Dorothy Spinner
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Dorothy Spinner is a fictional character created by Paul Kupperberg and owned by DC Comics. She was a former member of the Doom Patrol with the ability to bring imaginary beings, good and bad, to life. She first appeared in Doom Patrol vol. 2, #14 (November 1988) as a background character until she was made a full member a few issues later.
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[edit] Character History and Background
Dorothy Spinner's mother gave her up for adoption when Dorothy was a baby. She was adopted by a Midwestern couple. Dorothy suffered a facial deformity that gave her the appearance of an ape, complete with hairy arms. Because of this, Dorothy grew up isolated from society, with only her imaginary friends for company. She eventually discovered that she had the power to bring these "friends" to life. Her imaginary friends even taught her how to read and write.
Dorothy's psychological vulnerability made her the perfect target for the Candlemaker, a malignant egregore removed from our plane of existence eons ago who sought to come back through Dorothy's psychic ability. One day, a group of boys had been teasing Dorothy brutally. The Candlemaker appeared in her mind, and when she wished that one of the boys was dead, he happily obliged. The next day, they found the boy disembowelled and crucified in a field. Dorothy would spend the rest of her life blocking the Candlemaker in the deepest part of her mind.
[edit] Kupperburg Run
Dorothy's first comic appearance was in Doom Patrol (vol.2) #14, when the Doom Patrol was swallowed by a Chaos Lord named Pythia. This happened near Dorothy's home and when she went to investigate, she was swallowed by Pythia as well. Inside, she thought she witnessed the Doom Patrol and other heroes being killed, and pelted Pythia with rocks, which caused her pain and destroyed her. Dorothy would turn up again in issue 18 for Celsius's funeral.
[edit] Morrison Run
Starting with the Grant Morrison run of the Doom Patrol, Dorothy became a member. Her first promiment feature as a member was in issue #25, which dealt with Dorothy's first period and the Materioptikon, an old device used by former JLA villain Doctor Destiny.
The device boosted Dorothy's powers and brought back three of her old imaginary friends, Damn All, Darling-Come-Home, and Flying Robert, whom she killed with an imaginary gun.
[edit] The Ant Farm and the Telephone Avatar
During the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and Pentagon saga, Dorothy was on Danny the Street (a living transvestite street) with Josh and Flex Mentallo (The Man of Muscle Mystery) when she's kidnapped by the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and taken to the sub-sub basement of the Pentagon called the Ant Farm. The Ant Farm is a mechanical monstrosity and prison.
Strung up alongside kidnapped psychic Wallace Sage, who created Flex, they were going to be used to summon the Telephone Avatar, an all-powerful being made up of telephone parts. In Dorothy's mind, the Candlemaker appeared once more, and promised that if she let him out for good, he would destroy the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and the Telephone Avatar. Dorothy lapsed, and when she woke up the Candlemaker held true to his promise.
[edit] Brief Candles
Following their departure from the Ant Farm, the Candlemaker began to haunt Dorothy's mind trying to get her to let him out. Dorothy confessed to Josh what had been bothering her and about what the Candlemaker has done in the past. She collapses from the strain he is putting in her mind, and when Josh looks for Niles Caulder, the Chief and head of the DP for help, he is shot by him. When Dorothy finds Josh's body, the Candlemaker tells her that he will bring Josh to life if she lets him out. She does, and Josh is brought back to life, only to be killed seconds later. Dorothy has just unleashed the apocalypse onto the world.
The Candlemaker proceeds to behead the Chief and destroy Cliff Steele's human brain to use his artificial body. But, Cliff's brain was copied onto a floppy disk and inserted into a blank robot body by Willoughby Kipling, who helped the DP during the "Cult of the Unwritten Book" saga. Danny the Street takes Cliff, Dorothy, and Willoughby to a burning down and chaotic New York City.
Only children, lunatics, and those sensitive to the astral plane can see what the Candlemaker is doing to the city. He is destroying the world's soul, or anima mundi, instead of the world itself. This is causing people to go insane. Kipling uses one of his occult devices, a wind-up toy, to track the Candlemaker down to a skyscraper where people are being thrown out of windows and onto the pavement.
