Dana Awards Patrol

 

Warning

This post contains bad, foul, filthy and unacceptable language - the words that “will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor.”

This is not a post for children.  Kids, take a hike.

This is also not a post for those adults who are offended by this type of language.  Do yourself a favor, and go read some of my cute stuff before moral outrage can kick in.

Just about everything else on this blog is clean…Stupid sometimes, but clean.

End of Warning.

First of all, Fuckin' A!  This is post 1100!  How about that?

Now, as Ford and Zaphod said, "To Business! *clink*"

The final Dana Award to end this year's George Awards will be going to my most favorite DC comics live action adaptation.

While a fair amount of DC on screen have led me into my own profane rants, there have been many good ones mostly animated series, but still, many. However, NONE of the other live action ones have reached the level of capturing the spirit of the entire deranged history of a comic franchise, and made some improvements in cohesiveness based on the transition into another medium like Doom Patrol.

When I first figured out "follow the writer" for comic books I realized that a huge majority of my favorites were British, Scottish or other writers from that section of the world who started out on 2000 A.D. For those not steeped to the dangerous levels I am in comic book lore, 2000 A.D. is a weekly British science fiction publication that's been running since 1977. Its well over 2000 issues have given the world Judge Dredd and many other creations. With that kind of output required, they blew the doors off crazy, starting years ago.

In one of the highest places on my favorites list from that crew is Grant Morrison.  I love the experience of reading his comics, because of the feeling that I always had to go back and check the last issue to see if I missed one when the new issue came out.  However, on the second read through it is crystal clear how it all fit together.  

The exception is his Doom Patrol run.  That run, I got that "did I miss something?" feeling nearly every time I turned the page the first time through. Again, on later rereads after a few tries, it all lined up perfectly. It is the Illuminatus Trilogy of comic runs.

The best side effect of getting HBO Max to see the underwhelming WW84 was being able to see the Doom Patrol series.  I bought the available seasons on disc immediately. 

It adapts some of the most out there stories and characters from the Morrison run, but it is much more than that.

If I made a list of DC characters I expected to see as a major character in a live action adaptation I'm pretty sure Danny the Street would be at the bottom of it...

Yet there they are.

The show doesn't only pull from the Morrison run but includes elements from the team's silver age Drake/Haney/ Premiani origins, and notions from the Kupperberg, Giffen and Way runs.  They're all blended together with a common theme, immortality.

This not only ties to some early Silver Age back stories of The Chief, but by associating each character with the time they are originally from created more defined personalities for the "World's Strangest Heroes." Additionally it lays out a central thread to tie all the separate elements of Doom Patrol history together and gives each character a sense of isolation as they are separated from the time they knew, to provide a common bond.

More importantly, it created distinct styles of profanity for each character, which earned the show the highest level of Dana Award.

Normally, I am opposed to swearing in comic books and adaptations of them, but with this group it fits astonishingly well, and is done amazingly.

Riley Shanahan performs the body and Brendan Fraiser the voice (and everything pre transformation) of Cliff Steele, Robotman.  As an Eighties over the top NASCAR driver, trapped in an unfeeling and hard to control body, his swears are filled with frustration and explosions of pent up anger. "The fuck!?!?!?!" is his a key catchphrase.  

Note for those playing the home game: I've been told his style of expletives most closely matches my own. This is fitting given the decade I grew up in.

April Bowlby plays Rita Farr, Elastigirl (a name that isn't used in the show.) She's the most different from the comics, having difficulty controlling her shape and transforming into a blob than merely size changing and stretching like in the comics.  A star of the golden age of Hollywood, her put on "upper class" sounding pronunciation from that time leans more toward "shit" when upset with her current loss of status, but she will drop the f-bomb when stressed.

Mathew Zuk is the bandaged form, and Matt Bomer is the voice, and original face of Larry Trainor, with his connection to the CGI the Negative Spirit. A typical early sixties hot shot test pilot, he fits the cookie cutter Hal Jordan type in the comics.  In the show he's a closeted gay man of that era,  who's been isolated for decades after his accident. He becomes a much more complex, and empathetic character, constantly trying to avoid anything heroic, but being drawn in by his values, hidden courage, and the prodding of the alien life form living within him.   Larry's kind of a favorite in our home...we love Larry.   His exhaustion and exasperation comes through with every whispered, and resigned "fuck."

