Super Special Dooptacular Doop Special.

There are many heroes in the Marvel Universe.

Characters that have captured the imagination of millions across the globe since before the majority of us were born. Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America. To name only a tiny fraction of the many and varied heroes that provide everyone with excitement, entertainment, even inspiration in their everyday lives.

But is there one amongst the legions that shines brighter than the rest? A hero so great we can all aspire to emulate? One amongst the Avengers, Earths Mightiest heroes? Or the Fantastic Four? A team held together by family and love? Is there truly a hero grander than all the others?

No. Just kidding. This article is about Doop.

'But just who is this Doop?' I hear you blithely ask, Ignorant of the absurdity of your question.

Those who are in the know are painfully aware of the floating little green potato looking thing lurking around the pages of Marvel comics. Just look at that lovable little green blob.

He's been kicking around since 2001, a (one can only assume off the cuff) creation of Peter Milligan and Mike Allred in their run on X-Force. You see Joe Quesada had taken over at that point, and various comics were getting overhauls. With British talent Milligan (Penner of some truly classic 2000 AD stories) writing and Madman legend Allred with the pencils, the team that emerged from the duo would turn out to be one of the most surreal in Marvel's history. They would come to be known as the X-Statix.

So what we end up with are a bunch of self-obsessed and morally deficient young heroes with powers ranging from wholly useless to ridiculously specific. They would be killed off left and right, act like immature idiots, and generally be a irresponsible team, albeit one of the most interesting there's ever been. Through the swiftly changing roster, one of the only standbys of the team is their cameraman. Or cameraperson. This little floating green potato that looked a bit like a stop halfway between Slimer and Gary Busey.

You could be dooped into thinking he wasn't important, and although ever-present, he never actually does all that much. But if there was a soul behind the body of the X-Statix, it would be green and Doop shaped. He floats around, rarely doing much more that getting footage of the team going about their business and sneaking shots up the female team-members skirts, occasionally spouting dialogue in a nonsensical wingding that is apparently unintelligible. 

So what exactly are Doop's powers? Who the hell knows? They're super-dooper, how about that? At one time or another he's shown evidence of super strength and resilience, transforming and enlarging his body, dooplicating items, something that seems to resemble creating pocket dimensions in his own body, energy beams, and just plain weirdness like taking himself bodily apart with no physical limitation.

Doopseak remains an enigmatic secret buried far deeper than anything in a Dan Brown novel. In universe, everyone seems to understand it of course, leading to baffling comedy in the reactions to whatever it is the little guy is saying.

In a crossover event with the Avengers near the end of X-Statix's run, Doop is taken hostage by Russian terrorists and turned into an atomic superweapon. Captain America makes a vague reference to something called 'The Doop Project' in the final days of the Cold War. Could Doop possibly be of Soviet Origin? Who the hell knows, we never hear any more on the subject.

That covers literally all we ever really discover about Doop. There's some vague allusions to relatives at one point, but they remain an unsolved mystery. Through thick and thin, Doop remains the  most stalwart member of the team. They send him to deal with a trouble-making prospective member at one point, and Doop does the kid in with an axe. Holy shit, that's some brutal stuff, Doop. He's capable of all sorts of things, including being an ordained Anglican priest and engaging in apparent sexual relationships with She-Hulk and Madonna. He palled around with Wolverine on a noir-style detective romp for a couple of issues, and one time the little guy went toe-to-toe with the Mighty Thor in a confrontation so calamitous it awoke the sleeping Valkyries of Asgard.

So how do salacious tendencies, mystical dialogue, a dooplicitous nature and some incredibly poorly defined powers combine into a cult character shadowing the margins of the Marvel universe?

Who knows, but when the X-Statix had their comic canceled (A criminal travesty as far as I'm concerned), every team member was apparently done to death in the last issue. The issue is chiefly focusing on the more vocal heroes of course, and Doop is seen in the background in one frame, lying sprawled over a chair with a nasty stomach wound.

Could the blob be done in so easily? Was that the end for our hero? Doopsday?

No chance.

Other members of Marvel's creative team took notice of that little chap. In an unrelated comic, somewhere in the multiverse, a passing child might be seen clutching a familiar looking green doll. Jean Grey had an awfully distinctive blob of a keychain one time. In an issue of symbiotic hero Toxin's self titled comic, a scrawl of graffiti in the background proudly reads: Doop Lives.

Was the little blob becoming an almost Christ-like figure within the ethos of the Marvel universe? Not quite, but had he subtly infiltrated the lines between? Indoopitably.

A few years later Doop resurfaced, alive and well, a mysterious entity discovered deep in space speaking in an all too familiar tongue. He reappeared in the Marvel universe not with a bang, but with a whisper. A simple reemergence unquestioned by readers who knew Doop not. Among other things, Doop went on an utterly sdoopid kung-fu adventure with Iron Fist, acted as a criminal investigator to the mutants of Utopia (Driving his victim to tears with an interrogation comprised completely of questions about French cinema) and appeared in a mutant romance special that was truly weird.

Since then, Doop has been appearing in the pages of every mutant based comic there is, apparently having found employment with the Jean Grey School for Higher learning. You'll see him at a desk in front of students, sleeping through one of his own lecture periods, or eating doughnuts in the staff room. He seems to be doing well in the teaching profession. Of course, Doop's employment as staff is purely a front for the real job at the school, that of an undercover security professional, looking out for the safety of the students, and rooting out trouble at the heart of the problem. Logan can count on his old buddy Doop to do what needs gettin' done.

That about brings us up to speed. Marvel NOW is in full swing, and creeping up on us very soon for some strange reason that only the correct alignment of planets could possibly have allowed, Doop is getting his own little limited series. Set during the events of the massive mutant book crossover 'Battle of the Atom' Doop is getting his own slice of the center stage after all this time.

Screw The Avengers, go out and buy your kids (or wife, boyfriend, grandmother, etc) some Doop. They'll love you for it.

You said it man.