Doom Patrol quickly carved out its own space in the crowded superhero TV landscape. In the original comics, the Doom Patrol were essentially DC’s version of the X-Men, a group of socially isolated misfits based out of a mansion and looked after by a man in a wheelchair. But over the decades, they morphed into something very different. Now, they’re the team you call when the situation is too surreal and weird for the Justice League to punch their way out of.
The DC Universe live-action adaptation took that and ran with it, with a barnstorming first season. Heavily inspired by Grant Morrison’s classic late 80s comics run, the show delivered a bananas romp that involved sinister cults, sentient streets, Nazi experiments and a mysterious donkey that was the gateway to a parallel reality.
Season 2 premieres next month and looks set to follow in kind, as well as introducing a fan-favorite character from the comics (though she briefly appeared without her face being shown in the season 1 finale). Now, Entertainment Weekly have released some new promo images for the run, and you can check them out down below.
Said new character is Dorothy Spinner, the strange half-little girl, half-ape creature in the promo shots. She was born with a facial deformity that makes her appear simian. This led her to be given up for adoption by her parents and estranged from society, her loneliness causing her to develop a wide array of imaginary friends. But it transpires that Dorothy’s appearance isn’t the only unique thing about her, as she eventually realizes that she can manifest her friends in reality.
Things come to a head when she’s being bullied by a group of boys, later wishing that one of them was dead. One of her imaginary friends – known as the Candlemaker – disembowels and crucifies the kid that night. So, she should fit very well into the team.
She’ll be played by Abigail Shapiro in season 2, and it seems that they’re slightly reworking her story to give her more of a connection to Timothy Dalton’s Chief. But however this pans out, I’m down for whatever Doom Patrol serves up when the next run premieres on June 25th on both HBO Max and DC Universe.