Jovian Wade, (Rigsy from Doctor Who!) is Cyborg, an odd choice who has no connection to the team in comics. However, with the focus on all of them being "cursed" and isolated by their powers, his self doubt and mistrust of his father, who monitors the robotic and computer parts he added to Cyborg, makes him a perfect fit.  His typical teenage "shit"s of surprise are rare, and he avoids the stronger words as a well established super hero with Justice League aspirations.  Because of his fame, several of the team imagine joining forces with him in decade appropriate TV show tribute fantasies which are hilarious.

Timothy "Mr. Pricklepants" Dalton (and "End of Time" Rassilon for another Doctor Who reference) is  Niles Caulder, The Chief.  In comics and on TV he's the team leader from the start of the run. Morrison's spin gave him some terribly dark secrets, that cast a shadow over the character.  They're still there in this version, but a combination of Dalton's charisma and the reasoning behind his decisions makes his darkness come out lighter. 

His more respectable motivations come from Dorothy.  She's Dorothy Spinner in the comics, an odd looking girl whose imaginary friends manifest at varying levels of danger. Here (played by Abigail Shapiro) she's Caulder's daughter from a chance meeting that led to spending years with a similarly powered immortal cave woman in the early 20th Century.  (Yes, it is a hundred percent that kind of show.)  While he's still done horrible things, the reasoning is to extend his life to protect Dorothy, who is absolutely adorable in almost every circumstance, and horribly lethal in a few of them.  Of  course, no, she does not swear.

Occasional guest Devan Long as Flex Mentallo doesn't swear either, because he looks and acts as if he's stepped directly out of a fifties comic book...as he should!

Guest Star profanity is more than made up by genre show icon Mark Sheppard (Canton Everett Delaware to continue the Doctor Who trend)  as Willoughby Kipling.   Kipling was created by Grant Morrison when he couldn't use John Constantine.  They're very similar, with Kipling fitting even better into the strangeness of the Doom Patrol world. Sheppard brings a British flair to his near constant barrage of profanity for the alcoholic, questionably moraled magician.

The main foe of the first season is played by the insanely versatile Alan Tudyk.  He is  Mr. Nobody, and the fourth wall breaking, self aware character takes on an extra dimension (HA!) on screen.  He torments the heroes, talks to the audience, swears at everyone, and generally has a grand old time.  

He is far more fun than the other main antagonists at the Bureau of Normalcy, proving once more that inflexible fascistic humans are the true monsters.  Heck, they're even less fun than the actual Nazis in this story,

because these Nazis have puppets.

Speaking of villains, Animal Vegetable Mineral Man would probably only be only one row down on my "never expect see in an adaptation" list from Danny the Street. 

Yet he's here too!  More of a series of background gags than a character, Alex Mapa brings the funny, as well as a fair amount of swearing and the ridiculous situations having an extra dinosaur head and a celery arm can bring to one's life.  

I mean, the series had the Unwritten Book & Nurnheim in a snow globe, Doctor Tyme in a perpetual roller disco, and a Beard Hunter who is even stranger than the printed version.  This show holds back nothing when it comes to comic book weirdness.  

I've left one hero until last, Diane Guerrero, who also had a fantastic turn as Green Lantern Jessica Cruz in an animated feature, plays Crazy Jane. While her main personality is a fuck-flinging Seventies punk, Jane has sixty four personalities, each with their own superpowers. (Another thank you to Mr. Morrison for that one.)  They also have individual styles of swearing, each brought to life excellently by Diane Guerrero.

The amazing part about this insane show is how much heart it has.  In the process of embracing the strangest things I've ever seen on a comics page, (and this is me talking here) they manage to bond together, help each other though huge issues and become a family.

Granted, they are ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AWFUL at most of the therapeutic, empathic or helpful endeavors that they try, but somehow, that makes it all the more endearing, especially when they occasionally succeed.

If there is any doubt that list of varying swearers truly deserves the highest level of Dana Award for Profanity in Television, I will end with this  note.

The show also features Ezekiel, the evangelical, apocalyptic cockroach, whose outstanding rants are performed by Curtis "Booger" Armstrong, and who bonds with Admiral Whiskers, a rat with a tragic backstory that figures heavily in two of the more fun episodes.  

That's it for this year's awards.  The George Awards will return...