INVASION

Invasion! was really the last big summer crossover event at DC that was really any good. While we've had quite a few since then, this crossover was one of the few that actually had truly lasting effects on the DC Universe. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) for the Doom Patrol, it resulted in the deaths of two of their members, setting the stage for the innovations of the Grant Morrison era.

For the terms of this review, we're only noting the parts of the storyline that involve characters associated with the Doom Patrol.

Invasion Book One

"The Alien Alliance"
Script by Keith Giffen and Bill Mantlo
Art by Keith Giffen, Todd McFarlane, P. Craig Russell, Al Gordon, and Josef Rubenstein.
Cover by Bart Sears and Josef Rubenstein

SYNOPSIS: The Khund and Dominator forces took control of Garguax's base on the far side of the Moon. The rotund villain originally asked to be paid for the use of his facilities, but the invading forces convinced him to leave swiftly.

Invasion Book Two

"Battleground Earth"
Script by Keith Giffen and Bill Mantlo
Art by Keith Giffen, Todd McFarlane, P. Craig Russell, Al Gordon, and Josef Rubenstein (with Tom Christopher).
Cover by Bart Sears and Josef Rubenstein

SYNOPSIS: Aquaman led the Doom Patrol, the Sea Devils, Aqualad and the military forces of Atlantis in battle against the Gil'dishpan base at the Arctic Circle. Earth's defense forces suffered their first loss in that battle, when Celsius was killed preventing the Gil'dishpan ship from escaping. Robotman and Lodestone (and presumably the rest of the Doom Patrol) were later summoned to the planning session held by Captain Atom, Amanda Walker, Maxwell Lord and General Wade Eiling, and then returned to the Arctic Sea to continue the battle with the methane-breathing Gil'dishpan forces.

Invasion Book Three

"World Without Heroes"
Script by Keith Giffen and Bill Mantlo
Art by Keith Giffen, Bart Sears, Josef Rubenstein (with Tom Christopher), Pablo Marcos, and Dick Giordano.
Cover by Bart Sears and Josef Rubenstein

SYNOPSIS: The Doom Patrol members were attending the burial of Celsius when a rogue Dominator set off the Gene-Bomb, which caused the Meta-Gene in every super-human on Earth to go into overdrive. The Martian Manhunter (and later G'Nort) stopped by to assist Robotman in containing his friends' out-of-control powers. Unfortunately, everyone suddenly passed out and fell into comas. Every comatose metahuman in America was brought to Mediplex, a former Lexcorp research facility set up to deal with the crisis.

Robotman joined Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner, Rocket Red, The Martian Manhunter, Starman and Superman in a mission to the Dominators' homeworld to discover a cure to the effects of the Gene-Bomb. En route, they were picked up by a group of the Blasters and the Omega Men (led by Tigorr and Snapper Carr) who had just escaped from a Starlag. After some reconnaissance and mental probing of the rogue Dominator who had created the Gene-Bomb, the team returned the the Starlag to get the cure. In the meantime, on Earth, Scott Fischer had succumbed to the effects of the Gene-Bomb, making him the only death directly related to the device. The alien antidote was returned to Earth and exploded in the same fashion as the Gene-Bomb, and the metahumans of Earth were saved.

COMMENTS: This was actually a good story for a company-wide crossover, but I have to feel for the Doom Patrol ... losing two of their number in a story that really wasn't one of their own tales. It did manage to set the stage for Grant Morrison's run on the Doom Patrol (since the Kupperberg book was failing both creatively and financially), so I guess I can't actually hate it for that. Scott Fischer was an interesting, if cliched character, but he was definitely too much like one of the X-Men/X-Factor's newest additions over at Marvel (who also had Blaze as a codename). I wasn't too sad to see Celsius go, since she was never much of a character ... originally she was supposed to have a Hindi ethnicity that was never really played up in the New DP's guest appearances. She finally started looking like her backstory when the 1987 series started, but then she became a completely unlikeable character because of her attitude toward her search for the Chief, and then with the very unsatisfactory resolution of the matter when the Chief actually did appear ... well, while I'd like to have some questions on her real motivations cleared up, I'm glad she's out of the picture.