Season 3 of Doom Patrol just wrapped up on HBO Max, providing fans with yet another series of deliciously odd, funny, and touching episodes like no other show can offer. Throughout this season, Cliff Steele (Brendan Fraser), Jane (Diane Guerrero), Rita Farr (April Bowlby), Larry Trainor (Matt Bomer), and Cyborg (Joivan Wade) had to face off against pretentious artists, shapeshifters that can turn into ottomans, and the representation of their innermost traumas and fears, all the while dealing with emotional turmoil, raising a baby alien larva, and the first symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Yeah, it sounds like a real mess, but that’s precisely why we love it. Doom Patrol is the weird kind of entertainment we never knew we needed, a series in which a sentence like “It’s just vomit!” can be uttered with relief without anyone batting an eye, and in which viewers find room to laugh and cry at stories that are just as strange as they are sincere.
Making Doom Patrol the chaotic beauty that it is takes a whole village inside a donkey's ass. However, even if protagonists and extras alike all contribute to this masterpiece of superhero television, it’s the bad guys that give Doom Patrol the extra sauce it needs to become truly special. Well, maybe not the bad guys: some of the entries on this list don’t even have a human sense of morality. But, either way, the show would certainly not be the same without its iconic antagonists. To celebrate them, here’s a ranked list of the weirdest foes the Patrol has had to fight over the course of the show, from the most run-of-the-mill to the trauma-inducing bizarre.
Alas, Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man (Alec Mapa) never faced the Patrol in person and, therefore, didn't make the cut.
10. Mr. Nobody
The big bad of Season 1, Eric Morden (Alan Tudyk) became known as Mr. Nobody after he underwent a failed procedure at Fuchtopia that granted him powers akin to those of a god. His girlfriend then dumped him, stating that he would never amount to anything and would always be a nobody. After undergoing the procedure that would eventually be named after him, Morden gained the abilities of time traveling, reality-bending, and breaking the fourth wall, which grants him the position of Season 1’s narrator as well as the main antagonist. However, Mr. Nobody is such an insufferable loser that not only does he get the boot from his girlfriend, he’s also kicked out of two brotherhoods of evil. The first one is the Brotherhood of Evil, in which he is replaced by Monsieur Mallah. The second is the Brotherhood of Dangerous Animals, which he forms with Ezekiel and Admiral Whiskers. Getting fired from his own evil organization prompts a change of heart in Morden, who agrees to work with the Doom Patrol to defeat his former allies. The last time we hear from him is in Season 2, in which we are told he’s gotten a role in another show - perhaps through his fourth-wall-breaking powers.
9. Monsieur Mallah and the Brain
Played by a mysterious voice actor not credited in the show, the Brain is one of Niles Caulder’s (Timothy Dalton) sworn enemies and the founder of the Brotherhood of Evil, the organization behind many of the foes the Patrol has faced over the course of its existence, including Madame Rouge (Michelle Gomez). The Brain's right arm is Monsieur Mallah, a supersmart French-speaking gorilla dressed as a guerilla fighter. Besides their evil deeds, the pair is also known for recording at least one studio album, The Brotherhood: Live!. One of the record’s tracks - a cover of Joe Dassin’s “Champs Elysées” - plays in Season 3, Episode 9, “Evil Patrol”. However, the strangest thing about Monsieur Mallah and the Brain isn’t their looks nor their record deal, but the fact that they retired to Florida. After all, how many supervillains can claim dancing with the widow in unit J as the endgame of their latest act?
8. Sturmbannführer Heinrich Von Fuchs
Nazi scientists are understandably pretty common villains in various kinds of media. But, even though they are all equal in madness and cruelty, Heinrich Von Fuchs (Julian Richings) alone gets the prize for outstanding performance in the bizarre. The creator of Mr. Nobody and the much less threatening Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man moved to Paraguay after World War II and became known as Señor Martinez until he opened his human experimentation facility, Fuchtopia. He promised to grant metahuman powers to regular people - for a considerable fee, of course. There, through means that are known only by Von Fuchs, he divided his conscience between numerous young bodies, creating a cult in which he’s both the leader and the followers. When the Doom Patrol got to him, his real body was kept inside a glass box with a vent powered manually by a crank. As if all of that wasn’t enough, Von Fuchs subjects all of his visitors to a puppet show telling his origin story upon their arrival at Fuchtopia. Yikes!
7. The Decreator
This one is a little tricky because, when push comes to shove, who’s weirder: the Decreator or the cult that wishes to summon him? Well, as unnerving as end-of-the-world cults might be, the Cult of the Unwritten Book has nothing on a giant eye appearing in the sky to kill off all living things one by one. The Decreator is a being born of the faith of its followers, who believe him to be the shadow cast by the very first light created by God. He is summoned after the Little Sisters of Our Lady the Razor read out loud of the aforementioned Unwritten Book, which is actually a teenage boy called Elliot Patterson (Ted Sutherland). Once released, the Decreator can only be defeated by an entity of similar power called the Recreator, summoned by the reading of a sacred pug, courtesy of Willoughby (Mark Sheppard) and Dr. Harrison. After the ceremony is performed, Decreator and Recreator become forever stuck in a staring contest right above our heads, guaranteeing the world’s safety.
