Doop #1

Now I have to find my Doop Alphabet Key!

Ha! That didn't take long! I read X-Force way back when because Peter Milligan was writing it and I owe Peter Milligan everything because he wrote Shade the Changing Man for which I can never thank him enough. While people were raving about Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man or they were offering up orifices for Neil Gaiman to put his wiener in or they were jerking off Alan Moore under the bleachers for any piece of text he put to paper, I was busy having my heart broken over and over again at the hands of Peter Milligan. I don't know if I could put into words what Shade the Changing Man meant to me at the time; I don't think I've ever really tried. It was just exactly the right character and the right words and the right supporting cast for me to be reading at that time in my life. It began the summer after my first year of college. I was lost between schools and between states. I was back home from my first year away and I felt like a complete mess. Shade the Changing Man made me not feel that way.

I don't expect so much from Doop! So, you know, no pressure, Mr. Milligan. Anyway! That "Ha! That didn't take long!" at the beginning of the last paragraph was about finding my Doop Alphabet Key! It was on the flip side of my key for DC's Runespeak! It was from when my friend J.T. lent me an issue of X-men to read that was about Doop and some of the things he did at the Academy. Here's the key I made simply from the text on the cover:

As you can see by comparing this to the cover, I at least got a few letters correct!

Oh man. Fucking DC. Get your shit together. I want to read stuff like this that just makes me grin with a joy that forces my face to leak in strange new ways.

He's so adorable!

This issue is called "The Real Battle of the Atom" which makes me think I'm going to get to read about events that have happened in Marvel in other comic books but through the eyes of Doop and how Doop was involved behind the scenes. Or not so behind the scenes. Or however behind the scenes or not behind the scenes a green potato thing can get.

The issue begins with Doop in a place called Doopspace. He's a marginal character living in the fringes of the Marvel Universe. Currently he's busy writing something and saying, in Doopish, "I want armpits blancmange all over." An alarm goes off screaming, "HI THERE, KITTY!" which gets Doop moving back toward the actual Marvel Universe where boomerangs are faster than bullets and New York is the only city.

Aha! So the phrase "Hello there, Kitty!" was a marker in a current space in time that alerted Doop that he was needed to change something for some reason or other, possibly that "obsession that might change the world" that was mentioned earlier in the comic that I didn't mention.

So Doop is trying to manipulate the time stream for some reason. As the above panel notes, he can drop in anywhere in the Marvel Universe to fuck around. The first panel mentions he has an obsession that might change the world and Doop has an alarm clock that is triggered by certain phrases. So Doop waits for these phrases to be picked up by his clock, alerting him to a happening in time that he needs to manipulate for his own ends.

I think I got this!

Doop arrives, hides in the shadows filming it, and says, "Wild strawberries." Then he pulls the letter he was writing out of himself, says, "Yep. This sums it up," and kisses it.

Oh yeah. Okay. I recognize this obsession. Doop has a crush on Kitty Pryde and has written a letter in English declaring his love for her. I did the exact same thing in ninth grade for Marilyn Mendoza. Except I chickened out and didn't give her the letter. It was just the lyrics to Lionel Richie's "Hello" anyway.

Apparently nobody else (or at least just Kitty) can understand Doopish. Doop actually has the guts to give Kitty the letter while saying, "The Passion of Doop." Aww! The moment is interrupted by jerko Bobby "Iceman" Drake unless his last name is different since I'm not exactly up to the snuff on my Marvel identities.

After Iceman prevents Kitty from reading the letter, stupid Scott Summers from the past takes a Sentinel's eyebeam right in his ass and dies. He's probably not supposed to be dead, so Doop should probably write him a letter or something. Or slap some sense into some healing mutant named Christopher Muse. I don't know that kid at all! Doop leaves the letter with Kitty and travels back through the margins to another place and time. Probably still part of the Battle of the Atom story since that was the title and all.

Doop should travel back to the early eighties and appear in the Wolverine and Kitty Pryde mini-series.

Wolverine flips the fuck out as he's wont to do while Past Bobby tries to figure out how Present Bobby wooed Past Kitty when Present Bobby was Past Bobby. During the chaos, Doop runs off to sabotage the X-Plane so Past Scott and Past Jean, um, i don't know! Get lost in space? I don't know what originally happened but I imagine it's what is going to happen this time because here we're finding out that Doop fiddled with the plane to get whatever happened to happen. "Fix the plot. Fix the plot," says Doop as he fixes the plane.

The next few pages show me that Scott and Jean die in the past (or just Jean because, come on! She's always dying and shit) which is why Past Scott and Past Jean make their escape. Now Present (or Future?) Jean Grey wants Past Kitty Pryde to keep a promise she doesn't know anything about!

I'm sure all of this stuff makes more sense to people that have been following Marvel's comics. But I kind of like not knowing exactly what's going on. I get enough of the story to see how it's playing out and how Doop wants to manipulate things so he can show Kitty that he loves her at just the right moment. Hopefully!

I'm starting to finally think not giving Marilyn the stupid note with "Hello" transcribed on it was the best course of action!

Poor Doop. Is there anybody in the world, real or Marvel or DC, that doesn't have a crush on Kitty Pryde? Seriously.

Instead of telling Doop it could never work for several reasons, Kitty tells Doop that it wouldn't work because he doesn't even speak human and they wouldn't be able to communicate. Which gives Doop a great idea! He tears himself inside out and begins speaking English! Ugh. I imagine her next reason for not marrying him will be that he doesn't have any genitals. I'm not sure I want to see what Doop does to himself to correct that problem.

So that's where this story ends. Doop fiddled with the past so that he could tell Kitty Pryde that he loved her before she wound up dating that idiot Bobby. Kitty declared she wasn't interested but Doop decided to makes a few personal changes so that maybe she'd see reason and realize Doop is the best character for her. Next issue, Kitty probably vomits all over Doop since parts of him are currently rotting in the hall.

This was just too cute not to scan.