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LDones: The relationship between Jane and Cliff is easily my favorite part of this series. They both (Cliff especially for me) feel real on the page as they slowly become perfect for each other's needs. Adore that scene where Dad-Husband Cliff is listening to Louis Armstrong while Daughter-Bride Jane is inspecting his knick-knacks.
It certainly feels more real and vital than Cliff's relationship with Kate/Coagula during Pollack's run; that one felt more like a deliberate set-up by the author, in part because she didn't have a Crazy Jane to play with and had to invent someone that didn't quite come into her own in the same way.
In some ways, I'd love to do something with Coagula, or see them do something with Coagula, that actually built her up and maybe streamlined her (ie getting rid of the secondary cyberpathic power).
Cliff and Jane -- well. The tilted head and Liza Radley coming out and simply saying that she's the first alter to emerge out of love rather than cruelty -- so simple, so clean, so beautiful.
I think, though, in the end I'll always love Rebis most of all. Hir incandesence and the newness of hir life - everything was an experiment, in a way, ze seemed open to some many possibility in a way that wasn't conflicting like Jane or closed off like Cliff...
Dorothy could be a metaphor for the Woman in Comics: if you don't adhere to Wonder Woman/Power Girl levels of idealized beauty, well, you absolutely must look like an ape. I've always suspected that if you met Dorothy in real life she'd really just be a bit plain.
I really hope they can do a Flex trade down the line, if for no other reason than for me to finally read #2, the Silver Age issue. I'd buy it and then carefully disperse the copies of 1, 3, and 4 at random to spread the love. I'm planning on doing the same with DP #49-50 now that I have them included in the trade the whole story.
There's no dramatic tension in DP, even though it has this horror element that's more insidious and personalized than, say, Sandman - events, apocalypses, and weird teams of non-Doom Patrols like the Sex Man appear so rapidly and so absurdly that it almost breaks the melodramatic vibe given off by super-comics. I think it works very much in favour of the story, though, because you have to focus on the characters and their reactions - it reflects the speed and ridiculousness of comics and the constant set up and knock down of status quos. Chief's line about Cliff having to give up the innocent and befuddled layman routine because people might start to believe him was great - because by this point, honestly, isn't Cliff just used to all this weirdness?
There's something in there about latent sexuality (as exemplified by Washington) that I'm trying to suss out in its entirety...it's like the pure essence of the body horror of the X-Men caught and spread out and actually explored rather than languishing in angst...the Doom Patrol is all about thwarted sexual impulses...Scarlot Harlot screaming at the "All-American F*gg*t[*] Bastards!"
And the Hewlett! The opening sequence with the Love Glove is one of my all time favourites, and the sequence between the Big Three discussing Rebis's sex life before going off to fight the great staring contest with the Brotherhood. That fight is essentially how I'd probably end up writing a super-hero comic...a bunch of confused people standing around with super-powers, unsure what they're supposed to do beyond the rote cliches of the genre even though they don't exactly fit into those cliches.
[*] I know I should probably feel a bit weird out about seeing that word pop up in a comic book, but given the context and the heat of it. Yowza. And I can imagine the epitome of gay club clone stereotypes, desperate to look fashionable and pseudo-straight, exploding against the horrifying queer weirdness of the Doom Patrol touching them, tainting them, seducing and appalling them... |
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