6. The Sisterhood of Dada
All artists are at least a little bit eccentric, and the Sisterhood of Dada is no exception. Though other characters have also been a part of the Sisterhood in the past like Malcolm (Micah Joe Parker), Madame Rouge, and our very own Rita Farr, the group is formed at its core by Shelley (Wynn Everett), Lloyd (Miles Mussenden), Sachiko (Gina Hiraizumi), and Holly (Anita Kalathara). They first got together in the aftermath of World War I, while under the custody of the Bureau of Normalcy. Categorized as non-weapons, these metahumans performed menial tasks for the Bureau, like sorting out the mail, and began gathering at night to party and create profound or nonsensical works of art, depending on your point of view. And it’s their art that makes the Sisterhood stand out even among Doom Patrol antagonists: Though their powers can seem pretty regular to anyone that has ever watched a superhero show before, they don’t actually want to use them for evil purposes. All the Sisterhood of Dada wants is to change the world through its magnum opus: A worldwide deep-dive into the subconscious mind known as the Eternal Flagellation. Isn’t it strangely beautiful, and beautifully strange?
5. The Scants
These tiny, pink humanoids appear in Season 2, Episode 7, “Dumb Patrol”. They are pests that survive and reproduce by planting stupid ideas in the minds of those they infect. Little by little, the ideas are accepted by the afflicted person as actually good ones, and the brain begins to secrete a substance called idyat, which the scant drones turn into uma jelly to feed the Scant Queen (Jhemma Ziegler). They don’t have much else going on for them in terms of weirdness, but, honestly, they don’t need it.
4. Dr. Tyme
Through the power of a substance called continuinium, stored in his clock-shaped helmet, Dr. Jonathan Tyme (Dan Martin) has the ability to control time and travel between different eras of human history. How does he use those abilities, you ask? Well, he traps cavemen, samurai, and disco dancers alike in a pocket dimension continuously blasting disco music. According to him, humanity reached its peak in 1980, right at the time Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” hit the top of the charts. This is the time he has chosen to relive forever in his own private universe, and he doesn’t mind anyone barging in as long as they’re willing to boogie. Unfortunately, the Doom Patrol doesn’t boogie: what they want is some of that sweet, sweet continuinium he keeps in that helmet that is, in fact, his head. Groovy!
3. The Beard Hunter
Not everyone hits the jackpot in the superpower lottery. However, sometimes, what may seem like a disgusting, useless ability might prove to be a threatening, much sought after power. Ernest Franklin (Tommy Snider) can track down any man better than a GPS device and discover things about him that he’s managed to keep hidden even from his social media algorithms. But, in order to do that, the fittingly called Beard Hunter must ingest at least one strand of facial hair belonging to said man. Thankfully, what would certainly be a dealbreaker for many is a true bonus for Franklin, since he takes sexual pleasure in eating the beards and mustaches of his targets. It’s a win-win scenario! Sadly, though, Ernest Franklin suffers from a hormone disorder that makes him unable to grow his own facial hair, which means that the Beard Hunter will never know his own thoughts and feelings, nor will he ever be able to truly find himself.
2. Ezekiel, the Cockroach
The deeply religious Ezekiel, the Cockroach (Curtis Amstrong), always believed himself to be destined for great things. After witnessing Apocalypse-like events such as the summoning of the Decreator and the disappearance of the entire town of Cloverton, including himself, into a donkey's ass, he joined forces with Mr. Nobody. Their aim was to bring forth the end of humankind, which, in his opinion, was already overstaying its welcome on planet Earth. Alongside Mr. Nobody and Admiral Whiskers, Ezekiel forms the Brotherhood of the Dangerous Animals. Enlarged to a massive size by a scared Dorothy (Abigail Shapiro), he and Admiral Whiskers decide to take matters into their own hands, kicking Nobody out of the alliance. But, unfortunately for Ezekiel, he’s betrayed by his own heart. First it’s his conceited sense of religion that allows Morden to convince him that he has become God and, thus, should eat the entire Doom Patrol. Then, it’s his love for the Admiral that compels him into a passionate kiss, allowing Cliff to escape into his body from the rat’s stomach. Back to his normal size, Ezekiel is then killed by Cyborg, who opens a hole in his exoskeleton to allow the Patrol out. A sad, but fair ending for a cockroach that, unlike others of his kind, couldn’t survive the Apocalypse.
1. The Butts
“The butts are loose” is a sentence that strikes fear in the hearts of all employees of the Bureau of Normalcy, and that makes even the grouchiest of audience members crack a smile. However, as horrible as those men and women at the Ant Farm are, the butts are no laughing matter. They first appear in Season 1, Episode 12, “Cyborg Patrol”. During a mass escape from the Bureau of Normalcy’s prison/experimentation compound, orchestrated by the Doom Patrol and Dr. Stone (Phil Morris), these toothy killer butts get out of their cells alongside other metahumans and proceed to attack the Ant Farm’s staff. They make a comeback in Season 3, Episode 4, “Undead Patrol”, led by former Bureau agent Darren Jones (Jon Briddell), now a proud were-butt himself. It’s a zombified Jane that comes up with a way to deal with the creatures for good: they have to eat the butts. Literally. Doesn’t get much more uncomfortable than that, huh?