Doom Patrol #89 (1964)

"The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Menace"

Bruno Premiani illustrates the cover of this memorable Doom Patrol adventure, chronicling the first appearance of the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.  For those unfamiliar with this unique super-villain, please take another look at Premiani's cover art.  AVM is capable of transforming all or portions of his body into elements of animals, vegetables, or minerals.  In this issue alone we see the villain take the form of a paramecium, tarantula, sulphur giant, dandelion, and a horde of gnats.  The group of super-powered adventurers known as the original Doom Patrol were not willing heroes.  In fact, each member payed a terrible price for their individual powers:  Cliff Steele (Robot Man), a race car driver whose body was damaged beyond healing had his brain encased in a super-powered armored form, his existence continuing but his outward humanity lost forever; Larry Trainor (Negative Man), a test pilot whose exposure to suborbital atmospheric radiation destroyed his human frame as well, leaving him a being composed of lethal radioactive waves that could only be contained safely by the specially treated bandages he must always wear to live among other people without endangering them; and Rita Farr (Elasti-Girl) a beautiful actress who accidentally inhaled weird subterranean vapors while filming on location in Africa and found her body growing and shrinking uncontrollably, causing her to be an exile from the Hollywood community even after learning how to control her powers.  These three would be brought together by Niles Caulder (The Chief), a brilliant professor confined to a wheelchair, who convinced the group to use their powers for the greater good.  If you notice some similarity between the makeup of this group of misfits and Marvel's X-Men, you're not alone.  Though the Doom Patrol made their appearance three months before Marvel's mutants in 1963, there has long been a debate as to which publishing house originally had the idea of a group of supranormal outcasts defending a world that would never accept them.  Obviously, Marvel's X-Men would become the more critically acclaimed and profitable title.  However, it is worth remembering that before the X-Men faced Magento, and even before the Legion of Super-Heroes regularly embarked on adventures in the far-off future, a group of non-mutant, self-proclaimed "freaks" were already expanding the dysfunctional anti-hero family model.