"Our heroes have to fight a team of villains called the Brotherhood of Evil!" "Oh yeah? Well OUR heroes have to fight a team too, called the, um ... Brotherhood of Evil .. Mutants!"
- Marvel's ripping off our characters. Float a fake one so they'll make something stupid. - How about... Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man? - Sounds good. Wait, you printed it?!
Have you every thought of covering the controversy surrounding Batman's creation. The decades of snubbing Bill Finger as cocreater, Bob Kane falsifying documents, and the copying of panels from other sources.
Good idea! Would love to see Chris tackle that. The Shadow is one of my favorite characters in all art forms and many of those panels were co-opted from Shadow comic books.
Don't forget to add that Kane, out of anger, created Courageous Cat & Minute Mouse as a parody of Batman. You thought the Adam West Batman show had an awesome theme song? Check out the theme for CC&MM. m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-B8I4GK9OT18.html
The timing was so close the two teams had to have been created independently, but it is most probable that the Doom Patrol influenced some of the darker subtexts (prejudice, isolation, etc) which mostly only showed up later in X-Men. It's just another example of DC and Marvel playing "pong" with ideas back and forth, and the stories were better for it.
There's an excellent episode of Batman: the Brave and the Bold featuring the original Doom Patrol. It adapts the final issue of Arnold Drake's run (the team's final battle with General Zahl).
@@ComicTropes There was a character in Sesame Street called Salvador Dada who was a parody of painter Salvador Dali. So as far as I'm concerned, you're excused ...
I stopped the video and I was about to write that. It may sound pedantic, but it's good to point it out. As a movement Dadaism was the precursor of surrealism, so the comment was close.
To me the Doom Patrol is closer to the Fantastic Four than the X-Men regarding team logistic and character wise. The Teen Titans are more or less DC's X-Men.
They all evolved into something different, especially most of the Marvel titles. Challengers of the Unknown and the beginning of FF was very similar, and even after Kirby was done it became something different.
I think it's a sort of "zeitgeist" phenomenon. For whatever reasons these concepts were just sorta in the cultural air, so to speak, that year. Sometimes if you look at the movies, literature etc.. of that moment you can begin to get a sense of how things like this happen.
That's what I was thinking. If they were going to steal from another comic, why would they get so specific, and why would a leader in a wheelchair be one of the "must use" ideas?
A man in a wheelchair who leads a group of misfits freaks outcasts of society, whichever you prefer as they battle an evil brotherhood (of yet even more misfits, freaks, outcasts etc.) with aims of global domination. I think that's a lot more than a man in a wheelchair. Arnold Drake, the Doom Patrol creator made the mistake of telling Stan Lee what he was working on over at DC At the time Stan was trying to come up with one of his famous "original" ideas. Its amazing that a debate that was settled in the 80' has grown legs again. I guess when new fans come in? Incidentally Arnold Drake would go on to co create a low key Superhero group that sat on the shelf mostly unused for decades. I think Marvel is doing something with them now...The Guardians Of the Galaxy. That's right the DP and GOG have the same co creator. Show some love for Arnold!!!!
It is always interesting to see the similarities between Marvel and DC superheroes. I read all the writers and artist from both studios were all friends most of the time and would bounce ideas off of each other so it would make sense that some characters or teams were similar. It always amazed me that there were actually lawsuits all through the age of comics on characters. Every comic borrowed aspects of others.
I remember Batman The Brave and the Bold episode "The Last Patrol" where Doom Patrol dies at the end of the episode. It blew my fucking mind that a show like that had the balls to do so. I literally felt the air race out of my stomach when the island blew up and Batman looked down in shame as he wasn't able to save his friends. Great episode.
DUDE I JUST WATCHED THE DOOM PATROL SOO DAMN AWESOME. normally i watch a series just 1 time not this i watched the second time I cant beleive how well it was done
i think they're both great. I got into the Grant Morrison Doom Patrol, and have read a bit of the original but think X Men is great as well. Funny Grant Morrison also later did X Men. It was the stories though, not the characters per se, that defined X Men (with Chris Claremont at the helm)
Magpie Well that was a major part of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman’s philosophy, copying other company comics, although he was more notorious for doing that than Stan and Jack ever were.
