The Doom Patrol sacrificed themselves to an explosion in order to save a small island from General Zahl and Madame Rouge. The Chief secretly erected a force field to save everyone except Elasti-Girl. Robotman survived the explosion, but his body was badly damaged and cast adrift at sea. 

(Doom Patrol V #21 (fb)) - After the Death of the Doom Patrol Doc Magnus decided to explore the Happy Harbor crater. He knew the Chief built Robotman using the specs of the 1940s Robotman Robert Crane, and couldn’t bear to see a part of robotics history being lost, so he sought any of Robotman’s remains. He discovered that Robotman’s head survived the explosion, even though the living brain inside had been damaged. He built a new body for Robotman, woke up his brain, and explained what happened. Robotman flipped out, recalling the death of his friends, so Magnus shut him down and put a mood dampener on the memory of his friends deaths.

(Doom Patrol V #21 (fb)) - A woman named Celsius approached Robotman, telling him she was the Chief’s wife, and that she wanted to form a new Doom Patrol in her husband’s memory. He wasn’t sure what to think, and asked his old friend Super-Hip, now a famous Las Vegas performer, for advice. He said he was considering joining Celsius because he didn’t have anything better to do. Super-Hip told him he was always melodramatic, and he should start considering what he actually wanted out of life.

(DC Comics Presents #52) - Negative Woman lost control of her powers, and her energy form leaked out, covering her body. She flew into a NJ power plant, overloading it, and blacking out half the state. Superman responded, but she flew past him at nearly the speed of light. Villain Ambush Bug made his debut at the Metropolis Day parade, murdering DA Syms, and Superman went to confront him. Negative Woman was destroying the building around the parade, , and after passing through Superman the charge of her body knocked him out. He was woken by the new Doom Patrol, and Ambush Bug tried to incite them to fight before teleporting away. Superman was suspicious of a Doom Patrol he never met, but Robotman vouched for his new teammates, and they asked him for help containing Negative Woman. Ambush Bug kept interfering, attacking them before teleporting away. Superman realized he was using mechanical insects to teleport, and destroyed all of them. Ambush Bug dared Robotman to hit him, and failing to teleport away, he was knocked out. Superman used a lead box to contain Negative Woman until her powers were under control. Her teammates were glad to have her back, but Negative Woman still despaired at the idea of living under chemically treated bandages for the rest of her life.

(Doom Patrol V #21 (fb)) - Robotman decided to be part of Thayer Jost’s Doom Patrol against his better judgment. Jost tried to have Robotman recruit Negative Man, but he had no interest. Jost pressed the issue with Robotman, and asked if it was a money issue, but Robotman told him to leave it alone.

(Doom Patrol V #6 (fb)) - Robotman learned that Chief had resurrected Negative Man, and asked him to be on his all-new Doom Patrol. Negative Man just wanted to be alone and miserable, and Robotman accepted his decision.

(JLA / JSA: Virtue and Vice) - Angkor Wat, Robotman and the Doom Patrol battled citizens under the control of the Seven Deadly Sins. The Sins were defeated by the JLA and JSA, and their influence over the people of Angkor Wat ended.

(Doom Patrol V #6 (fb)) - Chief wanted to bring back the original Doom Patrol, and Robotman and Negative Man were skeptical, but when he revealed that he'd resurrected Elasti-Woman they couldn't say no. She was their dearest friend, and the glue that held the team together.

(Teen Titans III #32 (fb, BTS)) - When Superboy Prime punched the walls of reality he caused havoc with spacetime. Robotman and the Doom Patrol were removed from time and forgotten by the world. The DP even forgot most of their own past.

(Doom Patrol IV #9 (fb)) - <six month ago> Hank Gambol sold the mutant ape Grunt to Cliff and the Doom Patrol for scientific study. Nudge, Grunt’s handler, used her telepathic power to make sure the DP took her along with them so she could care for Grunt.

