Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds

 

Gerard Way & others Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds (2020)
Weight of the Worlds turned out to be the grand finale and I believe the Young Animal imprint ceased to be soon after - which seems a telling indictment given that, despite poor sales killing off the comic book, there's an expensive looking TV adaptation which has lasted two series at the time of writing. I haven't seen it because it resembles a million other grunting caped shows if the trailer is any indication.

Way's version of the Doom Patrol was quite heavily populated by this point, so there was a lot going on and most of it thoroughly peculiar; but it never becomes a problem, unless you're unable to read without having every last secret origin spelled out for you. The story, based on what sense I could make of it, tells of the gang's adventures in both outer space and within the internal reality of Danny the Ambulance. It's mostly completely illogical and makes a point of tripping itself up every few pages, apparently for the sake of keeping readers on their toes, but it works beautifully if you just hang on and make an effort to enjoy the ride without worrying too much about the sort of shit that comic book twats habitually worry about. For what it may be worth, I particularly enjoyed Flex Mentallo's battle with a pair of sentient alien swimming trunks - so that's one to look out for.

The art is absolutely gorgeous even with a different artist for each original issue, which otherwise doesn't always work but makes perfect sense here given the narrative shifts from one episode to the next. Also worth noting is that with Weight of the Worlds, Way's Doom Patrol no longer felt quite so much like an homage to Grant Morrison and had really become its own thing, which you apparently didn't bother to buy so now it's dead. Nice going, fuckers.