THIS WEEK: We have a three-headed review monster, featuring new #1 issues for The Doom Patrol, Legion of Super-Heroes, and Teen Titans!
The Doom Patrol #1
Writer: Darcy Van Poelgeest
Artist: Niko Henrichon
Letterer: Lucas Gattoni
This new Doom Patrol #1 is my favorite type of superhero comic. It reads breezily, leans into the genre’s inherent ridiculousness, and yet still leaves readers with a sense that something deeper and more meaningful is at play. It feels literary without being pretentious. It uses the strengths of its long-running characters while also finding newness. And it looks stunning.
In short, I absolutely loved this book.
And I came into it with sky high expectations. I’m a fan of Doom Patrol generally — the Grant Morrison and Richard Case-anchored run is one of my favorite superhero stories ever — and I’m a fan of these creators. Writer Darcy Van Poelgeest is a clever scripter who is unafraid to get weird and take chances with concepts. Niko Henrichon is a must-buy artist, fresh off career-best work on Spectators, a smutty afterlife collab with Brian K. Vaughan. And Lucas Gattoni is quietly one of the most reliable and interesting letters in comics.
So yeah, I came into Doom Patrol #1excited, and the book did not disappoint. What really impressed me with this issue was just how cleanly structured it was. It essentially has a mysterious (and deeply intriguing) framing device featuring Dr. Niles Caulder, with a largely self-contained classic Doom Patrol adventure in between. The two overlap with precision, doing so in a way that gives this young run momentum coming out of a pristine debut.
To me, Doom Patrol tends to work best when stories can blend weirdo superhero-ing with a forlorn tone that also tips into humor. The challenge creators face is making those two tones coherent, but this issue does it seamlessly. There’s a sequence wherein Larry Trainor experiences a deeply meaningful interaction at an old woman’s kitchen table, while Cliff Steele and Rita Farr are engulfed outside by the silliest possible alien fight. It’s fun and poignant, and I hope it’s an indication of what to expect from the rest of this run.
Finally, can we just take a second to reflect on how good the last 10 years of Doom Patrol art has been? In the Gerard Way-helmed Young Animal (RIP, you were too beautiful for this world), the book had Nick Derington. Then after a long hiatus, it came back for a mini-series drawn by Chris Burnham. And now we’re getting new Henrichon art. While these runs have all been short (so far), I am hard-pressed to think of a superhero comic that has looked as good as Doom Patrol in the past decade.
Legion of Super-Heroes #1
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Hayden Sherman
Colorist:Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer:Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Of the three new #1 DC Comics returns that hit this week, Legion of Super-Heroes #1 is the simplest to write about. If you like superhero comics and artwork at all even a little bit (and of course you do, otherwise you would not be reading this comic), you want to pick up this issue. The future DCU artwork from artist Hayden Sherman and colorist Tamra Bonvillain are enough on their own merits.
Sherman, as you likely know, has spent the better part of the past two years establishing themselves as one of the most visionary artists doing work in superhero comics, with their bold page layouts and character designs in the pages of Absolute Wonder Woman. While that book skews fantasy/mythic, Legionof Super-Heroes gives them a chance to stun with touches of sci-fi, chops they’ve been honing since their early work for the 2010s Vault Comics title, Wasted Space (which I believe is still that publisher’s longest-running comic).
And Sherman definitely cuts all the way loose in the pages of this one. Their design for the city scapes as well as the axe-of-light wielding villains, the Persuaders, are two of the standouts. But everything in this comic looks great and is given a lot of thought. It’s like Sherman is speaking a new, highly-specific visual language. You see it in houses, vehicles, aliens — everything.
But what really elevates it all further is the color work of Bonvillain. Bonvillain uses a heavily-saturated pilot that screams utopian sci-fi, without feeling like its overlapping with classics of the genre. It’s very 2026 comics coloring, perfectly tailored to the superhero future of this comic. With one look at any of these pages, the colors alone let you know you’re in a futuristic, advanced world. It’s really stunning work.
I’m a little more mixed on the plot. It’s a murder mystery comic, essentially, built on a foundation of really complex continuity and callbacks. If you’ve read the Legion for years, there’s a lot here for you. It’s a romp through familiar characters (with slightly different status quos), powered by the aforementioned amazing art. Is it new reader-friendly is a harder question. But has the Legion ever been new reader friendly? Not usually, and does that even matter when you’ve got a future-set murder mystery that looks this freaking good?
Teen Titans #1
Writer: Kyle Higgins
Artist: Daniele Di Nicuolo
Colorist: Marcelo Costa
Letterer: Becca Carey
Teens often look for community within fandom, searching for connections to like-minded fellow fans and communities. And that desire for connection is at the heart of the new Teen Titansbook from writerKyle Higgins and artist Daniele Di Nicuolo understand well. This idea extends beyond the comic’s pages. In this book, a new Titans team assembles from interest in a shared online space, and someone at DC Comics has tried to replicate this in the real world.
The DC Community Discord created an Alternate Reality Game Discord server accessible only to Level Five DC Official Discord members. Within the server, roleplayers become the team members in this book — Fairlyplay, Cheshire, Wildcard, Proxy, and Shazam (Eugene Choi) — discussing their lives and the emergence of their Teen Titans team under the “leadership” of Jason Todd. It reads like a real Discord between friends, as a Discord server about the Teen Titans server that exists in this comic. It’s incredibly meta, but it shows how much care went into this project.
The comic also understands something else about teens today: the Internet is deeplyingrained in their lives. These characters walk around with computers and immediate access to a world adults may not fully understand. They see things, hear things, discover things, and, perhaps most importantly, talk to each other about what they find.
The plot involves a teen who needs help. These Titans get involved because they understand something adults might not: sometimes the only people who notice you’re falling through the cracks are those beside you. These Titans also know their team name represented something before them. They want to be different, but they’re inspired by the old Titans, too. Finally, there’s a connection between these Titans and Jason Todd. Jason is hired to find the missing child, Cole, a powered kid who was also part of the Teen Titans server. That’s how he eventually meets this new team, and it’s why they choose Jason to help them. If anyone could understand their motives, why not the Robin who died?
The artwork by Di Nicuolo and colors by Marcelo Costa are fantastic, and Becca Carey’s lettering makes every hit burst off the page while incorporating interesting design. Overall, Higgins and Di Nicuolo look at today’s young readers and “see” them. This won’t be everyone’s go-to Teen Titans story, and that’s fine. What matters is this book has its own identity, one that feels contemporary without desperately needing to prove how contemporary it is. This could very well be the start of an exploration into what the Teen Titans can mean to a generation that desperately needs them.
Miss any of our earlier reviews? Check out our full archive!
And check out the Beat’s most recent comics reviews!
