With WandaVision airing its series finale, it seemed appropriate to compare it to Doom Patrol, a series by DC that also greatly stands out from normal comic book shows with its bizarre nature and focus on grief and trauma. Both shows have received critical acclaim from fans and excel at feeling different from the normal superhero genre, but which show is better? Let’s find out:
Round 1: Main Characters:
Doom Patrol has six main characters, consisting of Cliff Steele (Brendan Fraser), Larry Trainor (Matt Bomer), Rita Farr (April Bowlby), Victor Stone/Cyborg (Joivan Wade), Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero) and Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton). All of these characters have dark pasts and harbor deep feelings of grief due to what has happened to them. Throughout most of the series, they are at each-other’s throats and almost always messing things up. While sometimes that might seem annoying and tedious in other shows, Doom Patrol makes the main characters’ incompetence work due to the fact that aside from Victor, none of them are actually superheroes. This is their first foray into the realm of heroics and given their conditions and trauma, it is natural for them to fail at it. It is the interactions between each-other that especially elevates the team and makes them so entertaining. All actors have remarkable chemistry with one-another and you absolutely feel the emotional struggle they are going through. With WandaVision, you have Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany). Wanda has created the allusion seen in the show after reaching her breaking point with the amount of grief she has been going through following Vision’s death at the hands of Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War. WandaVision puts Wanda’s morality to the test and for the most part succeeds in making the character compelling. Vision is also very interesting in the series as he is not actually the same one we had seen in the previous MCU films. However, his conflict with Wanda and search for answers keep most viewers on the edge of their seats at several points. WandaVision provides a great amount of intrigue and terrific character development for our two leads. However, the same cannot be said for the other characters. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) is admittedly not as insufferable as she was in the Thor movies, but is still very much annoying and not funny. Monica Rambaeau (Teyonah Parris) starts off with an interesting storyline, but is almost completely wasted towards the end of the series. Then you have Evan Peters as the fake Pietro. When he was first revealed, I was blown away. I was thrilled at the possibilities that his inclusion could lead to in future MCU installments. However, the revelation of him being a random person named “Ralph Bohner” is quite possibly one of the worst payoff moments I have ever seen in a superhero show. As a massive fan of the X-Men movies, I felt ripped off. Maybe some people found it funny, but I was not amused in the slightest. WandaVision has terrific character development for Wanda and Vision, but the writing for the other main characters is lackluster at best. Doom Patrol on the other hand, always keeps the writing for its characters consistent and never once did they stop being interesting.
Winner: Doom Patrol.
Round 2: Villains:
Being a much more episodic show, Doom Patrol has several villains, so I will only use Eric Morden/Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk) for this comparison. Eric Morden started out as a meaningless loser who wished to become one of the greatest supervillains of all time. After his girlfriend (Victoria Blade) leaves him due to his constant string of failures, Morden goes to a Nazi scientist (Julian Richings) to give him superhuman abilities. However, during the experiment, Niles Caulder attempted to destroy the machine with Morden still inside, which caused him to become a deformed monster with reality warping superhuman abilities. Morden developed a grudge against Niles and soon kidnapped him during the first episode of the show, forcing the other main characters to figure out a way to save their chief and take the villain down. Throughout the first season, Mr. Nobody mentally tortures the team, proving himself to be one step ahead of them every time just when it might seem they have found a way to defeat him. However, despite him constantly tormenting the Doom Patrol with their pasts and how they are practically nothing now, it soon becomes clear that Morden is even more of a loser, having even less of a purpose than they do. In addition to having an intriguing backstory and terrifying god-like powers, Mr. Nobody is hilarious, constantly breaking the fourth wall with self-deprecating humor and references to the fact that he is in a superhero show. Tudyk is phenomenal in the role and is easily one of the highlights of Doom Patrol’s first season. With WandaVision, we have Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn). Once a member of a coven of Witches, Agatha killed her fellow members and mother (Kate Forbes) when they tried to execute her for practicing dark magic. During WandaVision, Agatha disguises herself as the nosy neighbor character Agnes, pretending to be a ditzy friend of Wanda, who constantly bursts into their house in a comedic fashion. As the series goes on, “Agnes” adapts to the sitcom environment that changes during each episode, all the while secretly attempting to get information out of Wanda on how she created this hex with her magic. Unlike Mr. Nobody, it isn’t fully revealed if Agatha is the villain until the end of the seventh episode. Unfortunately, it was not very surprising. I was not one of the people who believed that Mephisto or Nightmare would show up, but I was hoping for something a little more satisfying with that reveal. Hahn is clearly having a ball in the role and is extremely entertaining. However, while Hahn is one of the best actors in the show and the song “Agatha All Along” is indeed hilarious, Agatha Harkness is not a very threatening villain. The show attempts to portray her as a scary individual who should be feared. Kathryn Hahn is many things, all of them wonderful, but scary is not one of them. This is also partly due to the writing. It might not have been the best idea to hide such an obvious twist until the seventh installment, and only reveal her backstory in the penultimate episode. The other major villain in WandaVision is Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg), the acting director of S.W.O.R.D. who is little more than a generic military villain with hardly any interesting qualities. This character is one of the most boring villains in the MCU. I don’t understand why this show felt the need to shove in one of the most cliched types of villains in film and television history. While Agatha Harkness is a very fun villain, and Hahn is an absolute joy to watch, it is hard to compete with Mr. Nobody, who manages to present himself as a very intimidating, funny and pathetic villain without taking anything away from the main characters and story.
