Summary
- Doom Patrol #5 introduces a new villain, Brian McClane, even worse than Lex Luthor, who uses gruesome experimentation to create designer metahumans.
- Unlike Lex Luthor, McClane espouses the idea that disaster can improve humanity, making him a dangerous threat to the DC Universe.
- McClane’s greed and unethical acts make him a character willing to do anything for money, which poses a potential danger to both superheroes and society at large.
Warning! spoilers for Unstoppable Doom Patrol #5 Ahead!The Doom Patrol discovered the one crazy billionaire who’s kinda worse than superman biggest enemy. The Patrol’s newest villain is the only person in the DC Universe who makes Lex Luthor look good in comparison.
Since Superman’s debut, he has been repeatedly angered by his longtime nemesis Lex Luthor. One of the most ruthless businessmen in the DC Universe, Lex has used his company LexCorp to support his criminal ventures. He may not have superpowers, but Lex is one of the most intelligent and resourceful people alive, making him a danger even for someone as powerful as the Man of Steel. Superman has thwarted Lex’s most insidious plans, but the villain always comes back with a different plan to gain godlike power or finally kill his hated enemy.
The Doom Patrol just met a sleazier version of Lex Luthor
In Unstoppable Doom Patrol #5 by Dennis Culver and Chris Burnham, the world’s strangest heroes have come to the small town of New Poplar, Illinois. The city is actually a front for Metagen, the company that’s been experimenting with the world’s new metahumans ever since Lazarus planet. While Robotman and Elasti-Woman take on the robots posing as townspeople, Jane meets Metagen CEO Brian McClane in her main character Niles Caulder and Degenerate. McClane sends Jane and Degenerate to speak to Niles Caulder. McClane reveals that he was inspired by Caulder’s work on catastrophe theory and used it as the basis for creating Metagen’s ultimate product: designer metahumans. McClane presents a prototype named Metawoman whose abilities go haywire in the field, causing her to undergo a violent and painful transformation. McClane promises that Metagene’s next attempts will be better and reveals that the team did indeed interact with a robotic proxy.
Granted, it’s not as if Lex Luthor never benefited from cruel and inhumane experimentation before. Just last year, he killed Manchester Black to harness the anti-hero’s powers and erase the world’s memory that Clark Kent and Superman were one and the same person. And that’s just the tip of his numerous unethical acts. Brian McClane and Lex Luthor are clearly cut from the same cloth: greedy “visionaries” who believe they can lead humanity into a new era. But unlike Lex, McClane espouses an ideology that even the former leader of the Doom Patrol rejected: the idea that disaster can improve humanity.
DC’s newest Lex Luthor is a threat to Earth
Former Doom Patrol boss Niles Caulder once believed in the catastrophe theory, the idea that extreme trauma could unleash the powers of the metagene. But while Caulder eventually rejected that theory, McClane wholeheartedly embraced it to help him build a business that has brought pain and torment to the many new metahumans inhabiting the DC Universe today. Lex Luthor is no saint, but he’s more into science. McClane is simply taking advantage of a phenomenon to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible. Lex is bad enough as it is, so a similar character with even worse standards could spell trouble for the DC Universe. Fans can see more of the smaller copy superman nemesis in Unstoppable Doom Patrol #5now on special offer.
Source : screenrant.com