Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Father of the Teen Titans, Doom Patrol Passes

Bob Haney, credited with the creation of the Teen Titan, Doom Patrol and Sgt. Rock (among others) passed away on Thanksgiving from complications of a stroke he suffered previously. Newsarama has more details and Mark Evanier has written an obituary .

Truly sorry to hear of his passing. We have once again lost another hero.
I wonder what he thought about Byrne's Doom Patrol?

R.I.P. Bob.

He wrote so many wonderfully bizarre stories that not even the biggest continuity geeks could complain that they didn't "fit".

wow ... he told some cool stories and made some great characters

ARNOLD DRAKE said it was okay to pass on his comments...


"Dreadful news. Bob was a very talented and decent man. We were extremely close for several years. Spent the summer of '65 (I think it was) working on a thriller-satire called "THE ASSASSINATOR". (The word didn't really exist. But we were turned on by its freshness.)

In the Spring of '62, I think it was, Murray Boltinoff asked me to come up with a new superhero to try and save My Greatest Adventure. Overnight I had most of The Doom Patrol
shaped up: a scientific genius in a wheelchair leads a pair of superheroes who don't like being 'freaks'. He cajoles/ taunts them into shaking off their self-pity and using their fantastic qualities to build a better world. When I brought the concept to Murray, Elastigirl and Robotman were well developed. Murray flipped over it and said, "Write it!". But I was convinced I needed one more character. And I had only a weekend in which to find the character and write a 16 page origin story.

Coming out of Murray's office I met Bob in the hall and told him a bit about the DP. He also loved the concept. He had no weekend assignment so he asked if he could help find the third superhero. He was always a pleasure to work with and time was breathing down my neck. I said, "Okay!"

So we sat down and began the search that eventually produced Negative Man. He was, I think, the most unique of the trio. And when I later developed that ghastly glowing figure under the banadages, he really became something else. But Bob was there when we midwifed Neg Man into being,

We wrote a storyline, "tore" it in half and went to our respective homes to write the script. I did the first half and he the second. Back in the city (he lived in Woodstock) we performed minor suregery to make the pieces fit neatly together. I wrote every story on my own after that. But Bob was there on day one and I've spoken of that countless times.

He is a great loss. There was no one I was closer to in the field. Though we saw each other only once ( '99 San Diego ComCon) after he moved to Mexico, I am going to miss him.

This has been a bitch of a year for me. And it doesn't help much to say, "It comes with the territory!"


Called Infantino to give him the bad news and then he gave me another bit: Irwin Donenfeld died about two weeks ago. He'd been very sick for many years. Had his colon removed about 20 years ago. Currently he was under dialysis. So his quality of life was miserable-- despite all his money. Some will say the guy was better off dead. I would say, "That's up to the guy to decide, not us".

Love&knishes"

Thank you for passing that along Prof. I love to hear those 'birthing' stories. And I'm saddened to hear about Irwin Donenfeld. If I recall right he ran DC in the late 60's, taking over from his father (Henry, Harry?) who founded DC.

Your welcome. I hadn't heard it myself, which is why I asked. I'd have posted this at the DC Boards-- except I swore I wasn't going back there ever again...!