Magpie Nah, More like Martin Goodman the publisher who if he saw a romance, crime or horror comic from any other company would pump out 10 copies of a comic with just about the same characters or similar art and who had little more insight than following the latest trend and milking it dry, and who also specialized in “Hollywood Accounting” when it came to his artists.
There is the story about how Fantastic Four came about. Martin Goodman was playing golf with DC's publisher. Goodman was told that Justice League was selling well. So Goodman told Stan Lee to create a book like Justice League which ended up being Fantastic Four (which oddly ended up being more of a copy of challengers of the unknown) Its quite possible that x-men got started off in a similar way. Goodman somehow saw Doom Patrol and asked Lee to create something like it. Lee came up with something that was superficially similar to please his boss, but was at the same time completely different. Martin Goodman in the early 1960s was not as bad about copying as he was in the 1950s. Since Marvel's comics were being distributed through DC and he was strictly limited in the number of titles he could put out, he could no longer do the crazy stuff he used to do. The other book in that era that was a total copy was Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD which started off as a clone of the TV show "man from UNCLE". But like x-men it quickly evolved into something else.
@@cha5 Ah yes, everything that was good about Marvel was Stan and Jack and everything bad was Martin. Its true that Martin had a history of borrowing from the competition. Sad how he had to twist Stan's arm the way he did. When the Spider-Man CCA drug issues were done it was Stan's idea, but Martin had to put his head on the block with Stan. If the CCA took action, Martin's would have been the first to roll. Stan lee himself states this in interviews. Imagine what Marvel would be or not be if Martin hadn't started Timely? I know Martin was not the genius behind the characters, but there is still a debt owed to him. I am sad, when all I here is the negative about him. There is some good as well.
Dada was an (at best) loosely affiliated movement rejecting structure and reflecting the failure of organized society in the wake of WWI. In some centers it was explicitly political, while in others it was more based in ideas and expanding the concept of what could be art/ destroying the idea of art all together. It generally preceded Surrealism which was literally a club started by Andre Breton to reveal the supposed higher truths of dream consciousness- Dali was repeatedly kicked out for being too successful/ being explicitly Catholic/ possibly backing Franco.
Dali scandalized himself early on, as he usually did. But I think that Breton eventually kicked everyone besides himself out of the surrealist movement.
Thank you for this video. The FF/Doom Patrol/X-Men connections are something I always enjoy looking at. I agree with you that it was more likely parallel thinking than theft. If accusations are fact we got my three favorite super hero teams out of it so I guess it was a good thing.
Great episode Chris, love the intro. where you got stepped on. I learned a lot of good information that I never new. The fan art at the end were all either really good or at least really pertinent. Good job brother...
Some other parallels between the FF and the DP I've noticed before is that both Reed and Chief are pipe-smoking geniuses but whereas Fantastic is super-flexible Chief is wheelchair bound, and both Sue and Rita had powers that technically made them the most powerful on their respective teams but spent most of their time in the background. Sue could create force fields but usually spent her time invisible, whilst Rita could become a super-strong giant but usually went super-small instead. Both of them had powers that made them seem like non-combatants and more like spies, symbolic of the sexism of the time imo.
@@freeRKelly885 very true, but still a lil bit more helpful than sues invisbility in my mind actually. By shrinking down she could get into places others couldnt, wheras sue usually just hid or confused people. 1 small area where DC was actually the more progressive one
The thing I never understood about the x-men was why they were "hated and feared" because they were born with their powers, when the other heroes were all but worshiped regardless of what horrific accident gave them powers. I understand from the writers perspective in telling the stories, but not the in-universe explanation.
Anyone could get hit by cosmic rays, but if you weren't born a mutant, you're out of luck. It's why we hate people who were born rich more than people who earned their money through hard work and talent.