Winner: Doom Patrol.
Round 3: Humor:
It goes without saying that both of these shows are very different from the normal comic book series and stand out for having a character focused narrative, bizarre tone and very outlandish humor. Doom Patrol is a series that wears its weird nature on its sleeves. Every episode has more than one random and bizarre aspect, with each episode becoming even weirder as the show goes on. One moment you may have a talking cockroach named Ezekiel (Curtis Armstrong) preaching about the apocalypse and the next you will have the team throwing a party for a sentient genderqueer street named Danny. No matter what happens in Doom Patrol, it will always be weird. However, the odd nature of the show is not the only hilarious thing about it. The cast all have remarkable chemistry with each-other and each of them have very funny quirks and lines that never fail to make me laugh. Brendan Fraser is particularly entertaining as Cliff Steele, with him always swearing in frustration at the situations he is forced into. In my opinion, I don’t think there has been an episode of Doom Patrol where any of jokes have missed. With WandaVision, there are several funny moments, particularly coming from Paul Bettany as Vision, who is extremely entertaining during the sitcom parody moments of the show. One episode in particular where he accidentally swallows a piece of gum and starts to act like if he was drunk was especially funny. With a different actor, this might not have been as amusing, but Bettany somehow makes it work. Kathryn Hahn is also very funny when her character is pretending to be Agnes. While she can be a bit annoying at times, she still oozes with charm thanks to Hahn’s performance. However, the other characters suffer in the department of humor on this show. Elizabeth Olsen is clearly trying as Wanda and sometimes manages to get a laugh now and then, but she most of the time comes off as awkward, which was perhaps the intention, but it still did not feel right. The acting and humor coming from Wanda and Vision’s kids Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne) is very cringeworthy, but I won’t be too hard on them since they are still child actors. Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) gets a chuckle once in a while, but he is rather annoying. It’s not like this character can’t be entertaining, as I found him to be one of the funniest characters in Ant Man and The Wasp. However, I think the writing and Park’s surprisingly underwhelming performance hold the character back. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) is just awful. I do not understand why people like this character. I don’t think I will ever understand. I have no doubt that Dennings is a funny actress, but something about her that is the fault of either the writing, or her performance or both just sucks the humor out of every scene she is featured in. I really hope I can finally get a laugh out of this character one day, but I am not holding my breath. Taking away the disappointing reveal in the finale, Evan Peters is very entertaining when he is on screen. The Ralph Bohner joke is one of the most desperate attempts at humor I have ever seen in a television series, but I don’t blame Peters for that. Then there are the sitcom elements. To me, these are very hit and miss. The commercials are great and both manage to be hilarious while also showcasing the tragedy of Wanda’s life. However, the actual episodes attempt to make fun of the classic sitcoms, but fail to make the satire funny. You can poke fun at how cheesy a 1960s sitcom is, but you should still be able to actually make the satire work instead of just doing the exact same thing that is only backed up by the fact that you know this is corny. In my opinion, Doom Patrol does a much better job with its humor, managing to be much funnier without its humor ever seeming out of place.
Winner: Doom Patrol.