They are joined by Crazy Jane and Rebis, two other Doom Patrolers. Jane has multiple personalities, each with a different power, and Rebis is a radioactive hemaphrodite containing a Negative spirit called the Anegima Regis. Rebis has just gone through their reproductive cycle, and Jane's alternate personalities are now powerless. The Candlemaker kills Rebis and tosses Crazy Jane into a vortex to what he call's "Hell", which turns out to be our world. He follows the Doom Patrol on Danny the Street, while Cliff, enraged at the loss of Jane, continues to try and kill him. The Candlemaker rips him to pieces, right after Danny has taken them to the home of Will Magnus, creator of a superhero team of robots called the Metal Men.
Will sends forth one of his new robots, Tungsten, as a diversion. Danny takes them back to the Doom Patrol headquarters and then starts travelling to different places in the world with the Candlemaker still on him as a way to disorient him, but he appears back at headquarters, now on fire and screaming.
Dorothy uses a gun on the Candlemaker but to no effect, but at that moment, computer programmed nanomachines that the Chief had created to cover the world, swarm him. He still goes after Dorothy, but she screams "Why don't you shut up?! Everyone's sick of you!". Now, Kipling comes in, with the egg that Rebis had created, which hatches into Rebis's new body. It attacks the Candlemaker, who is reduced to a single flame that Dorothy puts out.
[edit] Planet Love
The nanomachines that the Chief created plan to swarm the world and create a global catastrophe if they can't be stopped. Cliff intergrates his brain with Caulder's computer and proceeds to shut them down. Danny expands into a world, and the DP is offered to live there. Dorothy refuses, and asks a red balloon to take her into the real world.
[edit] Her Imaginary Friends
The list of her imaginary friends is as followed:
- Damn All: Made of a newspaper crossword puzzle and financial reports with multiple eyes and a big smile.
- Darling-Come-Home: Wears an apron and has the head of a lightbulb's picture. Damn All's wife.
- Flying Robert: A ghost baby balloon thing. Damn All's son.
- The Inky Boys: Three people made up of ink.
- The Candlemaker: An egregore with a candlebaum for a head. It is the world's fear of nuclear holocaust.
- Pretty Miss Dot: Has lipstick fingers, a helmet over her head covered with lips and curlers, and wears a polka dot dress with a belt of shurnken heads.
- Vegans: Three rhyming girls in tribal masks with deer legs who can-can.
- Paddle the Sky: A dark swirling mass of hands with paddles.
- Dark as Morning
- Heart-of-Ice: Can make ice.
- Robotman: Thought he was Robotman.
- Jolly Hangar: Made up of coat hangers.
- Joshua Clay: Complete with chest wound and rotting flesh.
- Cliff Steele: Half man and half machine.
- Niles Caulder
- Honey Pie: Made up of a beehive with branches for arms and legs, and a honey pot for a head.
(Note: Dorothy had created imaginary versions of Joshua Clay, a half-human and half-robot Cliff Steele, and Niles Caulder).
[edit] Powers
Dorothy's power enables her to bring imaginary beings to life, each with its own will and mind. These beings can survive as long as Dorothy is alive but will disappear when they realize what they are. These imaginary friends can be good or bad, and don't have to like Dorothy. This power can also bring about beings who were removed from this plane of being such as the Candlemaker. Also note that her powers tend to go wild when she is having her period.
[edit] Trivia
- Dorothy's name is an injoke referring to Dorothy Gale and how she arrived in Oz, by a tornado, or spinning wind. Also, in her first appearance and in her appearances on the covers of the Doom Patrol graphic novels, Dorothy is dressed like Dorothy Gale.
- Dorothy's facial deformity changes from mild to severe depending on who's drawing her and how it's done.
- The name of some of Dorothy's imaginary friends come from TV, music, and literature.
- Her portrait hangs in Dayton Manor in remembrance of her time as a Doom Patroller.