This is a sorta late anwer, but it's because mutants are born with their powers and because of this humans are afraid that they'll eventually replace or destroy humans
@@dopdrop8998 right, ok, but my point was what is the difference between being Cyclops and being Captain Marvel (the marvel Original) for instance. 1 is a human being (hated and feared) the other an alien sent to earth by his superiors to spy on us (cheered and respected to the point he changed sides). Spider Man has had his problems with the Law, but your average citizen loves him. Even the Incredible Hulk (a walking demolition squad) had his fan club (Rick Jones et al). The Beast is a perfect example basically human in appearance with an X on his belt (hated and feared), chemically mutated into a furry blue utterly inhuman appearance and stuck in the Avengers loved and respected.
I just started watching the new Doom Patrol t.v. show and watched your X-celent summation just in time to appreciate the Beard Hunter episode "Hair Patrol" (saw the Flex Mentalo reference, very cool). I want you to know that watching your video increased my appreciation of this iteration by...well, maybe not a thousand-fold, but, well, easily by...a LOT of folds! Yours is my favorite RU-vid channel. Dunno if you've checked out CINEMA TYLER, but his is like yours only focusing on movies. I want to Patrionize him but he charges not by the month but by the view. Back to Doom Patrol, I LOVED the big reveal about Niles Caulder's orchestrating of the "accidents", it influenced me most muchly in the idea that a "benefactor" ought to be scrutinized, that you sometimes SHOULD "look a gift-horse in the mouth". It might be full of Odysseus' warriors!
I was reading the green lantern’s first essential and in it was a bad guy that used radar like a bat to move around, just like Matt Murdock. A 1958 comic I think.
1957 Movies The Colossal Man and the Incredible Shrinking Man inspired DC Comics Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet, Antman also called Giantman and The Wasp, also inspired Elasti Girl.
Bruno Premiani is an underrated artist in my opinion. His original DP pages are just beautiful. And I was obsessed with Grant Morrison's DP back in the day. It was great to see Richard Case's art get better and better throughout that run. Thanks for the great video!
I wish you'd pointed out that X-Men, despite being about freaks and outcasts, is, stylistically, a mainstream super-hero book. Even Grant Morrison's X-Men was not nearly as weird as his Doom Patrol. So even if one comic was "inspired by" (stolen from) the other, it doesn't matter, because they're both so different from each other. Anyway, despite this omission I really enjoyed the video.
I feel Morrison making the Chief evil and DC letting that stick was a mistake since modern writers really show the Doom Patrol being naively oblivious to Niles' cruelty and come off more as weak victims than tragic heroes. I would retcon it that Mento subconsciously made Niles' act so bad since there are plenty of stories showing Mento's gawky helmet really messing with his thoughts and personality.
@@youraveragecrownofthorns8919 I last saw Mento in Post-Crisis _Secret Six_ where he was leading the Doom Patrol but the helmet was making him act flaky and poor Beast Boy couldn't get him to act right even as the Six tore the DP apart.
The X-Men were not reluctant heroes born out of personal tragedy. The Doom Patrol were not mutants. None of their powers were similar. The other characters were neither DC or Marvel's originally: Plastic Man, Dollman, Minimidget, the Heap, all were published by other companies in the 40s.
Best opening yet! Haha, love it! This video did touch on some ideas that might be cool to explore further down the road. It's hard to not believe that comic books, including from "rival" companies, don't inspire and affect other comic books, in regards to how the creative and editorial teams do their craft. There are plenty of characters from different companies that are ridiculously similar. I wonder how seeing other comics affects a creator. it might inspire or challenge new ideas, that would potentially make its way into their comic. Eh, just something to think about.
The Doom Patrol is one of my favorite comic series--one of the few things I withheld from when I sold my comic collection was the two Showcases that contained the original book's run...I certainly am of the opinion that DP was inspired, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the FF--except that this is the FF as written by David Cronenberg or David Lynch....
I liked the New Doom Patrol, especially because of Joe Staton's artwork, but at the time, I had little familiarity with the original Doom Patrol. And that gorgeous artwork by Steve Lightle was wonderful to me. It was a real shock to me when Erik Larsen took over the artwork, and really killed my enthusiasm for the title. As far as the copycat status goes, nah. You provided other examples that are much more likely. What probably happened was that Stan heard the basic idea, and asked Jack to come up with a new team based on the idea. It was probably Jack's idea, not Stan's to make the X-Men students of a special school where they learned how to use their mutant abilities. And certainly, the X-men have really run with the idea of mutants being an entirely different class of humans whereas the Doom Patrol didn't. The DP were just freaks, not mutants. I see that you have Amalgam's X-Patrol on your comic rack. What about covering them and the JLX?
