Saturday, July 4

Flex Mentallo Again

Working through the second season of Doom Patrol on HBOMax.

I read the Morrison/Case comics as single issues back in the early '90s and loved its perpetual apocalypse. There was no melodrama of angry exes rallying a gang to show up the new girlfriend. No backyard baseball games or gossip by the pool. All the kinds of downtime moments you'd find in Avengers or X-Men or Teen Titans. This book was an endless stream of cosmic masculine menace; two baddies named Mister something is saying something about comics. The title was already in its fifth gear when Vertigo started, and I happily followed Morrison to Invisibles.

And then the Flex Mentallo mini came out, and it became one of my favorite comic stories ever, and the best of the subgenre wherein the good guys recoup from the villain's conquest of the world. I wrote about it for the late, great PopImage website and was blurbed for the back cover of the Flex trade, so he and I are linked forever. If my one claim to almost-fame in the comics is my blah-blah stamped next to Quitely art, that is a glorious destiny based on unabashed love.


They nailed that character in the HBOMax series. His earnest, inherent decency is charming and right. He is kind. He is confident. He wants to help. He's a genuine throwback superhero dressed as a circus strongman, and it makes my comic heart soar.

When I get the urge to draw Doom Patrol, I default to Flex.




Here's my previous Doom Patrol fan art. 

I like to see the progress.