The Teen Titans are back and the creative team is kicking off the fifth season with a bang. Three words comprise this whopper of a treat for fans of continuity, and those words, simply put, are: The Doom Patrol.

With the Patrol, however, comes a wealth of back-story and potential issues for our beloved team, and in the case of Beast Boy, this day is long overdue.

Beast Boy, we learn, was formerly a member of a team called The Doom Patrol, a tightly knit group of heroes whose sole mission in life is to rid the Earth of a team of nefarious villains named The Brotherhood of Evil. Aside from Beast Boy, the team consists of Rita Farr (a.k.a. Elasti-Girl), Cliff Steele (a.k.a. Robotman), and Larry Trainor (a.k.a. Negative Man), each a victim of some horrid twist of fate which resulted in unusual powers that ultimately made them freaks to regular society.

Rita, once a Hollywood superstar, gained the ability to grow and shrink her body and its parts at will after inhaling a mysterious gas while shooting a film in Africa. Cliff was a race car driver who suffered a nearly fatal accident. His entire body was unsalvageable, save his brain, which was transplanted into a robotic body. Larry was a test pilot who discovered the ability to have a “second self” emerge from his body after he was exposed to “wave belt” radiation during a plane crash. Larry’s powers, like the rest of the team, comes with a cost, as he is unable to keep his “Negative Man” out for longer than sixty seconds, or else his helpless body will expire.

In their comic origins, the original team consisted primarily of Rita, Cliff, and Larry, and they were led by a wheelchair bound genius named “The Chief.” Sure, it sounds sort of similar to the X-Men, but these similarities are usually chalked up to coincidence rather than plagiarism (although there are fanboys so devoted to either camp that they insist that one creative team stole from the other -- but Doom Patrol appeared three months earlier). Although the Chief has not appeared in animated form yet, the team is now led by another familiar face from the comics, Steve Dayton (a.k.a. Mento).

In the comics, Steve Dayton was considered the sixth richest man in the world, and was so smitten with Rita that he used his economic resources to become a hero in hopes of wooing her hand in marriage. Steve eventually succeeded in marrying Rita. However he never truly became a member of The Doom Patrol. Rita and Steve later adopted young Gar Logan (Beast Boy), who was not only a friend to the team, but eventually became a member as well.

Gar’s past, like the rest of the team’s, was filled with tragedy. He survived a rare disease that turned him green and essentially gave him his changeling powers only to have to suffer the loss of his only family, his parents, and The Doom Patrol became his surrogate family in their absence.

Naturally, the creative team behind the series has taken some liberties with the team’s roster, look, and overall feel. From the opening sequence we are immediately made aware that The Doom Patrol is a team unlike the Titans, in that their modus operandi is to save the world first even if it costs them their lives. In this, the team is established as expendable in the grander scheme of things, and although this fits the fatalistic “doom” angle that the original comics harbored on nearly every page, it doesn’t do well to represent the team as the cool group of heroes that they are.

Instead, the team comes off as ungrateful, on the verge of being unreasonable at times. Primarily this stems from the major difference in team lineup, specifically Mento leading the team instead of The Chief pulling strings from the distance.

This is fine, however, because there is a major conflict that must be established within Beast Boy, and Mento provides this tension perfectly. Rather than tarnish the characters of Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, or Robotman, the creative team turns Mento into a self-indulgent jerk causing grief for our little green buddy at every turn.

We learn that Beast Boy has an attachment to his teammates first and a sense of duty second. When given the choice of saving his teammates from the clutches of The Brain and Monsieur Mallah (The Brotherhood of Evil) or stopping them from escaping, Beast Boy makes his decision and is chastised for doing what he felt was right in the end. After all, The Doom Patrol is his family, whether Mento grasps this concept or not, and knowing that the animated series has limited time to establish this arc, it seems a reasonable trade off to have Mento leading the team if the end result is as good as this episode.

Flash forward to the present and we find Beast Boy living once again in Titan Tower, until a message is sent alerting him that The Doom Patrol is missing, and that The Brotherhood of Evil is back to their old tricks again. Undoubtedly, the one thing this episode doesn’t seem to muck with is the representation of Brotherhood members, Brain and Mallah. Monsieur Mallah is downright frightening, while the Brain comes across in the exact manner one could picture: cold, calculating, and seeping pure evil. Mallah, a gorilla given the abilities to man firearms, speak, and think in an more advanced fashion by the Brain, is absolutely chilling. When he finally utters a line at the close of the episode, it sends chills down your spine.

Stylistically, The Doom Patrol is given a look and feel that resembles their comic counterparts. Rita and Larry wear costumes similar to Beast Boy’s black and purple ensemble, just as they did with his red and white togs in the comics. Robotman looks like he’s a bit bulkier in the shoulders, but he is intended to be a powerhouse along the lines of Cyborg, so it is sort of fitting. Mento looks closest to his comic counterpart, even if he comes across as more of a jerk than he is remembered to have been in the comics.

They are accompanied with a score that can only be described as akin to 50’s sci-fi twang, and it fits the bill even if it feels reminiscent of a certain Pixar film chock full of retro-esque heroes and machines. All's fair in love and homage, as The Incredibles’ “Helen Parr” (a.k.a. Elastigirl…ahem, Rita Farr anyone?) bears an all too distinct likeness to The Doom Patrol’s own “Elasti-Girl.” Admittedly, it was a bit disappointing to hear that the personal favorite, Larry Trainor, would be voiced by Judge Reinhold (memories of a really terrible Fred Savage film come rushing back), however Judge brings a sort of melancholy feel to Trainor’s voice that really captures him perfectly.

Ultimately, this is exactly the step fans had to be hoping for when the series’ creators promised a more “continuity” based season this time out. With the major conflict being set up as a hunt for the Brotherhood of Evil, one can only hope that the filler of past season remain few and far between.

Next Up: Homecoming Part II, with some more Doom Patrol flavor. Knowing the eventual fate of the team in the comics, one can only wonder whether or not the series has the gumption to take things in such a dark direction. Fans may wish to see more of the Doom Patrol in the future, but whether or not this will come to pass remains to be seen. Either way, Saturday cannot come soon enough for fans of Teen Titans.

Mario Anima