[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]
Writer: Gerard Way
Pencils: Nick Derington
Summary
Casey is trapped and has no way out! Taken hostage by aliens, Casey, along with a friend, is trying to figure out how to escape their cell when a mysterious stranger offers his help! Casey accepts and the two escape! But how do you escape space jail, and just where do you go once you do?
Positives
Gerard Way hits some good points in this issue. It seems that he touches on the idea of sacrifice a lot in this issue and he does it pretty well. Casey is looking to escape space jail to find Danny her ambulance, which is actually a self functioning A.I. system of sorts. We also have Larry Trainor dealing with the consequences of giving up his powers as he’s seemingly placed on trial for having them in the first place! Dealing with the beings in the negative space, Larry makes the sacrifice of having a normal life to once again receive his powers to save the world. Hopefully next issue we get to see how dangerous Larry Trainor really is with his full negative space powers.
Negatives
Once again Gerard Way is kind of everywhere with the book, going back and forth between key characters. Nothing wrong with that but there were times where I cared more about Casey’s escape than Larry’s trial, and it seemed that Way couldn’t find a way to balance the two stories properly. The pacing overall was good, but I just wish he’d stick to a character’s story for a few pages before immediately jumping to someone else. As soon as I got interested in Casey’s escape, he threw another story in my face, and at times it was unnecessary.
Verdict
Doom Patrol is a decent read, but I had to go back an reread issue 3 just to get caught up on issue 4. This issue if read by itself will definitely confuse you, so it’s not a stand alone title. Finally Casey has some idea about who she is, and what her life is about so I’m excited to see where she goes from here.
