The inevitability of death and maxim/cliché of "life goes on" struck me cold in the summer before first grade when I saw this cover. I knew what death was, but--up until that point--hadn't known anybody that had died; in fact, I'd never even been to a funeral before. This cover, though, stuck with me, and for the next several years, whenever my mother would warn me not to do something 'cause I might break my neck and die, my mind flashed back to this cover, and I was always stilled, 'cause I knew that I was to die some day, and that when I did, the world would continue spinning madly on, and that people would press forward with their lives, and I that, of course, would not.
When these motherly admonitions occurred, I'd soon fish out this comic (still got it, too), and I'd notice how the new members of the Doom Patrol (if their name didn't spell out their fate, then the lettering of the word Doom on the cover certainly did) were huddled together behind the grave, impatient, ready for the new Robotman (well, at least a new Robotman frame) to dump the old on so that they could move on. That's what life and death is like, I thought.
Other times, I'd return to this cover, and I'd notice that the eyes of the original Robotman weren't quite lifeless--not like the cold, uncaring, inhuman slits of the the new shell; no, they were far from it. Those eyes display intense sorrow and grief. And the mouth--upside down as it is, it's a grimace (though, conversely and almost perversely, if you turn the comic upside down, then the grimace turns into a grin), further conveying not just the tragedy of the immediate situation, but the tragedy of life itself. What's a fate worse than death? One in which death is not final, one in which death is so much worse than life. On top of that, nobody really cares. Just look at the new Robotman's eyeslits.
Once I realized the ramifications of what stood behind that gaze, I stood numbstruck, and ever since, I've been a fatalistic fellow. Revelations marked the majority of my non-comic, non-required reading time for most of the first and second and third grades. I'd ask my parents question after question concerning doomsday, but their answers were either falsely (to me) optimistic or noncommittal. I was sure I was damned, ripe for the picking, and so I attended church and read my Bible and prayed as much as an elementary-school student could, and in ninth grade, a very close friend died, in a car wreck, killed by a drunk driver, and as I was at his funeral, I looked at the stoic gazes all around, and noticed how everyone just seemed to chitter-chat once my friend's body was committed to the earth, and they seemed to resume normal activity, and I thought about the new Doom Patrol, and their gaze, and I was sure then--as I'd felt since I first saw this when I was six-and-a-half--that the artist was a prophet of doom, and that somehow--somehow--I was at fault.
I returned home from the funeral, went to my room, and I pulled out this comic, and Cliff Steele's eyes were pleading with me, yet there was nothing I could do. I had sinned, and my friend had paid for it, and Robotman was damning me...but it didn't matter anyway, for Reagan was in his last term, and he was sure to cause worldwide nuclear destruction before he last office, just as many of my fellow churchgoers had predicted and prayed for (and I was a Methodist!), and so I decided to put away my comics for good since we all were doomed anyway; no joy could come from reading a comic for those eyes would always bore back at me no matter who drew the comic I looked at. Comic books were too adult, too depressing, so I put them away forever, so I that I could delve into much more lighthearted and life-affirming material: Marlowe, Hawthorne, Poe, and Dostoevsky. Those authors, to me, got it. They knew, too, that we were all doomed anyway, so why not have a little fun? This Jim Aparo guy...looked death straight in her gloomy eyes and did not flinch.
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