Round 4: General Appeal:
I firmly believe that Doom Patrol is a phenomenal show with brilliant writing and fantastic characters. However, I will be the first to admit that it is not for everyone. The tone of the show is very bizarre but also very dark. The characters and their backstories are not exactly family friendly. The characters often use swear words quite a bit. There is honestly no use in counting how many f-bombs are said throughout the show. In addition to massive amount of swearing, there are many scenes in which the show pushes its risqué humor and odd themes to the limit. For me, it never fails to entertain. However, there are definitely other viewers who may find that off-putting. Doom Patrol is a show that is strictly for adults, but even they might have a hard time getting into the show if they cannot stomach the weird nature of the series. WandaVision on the other hand is definitely suitable for the entire family. Taking place in the MCU, most of the adult themes and dark atmosphere are held back to reach a wider audience, which is to be expected with Disney. The tone is also weird like Doom Patrol, but not as extreme and has much less swearing and gross-out humor. If a casual viewer had a choice of watching these two shows, the chances are that they will likely choose to watch WandaVision first. When it comes to general appeal, there really is no contest here. WandaVision easily takes this round.
Winner: WandaVision.
Round 5: Story:
Both WandaVision and Doom Patrol have unique stories that are very different from what had previously been seen from Marvel and DC. Both series also have a large number of mysteries that surround the plot of the show. The story of Doom Patrol’s first season mainly revolves around the team trying to save Niles from Mr. Nobody while also coming to terms with their traumatic pasts and new lives. Throughout the first season, the five main characters along with the audience slowly start to receive hints that Niles is not that good of a person as they might have once believed. During their search for Niles, the Doom Patrol is forced to go up against several other abnormal threats, such as a cult that wishes to kill everyone with a giant eye called the Decreator, a government organization that oppresses anything weird called the Bureau of Normalcy and a Z-list supervillain named the Beard Hunter (Tommy Snider), who has the ability to track down individuals and analyze their fight pattern by eating their facial hair. Each odd threat they come across leads them closer to Niles and Mr. Nobody. Eventually, the team is forced to learn the horrible truth that Niles is responsible for all of their horrific accidents. This drives the team apart and causes them to develop a deep resentment towards him. They only come together in the finale to save Niles’ daughter Dorothy (Abigail Shapiro) from Mr. Nobody’s botched scheme of trying to continue his vendetta against the leader of the Doom Patrol. The finale is balls to the walls insane and over the top, which is quite literally everything a finale to Doom Patrol should be. However, the conflict with Mr. Nobody did not seem to be resolved in a proper way. He is betrayed by the cockroach and rat he teamed up with (don’t ask), and is forced to help the Doom Patrol escape, which ends up trapping him in a painting. The season also ends on something of a cliffhanger where most of the main characters besides Larry are shrunken down to a microscopic level, which serves as a plot point in season 2. As a definite finale, it is rather shaky. WandaVision’s finale suffers for the opposite reason. It has little payoff with most of the story elements it set up (Evan Peters’ Pietro being the biggest offender) and abandons the sitcom aesthetic to do a generic MCU climax. However, the ending wraps up the story in a decent way. While it is highly likely that she and Vision will reunite thanks to his new body and memory restoration, Wanda’s final goodbye with her family still managed to be a tear jerking moment that helps Wanda come to terms with her grief and accept that she may never have a happy life with Vision. I respect the show for taking a very mature approach to this ending. If Wanda does reunite with Vision and her kids, then maybe my enjoyment of this ending will be soured, but for now I’m satisfied. Agatha Harkness also had a fitting ending, with her being forced to play the Agnes character for the rest of her life. The pacing for both shows was also very slow. WandaVision did not give any meaningful answers until the final two episodes while Doom Patrol sprinkled a few answers here and there throughout the season, but still played the long game. Overall, while both of these shows had an incredible story, WandaVision’s felt more complete due to only being one season. Doom Patrol’s overall story was incredible, but because the season ended with a cliffhanger, not everything was able to be wrapped up in a proper way. Overall, it is a very close call, but I have to give the point to WandaVision.
Winner: WandaVision.
Conclusion:
While WandaVision had a better story and general appeal for casual viewers, Doom Patrol had far better characters, villains and comedy. Both series are incredible and prove that comic book shows can mainly focus on its characters and humor instead of having various amounts of action and a grounded tone. However, I believe Doom Patrol is the clear winner of these two shows.
Winner: Doom Patrol.
