The Doom Patrol Issue 1 (2026) Recap: A Missing Cat Leads to an Alien Abduction

Published: September 2, 2026 | Publisher: DC Comics | Writer: Darcy Van Poelgeest | Artist: Niko Henrichon

The Doom Patrol Issue 1 launched on September 2, 2026, as part of DC’s new wave of “Next Level” ongoing series, alongside debuts for Legion of Super-Heroes and Teen Titans. Written by Eisner Award winner Darcy Van Poelgeest (Little Bird) with art by Niko Henrichon (Pride of Baghdad), this relaunch gives DC’s strangest team a refreshingly grounded new premise before yanking the rug out from under it.

What Happens in The Doom Patrol Issue 1

The team is broke. To keep the lights on, Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man start taking odd jobs as heroes-for-hire, and The Doom Patrol Issue 1 kicks off with about as low-stakes a case as it gets: an elderly, partially blind woman named Ms. Green hires them to find her missing cat, Milo.

The catch is that Milo is already dead by the time the team gets involved, forcing Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man to quietly swap in a look-alike cat rather than break the bad news to their client. Ms. Green, for her part, insists Milo was abducted by aliens a claim the team initially dismisses as an old woman’s confusion. That assumption falls apart when the group returns with the substitute cat just as a massive UFO descends on the neighborhood, sucking up every house cat in sight. Ms. Green, it turns out, was right all along.

Structurally, the issue moves fast: Van Poelgeest folds in quick, efficient flashback panels establishing the origins of Robotman, Elasti-Girl, and Negative Man so new readers can get oriented without slowing down the main plot. The bulk of the issue plays out with a low-key, melancholy tone team members scraping together rent money and trying not to upset a client before the sudden left turn into cosmic weirdness in the final pages.

Bookending the main story are two more unsettling, deliberately cryptic scenes involving Dr. Niles Caulder, the team’s founder, hinting at a larger mystery that the opening issue doesn’t fully explain yet.

Why This Issue Matters for the Series

The Doom Patrol has built an unusually large audience outside comics thanks to its multi-season HBO adaptation, and this relaunch is clearly designed with that crossover audience in mind. By centering the three most recognizable team members and keeping the plot grounded in everyday problems money, jobs, an old woman’s grief before escalating into full sci-fi strangeness, Van Poelgeest and Henrichon aim to make this one of the most accessible entry points into the property in years.

Niko Henrichon’s art reinforces that tone, leaning into warm, autumnal color work that underscores the team’s financial desperation while still leaving room for the book’s stranger, funnier beats including the UFO sequence and the more off-kilter scenes with Caulder.

Creative Team

Writer: Darcy Van Poelgeest
Artist/Cover Artist: Niko Henrichon
Variant Covers: Clayton Crain (including a foil variant), Ian Bertram, Hayden Sherman, Ashley Wood (1:25 ratio)
Publisher: DC Comics (“Next Level” imprint)