Crawling From the Wreckage

Akiva Goldsman is producting a big-screen Doom Patrol.

Lest you forget, Goldsman wrote such films as Batman and Robin, Lost in Space and A Beautiful Mind, and caused plenty of damage to I, Robot.

Thankfully then - at least, perhaps - the scriptwriter for the Patrol film will be Adam Turner. So far untested by the great movie-going public, Mr. Turner sold a horror pitch for some big bucks last year. That's a sort of qualification, I suppose. Damn, I need me an agent.

The Doom Patrol have had more incarnations than I've bought actual comic books, but the 90s spin, with Grant Morrison at the wheel, was one of the wildest off road rides I ever had in the four-colour pages. If you haven't read it, read it now - there's villains who've had every power you haven't thought of yet; an infinitely recursive painting that swallows Paris whole; a living, breathing telephone network, tinged with ancient evil; and Danny The Street, a palare spouting, continuum warping... er... street. For unfettered invention alone this series is a must - and if you bother to scratch the surface, you might just find it to be some of the most rewarding literature of, and about, the last half century.

Somehow I think Turner is going to nod to Morrison without fully embracing his radical, delirious take on the characters. Not unless Michel Gondry, say, comes on board to direct.