Waiting For Doom Podcast: Supergirl and Doom Patrol

While Supergirl is my favorite character, there are plenty of other areas of comics that I absolutely love. The Legion of Super-Heroes has been a part of my comic collecting for almost my entire reading life. A

But another team I adore is the Doom Patrol. I have been dabbling in the Patrol in almost all their incarnations (sorry, no Byrne Patrol for me).

As a fan, I love the Waiting For Doom podcast, a show hosted by Paul and Mike and covering all of the Patrol, from the original Drake/Premiani stuff to the present. It is a show that I look forward to listening to each week. You should listen to it too! Here is the link: http://waitingfordoom.podbean.com/e/episode-39-waiting-for-supergirl-with-dr-anj/

This week, I was a guest on the show! The hosts asked me to come on to talk about the times Supergirl and the Doom Patrol teamed up and I was more than happy to join them. Hope you guys like the discussion.

I figured I would post some panels and briefly bullet review the stories for those who can't listen to the show.

It is an odd team-up. Maybe a team-up in name only. Because even though the story runs in three issues of Superman Family, 191-193, Supergirl and the Patrol only meet up in the last pages of the last issue.

The story starts with Supergirl investigating the odd death of a scientist in Florida, where she resided at the time.

Meanwhile, the Patrol happens to be vacationing in London when gravity goes haywire there, with earthquakes and tremors shaking the town apart.

In an almost scripted call to action, the Patrol sheds their civilian clothes to help the citizens.

Meanwhile, the scientist from Florida, someone name Clement seemed to had died in an experiment at his house, emerges as an enraged villain calling himself The Graviton Man!  When Supergirl arrives he attacks and gravity suddenly goes insane with everyone and everything floating into space.

Clement keeps talking about someone named Tain, someone he needs to get revenge on.

In the next issue, Clement takes off to Europe to find Tain. Meanwhile, Supergirl has to anchor everyone in Florida to the ground.

But that is just the beginning. Atmosphere will be ripped away from the world as well.

Meanwhile in Europe, the man named Tain has emerged and he also is in gravity powered armor.

We then get a long long monologue by Tain where he explains that Tain and Clement are related. But their family split in Colonial times. Clement stayed in American and flourished. Tain stayed in England and lost everything. However, oddly enough, now both of the surviving relatives happened to work in gravity experimentation. Now they can kill each other.

This seemed like an overly detailed history for two guys you know would never be heard from again.

Supergirl arrives to Europe and the two dueling cousins decide to eliminate Supergirl together before finishing their fight. Over the ocean they do foolish things like throwing the Titanic and a shark at the Maid of Might.

Eventually, they do get the upper hand, hammering Kara with the gravity energy directly.

Meanwhile, the Patrol, still in London, have discovered Tain's lab. They can shut down Tain's power from there. But they see on a giant monitor that Supergirl is getting crushed. Cliff sends Val and Joshua to aid Supergirl while he and Celsius shut down the gravity power there.

Over the ocean, Josh blasts Clement's armor to bits eliminating his threat.

Just like that, everything is normal.

I suppose there is some unseen introductions. But basically the team up of the whole Patrol and Supergirl is this last panel where Supergirl says goodbye.

I find it odd that the gravity villains are marched through town naked. Weird.

And yes, that blob of energy was pulling the strings all along. We know that blob is eventually revealed to be Lesla Lar!

The Daring New Adventures issues 8 and 9 are also covered on the show. This was a more classic crossover and also was the first appearance of Reactron!

I have covered those issues here and here.

Please listen to the show and give it some feedback. I love the Patrol and this show is the place for Doom Patrol fans to go!