80-Page Thursdays: the Doomed and the Damned #1!

Like I think I said on our last 80-pager, I keep getting these on the cheap at EntertainMart. You just have to hold out a bit! From 2020, the Doomed and the Damned #1, featuring stories by Saladin Ahmed, Marv Wolfman, Alyssa Wong, and more; and art by Travis Moore, Baldemar Rivas, Max Fiumara, and more.

"Doomed and the Damned" is a nice riff on "Brave and the Bold," but this issue isn't as grimdark as that title might make you think. The cover pitches it as "Ten twisted team-ups straight from your nightmares!" but hey! Batman doesn't team-up with anybody in his story! Unless you count the nth metal shank Batman says he made with Dr. Fate; somewhere, Hawkman is feeling real left out. Madame Xanadu and Man-Bat join forces to deal with a ghost and a White Martian; Superman and Swamp Thing face a Batman villain (and I may have unintentionally dropped a clue!) and Green Lantern and the Demon grudgingly team-up against an alien demon. (There's some juridictional scuffling there.)

Raven appears in two stories this issue; first with Wonder Woman against Redjac a surly relation; then as the point in a love quadrangle between herself, Beast Boy, Klarion the Witch Boy, and Teekl. (While, as usual, it barely fits in the scanner; you might notice Beast Boy is unusually handsome in his story!) R'as al Ghul and Talia sacrifice Solomon Grundy to recharge a Lazurus Pit; but he may have a longer memory than you would think; and Batgirl--fine, Orphan--teams up with mildly obscure villain Orca to jack up some human traffickers. And there's an unlikely pairing of Frankenstein and Aquaman, in a story involving Mars--J'onn get a day off or something?

Of course, the most fun story is Garth Ennis and PJ Holden on "Darkseid vs. Baytor," in which a quiet drink turns into a chain of disasters for Darkseid. It's the best of the lot, and I'm not just saying that for fear of being cancelled...