And also, Rita Farr could not stretch. She was a size-changer like Hank Pym [Giant-Man] although she was called Elasti-Girl, she did not possess any elasticity powers.
The two teams came out around the same time. It’s a coincidence more than anything else. Doom Patrol is closer to Fantastic Four, the wheelchair bound leader aside.
Brilliant episode Chris and full of laughs to boot. I loved Doom Patrol as a kid but my subscriptions were all Marvel, hence I only got what appeared on the comic rack at the corner store. Who even knows how those were ordered!? Anyway, thanks again for X-month and a great show in general. BTW, I hope Infotron is using protection with the Hot Water Heater. We wouldn't want a bunch of Flaming-Know-it-alls appearing one day in the basement. Cheers!
Was wondering that as well, so thanks for asking! Maybe we'll even get an answer..."Koe-meek Tropes"...catchy, but I dont get it. I gotta say I love the groovin' bassline in the theme song. I may have to learn it one of these days, just because it sounds fun to play and because I can. Anyway, another good episode...Peace!
He should do a review of the "Venture Bro.", a art heavy TV comedy show that was inspired by Comics, Science fiction, and James Bond movies. The Veture Bros. started off as parody, with simple art, but has grown, now the art is some of the best of TV, and writing is better than most other books, or film in the field. It has seven seasons seasons, with a eighth commoning, but that just all the better. Would love to see this become more popular. Anyone can watch it on Adult Swim, or Hulu. Check it out, watch a few shows, you love it, or hated, but you won't forget it.
Actually those characters were not created just by Stan Lee Daredevil created by Bill Everett and Stan Lee. The Vision created by John Buscema, Stan Lee and Roy Thomas. The original Human Torch was created by Carl Burgos in 1939. Jack Kirby and Stan Lee reimagined the Human Torch for their comic Fantastic Four in 1961.
Just bought Doom Partrol 1-5 and 19-72 for 75 bucks. My focus was on the Grant Morrison run and getting it at the cheapest price. This seems right up my ally. I liked the art you showed and the very off beat ideas. It's like a Vertigo X Men series, more uncanny, less super. I LOVE the Claremont X men but it's not my favorite comic series/run of all time. RIght now Black Monday Murders is and if it doesn't end as well as it's been going along Transmetropolitan will be my favorite comic run/series. Doom Patrol seems to combine a lot of the things that were great about comics that were great in the 90s. Thanks for the recommend.
The Shield 1940 dressed in Red, White and Blue by MLJ comics came out 1 year and 1 month before Captain A,merica by Jack Kirby. Wonder Woman also dressed in red, white and blue came out later yet so did The Guardian dressed in Blue and Yellow but used a shield.
Growing up in the sixties I was a big fan of DC's borderline books. Metal Men, Challengers Of The Unknown, Sea Devils, Doom Patrol, Sgt. Rock, the Star Spangled Banner dinosaur tales, and Adam Strange. To quote an earlier me, those books were swell.
Isn't this, like, an open secret amongst comic readers? I mean, I thought the question at this point wasn't 'Did the X-Men rip off Doom Patrol', but 'how much did they rip off' or 'does the fact they ripped off Doom Patrol matter?' Pretty obvious that mimicry, so to speak, is a widespread form of flattery in comics.
