants to make some serious cash, they should do a film on the Metal Men. Let the record show, I said it first.

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