Attack of the 50 ft Woman!
DC Comics’ Doom Patrol has long been associated with its similarities to Marvel Comics’ X-Men, with both teams consisting of Super-powered outcasts led by a mind-bending man in a wheelchair, and in fact, the very first time I laid eyes on the Patrol, it was in the pages of Marvel’s NOT BRAND ECCH, where Magneto thinks he sees the silhouettes of the X-Men approaching, and is astounded when they turn out to be the Doom Patrol instead! I remember thinking…who ARE these guys, and why do they look SO MUCH like the X-Men?
Well, I was to get educated by my friends James and Lar, those brothers with the unlimited cache of awesome silver age comics (and the passion and expertise to go with it!) who let me borrow some of their old DOOM PATROL comics to peruse.
First thing that struck me was how cool Cliff Steel AKA Robotman was, (and what kid didn’t dig Robotman?) here’s this nearly indestructible guy listening to Guy Lombardo records! Larry Trainor was cool as Negative Man, a dude who looked like a cross between Jimmy Olsen and Human Torch! And then there was Rita Farr, the lovely movie star turned exotic Giantess when exposed to volcanic gasses during a bad photo shoot. Remember my love of Diana Rigg? Well, that’s EXACTLY who she looked like to me!
Rita was simply a pleasure to look at, especially when they’d get her all dolled up for some dance or event, whether it be a love-in to investigate a mad guru, or the school to play chaperon to Beast-Boy and his date (and by the way, just WHAT was their relationship? Sometimes they acted like Rita was him MOTHER!)
Funny, there were issues where it was pretty obvious to me that they’d drawn one good head shot of Rita, and stuck photo stats of the head onto several different panels of Elasti-Girl in various predicaments…(Maybe she didn’t look good in the original pencils?) but as an artist myself, know that it’s rare when you can get a face looking just right, and quite frustrating when you’ve gotta duplicate it three or four times every page!
Rita Farr / Elasti-Girl
First appearance: My Greatest Adventure #80
By Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani
Murray Boltinoff and Bob Haney