In October 1962 Marvel was publishing 12 titles, Linda Carter has been canceled, even though Charlton has three Nurse books and two young doctors books. Amazing Spider-Man replaces Linda Carter in the line-up. They have one and three fifths issues in inventory. Iron Man debuts. Was he created because Ditko didn’t want Spider-Man to be a member of the planned Avengers? Has Ditko been offered Daredevil yet? Instead of Spider-Man, or in addition? As usual, the Fantastic Four and Two Gun Kid issue is assigned to KIrby with very tight deadlines. It seems only Kirby and Hartley are given assignments this month, to close out the releases for this year and eliminate inventory. Is this because Goodman is evaluating his plans for his 1963 comics line after consulting with INC? Has the decision to cancel the Hulk been made? To replace it with Sgt. Fury? To take Kirby off Two Gun Kid and Rawhide Kid? To give them respectively to Ayers and Davis? To launch the Avengers in the summer (if Iron Man doesn’t tank?). To launch Daredevil by Everett in the summer? In November 1962 Marvel was publishing 10 titles, Ditko is given Hulk for its final issue. Kirby and Lee never could get on the same page with that feature. As he does this, is Ditko trying to sell Lee on his idea for a character named Dr. Strange, his version of Kirby’s failed Dr. Droom? Kirby is off Thor. Hartley got that one, in compensation for losing Linda Carter? Heck has taken over Ant Man. Davis has taken over Rawhide Kid. Two Gun Kid is given to Ayers as Kirby returns to Torch. Kirby is now drawing Iron Man, in preparation for Avengers? He starts on his Sgt. Fury with very loose deadlines, as he also works on two issues of the Fantastic Four, one with normal deadlines, and the second with loose deadlines as he is allowed to try and get ahead on that book. Between Mid-December 1962 and mid-January 1963 the Wasp introduced in Ant-Man by Kirby (to round out the Avengers team dynamic?) for the 1963-03-05 Tales to Astonish #44. In the 1963-02-23 The Comics Reader #16 we are told to EXPECT TO SEE: a meeting of all the Marvel heroes. Production on the 1963-07-02 Avengers #1 begins around March 15, 1963. It make sense that production on Daredevil by Bill Everett probably begins at the same time. In the fanzine Hero #2 (Spring 1963) it is mentioned that the creation of the Avengers (a group comic) is a good move. In mid April 1963 a full page promo ad, with cover, for Avengers #1 is placed in the 1963-06-11 Tales of Suspense #45 before sending the book to the printers. The X-Men logo (but no slogan) can be seen in a crawl at the top or bottom of the page. Before sending the the 1963-06-11 Amazing Spider-Man #4 to the printers (or added at the printers before the issue was put to press) a large version of the logo of the X-Men (along with the slogan “The Strangest Super-Heroes of All'') is inserted sideways on the second page of the letter column. Between mid-April and mid-May1963, with the cancellation of the bi-monthlies, Gunsmoke Western and Love Romances, Amazing Spider-Man became monthly and Modeling with Millie and Patsy Walker became 8 times a year titles. INC allows the bi-monthly Avengers to officially be added to the regular 10 titles. X-Men replaces the undelivered Daredevil and INC allows this to officially be added to the regular 10 titles. INC now allows Marvel to release 11 titles per month. Jerry Siegel’s second (and last) job for Marvel is two job numbers before the job number for X-Men #1. Are the X-Men, among other things, Marvel’s version of the Legion of Super-Heroes? The addition of Professor X makes them a kid gang. Was putting him in a wheelchair inspired by the 1963-04-18 My Greatest Adventures #83? Was Magneto inspired by Doctor Polaris in the 1963-04-04 Green Lantern #21? (What about the 1961 usage of the name?) Did Cyclops get his visor from Doctor Solar? Did the printer, as was their habit, send the cover of 1963-06-06 Doctor Solar, MAN of the ATOM #5 (the first with visor and super-suit), amongst all others, to Marvel? Was the Lava Man in the Thor feature in the 1963-08-01 Journey into Mystery #97 inspired by the return of the Volcano Man in the 1963-04-11 Challengers of the Unknown #32?
I absolutely love Grant Morrisons take on Doom Patrol. They've never got the offbeat, counter cultural take on Doom Patrol right since then. They've tried, but Grant Morrisons sensibility just fit the book so well
(sorry for my broken English) Last week I had a discussion about this on a Comment section on fb and the common thing you'd find there is people just pointing out how xmen is a ripp off of doom patrol. And how if it wasn't for xmen could've win... But like... Win what? I think that both grew up in very unique ways and I'm happy with both. The surreality of doom patrol makes it its own thing, and it's something that I really appreciate, i really love it. I think this was a win win situation
Going through the Morrison run right now, and I've got the Animal Man collection won during a chili cook off so 5 pounds of meat got me a vegetarian super hero
