Doom Patrol #99: Beastie Boy

The story begins with the Doom Patrol putting on an exhibition at a stadium. As with the X-Men in their Battle Room, this serves to introduce us painlessly to the characters and their powers. Interestingly, we learn that Larry Trainor does not consider himself Negative Man; rather Neg Man lives inside him:

As they are leaving the stadium, they are attacked by a crook inside a giant robot dragonfly.

The Bug-Man manages to make his getaway, at least partially because Larry insists on fighting him without using Negative Man. This carries over into the second battle:

This time the crook makes off with Rita. He imprisons here in a box that is slowly reducing itself in size:

The Chief arrives in his "Battle Chair", but:

As the rest of the DP shows up, Bug-Man decides to kill Rita personally. Fortunately for her, the box had a safety pin inside and:

The Doom Patrol make short work of the villain after this.

Comments: Silly story, but as always I love the Bruno Premiani artwork. Correction: Bob Brown filled in on this issue as noted by Tom Brevoort in the comments. Dang, my readers are sharp!

The second story features the intro of Beast Boy. The DP's headquarters has been broken into by some weird animal; they find evidence of a giant cat, a bird, a tiger and an elephant. What can it be? They lie in wait he following night, hoping to trap him. And they succeed but:

He changes into a lion, and then a kangaroo, all the while battling them:

But when the fighting's over, we learn the reason for his appearing:

Of course, this calls to mind the story in Amazing Spiderman #1, where Peter attempts to join the Fantastic Four. Feeling sorry for the lad, the Doom Patrol agree to let him come along on one mission. We learn that he does have trouble fitting in because of his appearance:

A bunch of crooks are attempting to steal the crown jewels of Dusenberg from a parade. Beast Boy shows off his abilities:

They make reasonably short work of the crooks.

Comments: An interesting introduction, although I confess, the squabbling between Beast Boy and the Doom Patrol seems a bit forced. Then again, so did the fighting between Spiderman and the Fantastic Four.