“Dead in his arms, dead in his arms” was the lasting memory following the Doom Patrol’s mind bending torture within Mr. Nobody’s haunting world. The donkey is gone, but the traumatic memories conjured inside of it remained, pulsing along the team’s synapses. What’s worse is that the experience left the Doomers with as many leads on Chief’s disappearance as when they went down the donkey hole. There’s always good, old fashioned detective work to fall back on thankfully. Some leg work lead the team to a Paraguayan confrontation with an old enemy of the Chief and the Mr. Nobody’s maker, Dr. Von Fuchs. Nazis have a nasty habit of persisting, but all meet their doom eventually.
A Fortnight’s Journey
The search for the Chief rolls along, with each member of the Doom Patrol carrying it out in their own way. Jane staples a “Lost Chief” poster to a local’s head while Cliff and Rita sort through Chief’s office for clues. Rita finds an old photo of Mr. Nobody’s donkey. Cliff finds his daughter’s contact information. The photo leads Victor, fresh off questioning his memories of the accident that killed his mother, calls a team meeting. He fills them in on Nobody’s past, including his membership in the Brotherhood of Evil in the 1930s and his disappearance in Paraguay in 1948. The revelations lead the team to one conclusion: They’ll find answers in Paraguay.
Getting there might be more difficult than originally thought. Cut off from his dad’s aid, Victor and crew have to make the two-week drive from Ohio to Paraguay. They don’t get anywhere near their destination before an argument between Larry and the energy living within his body renders the engine useless. The group posts up at a roadside motel where tensions soon devolve into bickering and prodding. Flit, another of Jane’s personas, has enough and teleports herself, Cliff and Larry to Paraguay.
Bienvenidos A Fuchtopia
Flit’s knowledge of the Paraguayan criminal underbelly must be extensive as she drops the trio very close to a tourist seeking body modifications. He expounds about wanting “the Morden” though it’s out of his price range. The group hops on a bus with him and arrive at a secret facility staffed by Germans known as Fuchtopia. A puppet show orientation reveals that Fuchtopia is where ex-Nazi doctor Von Fuchs set up shop after the fall of the Reich. The Chief’s connection to Mr. Nobody gets a bit clearer as well as the show depicts Chief shooting Von Fuchs and Nobody during his procedure and stealing a valuable item.
Jane, Cliff and Larry pump the staff for information afterward, but hit a wall when all of their credit cards are declined. Jane offers some of her blood as payment in a last ditch effort. The proposal piques the interest of Von Fuchs, who is being kept alive within a glass box.
At Your Core
Larry discovers the interdimensional chamber used to create Nobody as Jane meets with Von Fuchs. His struggle to co-exist with the energy within him is just another in a pattern spanning all the way back to 1951. He couldn’t commit to his lover due to the fear of homophobic backlash and the continued repression of his sexuality strained his marriage until it withered. Larry’s selfishness leads him to use the chamber in an attempt to restore himself, feeding his selfishness. His constant demands that the energy within succumb to his control flies in the face of Jane’s practice of respecting her many personas individually. The advice ignored, Larry is confronted by the energy, preventing him from leaving the chamber. Larry lashes out about what he loss until his former lover, John, is conjured inside the chamber.
Elsewhere, Von Fuchs’ fascination with Jane’s multiple personalities leads him to offer her assistance with controlling them. Jane refuses his aid but descends to a new level of existential dread when Von Fuchs insinuates the Jane might not be her core persona. She masks the feelings with anger, pointing out Chief’s superiority to Von Fuchs as a scientist. The mere mention of Chief infuriates Von Fuchs and he sicks his staff, extensions of his own personality, on the heroes. A bloody brawl ensues, leaving Von Fuchs and the employees of Fuchtopia dead. Jane and Cliff put aside their self-doubt and appal long enough to retrieve Larry from the chamber and set it on fire.
The One You’re With
Vic and Rita are there to meet them after Silas provided them with a jet. The ride back provides ample time for Larry to finish his recollections. Laid in a radiation quarantine after his accident, Larry is visited by John. He recommits himself to Larry only to have Mister Negative tell him to go, leaving no one else in his life.
Cliff crumples up his daughter’s phone number and tosses it aside while Jane centers herself after Von Fuchs’ assertion. They leave Paraguay in the rear view but fail to remember their tourist friend. He emerges from a chamber with various mutations, including a plant hand and a dinosaur’s head protruding from his shoulder. So much for magnet feet.
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