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Doom Patrol: DC Streaming Series Gets Trailer, Premiere Date

The Doom Patrol will soon be on duty.

DC released a short teaser trailer for the latest live-action addition to its DC Universe streaming offerings this morning on its YouTube Channel. The playful spot, which features the team lining up for a group photo, ends with the series' premiere date: February 15, 2019.

While certainly not the most well-known of DC's properties, Doom Patrol has a publishing history going all the way back to 1963. A band of powered misfits shunned by society, the team — which fights the forces of evil under the tutelage of mysterious genius The Chief —has long drawn comparisons to Marvel's own group of superpowered misfits, the X-Men. They always seemed to be called upon to fight the quirkier villains in DC's stable, and the new trailer promises a lighthearted, humorous tone in keeping with their adventures on the printed page. 

While the Doom Patrol has had a bit of a revolving lineup in the comics, their TV incarnation is based largely on the classic team from the '60s. They are: Negative Man, who can absorb and disperse energy and phase through solid objects (Matt Bomer, American Horror Story); Elasti-Woman, who can stretch, enlarge, or shrink any part of her body (April Bowlby, Unbroken: Path to Redemption); Crazy Jane, whose 64 personalities each have a different superpower (Diane Guerrero, Orange is the New Black); sometime Justice League member Cyborg, who is... well, a cyborg (Joivan Wade, The First Purge); and Robotman, with the brain of an extreme sports enthusiast in a robotic body (Brendan Fraser — remember him?). In the role of the Chief is veteran actor and onetime James Bond Timothy Dalton, who most recently appeared on the Showtime series Penny Dreadful.

Doom Patrol will take place in the same setting as DC Universe's current live-action hit, Titans, with some squad members already having been introduced in that series. Its tone, however, looks to be a rather radical departure from Titans' grim-and-grimy aesthetic. The trailer lets us in on the internal monologues of each character as they line up for their photo shoot (with the camera manned by an unseen, hooded character). Crazy Jane is none too happy to be involved ("Photos suuuuuck!"), while Elasti-Woman is all smiles ("Shoulders in... use the light... posture!"). Cyborg appears to be full of swagger, while simultaneously self-conscious due to the Terminator-like appearance of the left side of his face ("My right side, that's the good side,"), while Negative Man, his face wrapped in an Invisible Man-esque swath of bandages, is a little puzzled as to what he should do ("Smile? No smile? Smile, smile... are we smiling?"). Finally, Robotman — with beady red LED lights for eyes — just can't win ("Am I the only one who always ends up with red-eye?"). 

The news comes on the very day that Titans is wrapping up its first season, which has garnered favorable reviews while blazing a path for the rest of DC Universe's stable of live-action series, of which Doom Patrol is the first to receive a premiere date. Currently in production are Stargirl, a sort of gender-swapped take on Marvel's Captain America, as well as Swamp Thing, a spooky reimagining of the classic character who previously got the live-action treatment in Wes Craven's 1982 feature (which was much more campy than terrifying).

Revered DC Comics writer Geoff Johns is serving as an executive producer on Doom Patrol as well as Titans and Stargirl (fitting, sice he created the character). James Wan (Aquaman, the Saw series) and frequent accomplice Gary Dauberman (Annabelle: Creation, It: Chapter One) will fill that role on Swamp Thing, bringing their horror bonafides to that series.

In an interview with Comicbook.com before the release of Titans, Johns played coy on the whole shared-universe angle. "It is much like the multiverse in the comics, and I don't think there's any hard, fast rules saying that Stargirl and Swamp Thing aren't in the same universe as Titans and Doom Patrol," he said. "Right now I'm just working on Stargirl and trying to make Stargirl the best Stargirl TV show it can possibly be. Whether it connects to another show down the line is open-ended."

Of course, with several Doom Patrol characters having been introduced in Titans, this statement now seems a little disingenuous. But if DC Universe can pull off four different series of widely varying tones sharing the same setting, it'll make for one of the more impressive such feats this side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Doom Patrol certainly looks like a lot of fun, and the teaser trailer isn't all we've been given to whet our appetites. After you mark your calendar for that February 15 release date, take a look at the awesome new character posters below.