Straight from the pages of most of the ‘X-Men’ novels, the strangest mutant of all that lives within the margins of the mutant universe, Doop, is getting his own book. Doop isn’t exactly a mutant as his origin puts him as a Cold War era experiment that was the key cause of the fall of the Societ Union. He is supposidly powerful enough to destroy the planet and fight even Thor to a standstill. On top of that he seems to be able to travel through time and space with ease.

So where does that put us in the ‘All-New Doop’? First off I have to say that if you did not read the ‘Battle of the Atom’ storyline you are going to have NO idea what is going on through half of the issue. It doesn’t matter if you want to know more about Doop, you’ll be lost without it. Thankfully wanting more Doop and having read it this wasn’t an issue for me but I felt the warning was needed.

So why is ‘all-new’ in the title? It could be due to this being an X-Men tie-in character though my money is that they justified it because by the end of the issue, he is all new, but we’ll get to that. First, though, it all begins with a letter. A letter he is trying to get to Kitty Pride to read as he really wants her to know something. For him, it is all about timing and we see how the ‘Battle of the Atom’ actually occurred through Doop’s eyes.

The entire event he is manipulating events with the goal of getting Kitty to have time to safely read the letter he has handed her. From fixing the Blackbird that young Scott and Jean steal to being around for various fights. Some of it he is there to record as he loves to do for mutants but in all honesty none of that really mattered to him aside from his one goal.

It all boils down to the letter and the letter boils down to a proposal. Doop is in love with Kitty, which is something I don’t recall a single hint of prior to this and he wants her to marry him. How does he go about getting her attention? Well it boils down to proposing with a rancid meat made ring and in writing. Talk about an attention getter after she just had both Colossus and Iceman break her heart. She sickeningly turns him down, but does so by saying she couldn’t marry someone who couldn’t speak English.

The “all-new-” promised by the title comes at the end as Doop literally tears himself apart in front of Kitty. (EWW) Why? Because when he is reformed, his always unknown speech is now in English.

It is an interesting take though it does rob Doop of one of his more interesting traits. I’m not sure how he’ll hold up with everyone being able to understand him but I do hope that the entire run of this series won’t take place just during the ‘Battle of the Atom’.

 

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ALL-NEW DOOP #1
Writer: Peter Milligan
Artist: David Lafuente