American Update: DC Debuts: My Greatest Adventure #80, the 1st Doom Patrol
*DC: A collection of misfits with strange powers, hated and feared by the world they protect, led by a paraplegic genius in a wheelchair. Sound familiar? Well, guess again – almost simultaneously with the debut of the X-Men at Marvel, DC made their moribund title My Greatest Adventure the home of the ‘Doom Patrol’, created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani. While the similarities between the X-Men and the DP are marked, the differences provide a significant contrast – the X-Men are teens, in a special school, with little experience of the world, while the Doom Patrol are all adults with successful careers and lives that they lost when a twisted fate granted them powers which would ostracise and, ultimately, possibly destroy them. The tone was altogether darker, and the series caught on, taking over the title, running to #121, and various reiterations of the team have been mainstays of the DCU ever since. The live-action Netflix TV show is a big hit. This copy of the Doom Patrol’s first appearance (as well as that of their arch-enemy General Immortus) is a reasonable-looking lower graded copy, pence stamped. The cover has nice colour and some gloss, the staples are firmly attached at spine and centrefiold and the pages are a particularly nice off-white. There is moderate wear at all edges and corner blunting, with small colour-breaking creases in the lower right corner, and a tiny chip out of centre top (the chip is detached, but present). The cover image is strong, vivid and unmarked but for the wear already detailed.
PICTURED: MY GREATEST ADVENTURE #80 GD/VG p £350 SOLD