(JLA #94-99) - With Chief’s old enemies the Tenth Circle making a bid to return to Earth he sent Nudge and Grunt out as bait, knowing Crucifer was collecting metahumans for his vampiric lords to possess. Nudge and Grunt were sickj of the DP, and since they were leaving anyway Chief placed trackers on them. Negative Man tried to stop one of the Tenth Circle’s abductions, but failed. Green Lantern John Stewart was also on the case, and he informed the JLA that the DP were also pursuing the Tenth Circle. Batman and the JLA went to the DP’s Key Mordaz hq to compare notes. Chief’s tech was able to find Atom in Manitou Raven’s telling stones, where he’d found a side-door dimension that Crucifer used for transporting his cultists. The JLA, Cliff and DP teamed up and confronted Crucifer in Barnes, Saskatchewan, where he prepared to transfer the souls of his vampire lords into the metahuman children he’d collected. The heroes drove him off, and Atom destroyed the vessel containing Crucifer’s heart he had stored in the side-door dimension. Crucifer was weakened enough for Superman to break Crucifer’s hold over him and destroy him.

(Doom Patrol IV #1, 2) - Robotman and the Doom Patrol responded to a disturbance at the abandoned penitentiary where the Chief kept old DP villains. Wormhole had freed Barrage, Megalith, and Snake, and they allowed themselves to be possessed by vampire masters of the Tenth Circle and captured the Chief. The DP found themselves on the losing end of the battle, and Robotman was disturbed to be fighting Snake, a woman with whom he had a past. Faith and Nudge expelled the vampires from their host bodies and exposed them to sunlight, destroying them. The DP followed Wormhole to Crucifer’s mansion, where the JLA were waiting for the villain. They destroyed Wormhole by exposing him to sunlight, and the JLA destroyed Crucifer’s mansion.

(Doom Patrol IV #3, 4) - Chief sent Cliff and the DP to the Soames Lake Project in the South Pole after the base was attacked by monstrous beings. The DP contended with more of the monsters that originated from the underground lake, but the monsters quickly died when exposed to the environment. Rita and Cliff went underground to examine the lake, but they lost radio contact with the Chief and found themselves surrounded by monsters. They found that the creatures were prehistoric, and having been made aware of surface life they’d created toxins to destroy humanity. Cliff knew they were vulnerable to environmental changes, so he released the waste toxins from his brain into the water, exterminating ever last creature.

(Doom Patrol IV #5, 6) - Nudge found a broadcast of an underground fight club using robots with human brains, and Chief sent her, Rita and Cliff undercover to infiltrate it. Chief designed a clunkier blue body for Cliff as a disguise. At the fight club Nudge convinced the operators that they were legit, and entered “Blue Steel” Cliff into against a number of champions, including Slice and Dice. Technicians convinced Cliff to take an electrical zapper that would ease his phantom pains, but was extremely addictive. Dr. Verdalian, who ran the club, recognized Cliff as the Chief’s handiwork and tried to kill him and Rita. The battle went against him, so he detonated explosives through the club and fled, seemingly dying himself in an explosion. After Negative Man encountered a dinosaur and Chief heard of worldwide dinosaur attacks, the DP had their next mission.

(Doom Patrol IV #7, 8) - Cliff and the DP celebrated Christmas together, but the party was cut short when the Chief located Harbor City, Oregon as the center of the dinosaur attack. The DP went to Oregon and fought prehistoric creatures that had been devolved from a dog and pigeons. The Devolutionists devolved Rita and Cliff into mindless apes, and they turned against their teammates, with Cliff badly injuring Grunt. Nudge used her telepathy to call the JLA for help, and Martian Manhunter responded, but was also devolved. The effects of devolving wore off, and the DP caught two Devolutionists. Manhunter took the location of their mater from their mind, and after battling an army of dinosaurs Vortex confronted the master and killed him, but told the DP the master had fled.

(Doom Patrol IV #9-12) - As a favor to his old friend Simon Stagg the Chief sent Cliff and the DP to West Texas, where Metamorpho was going on a rampage. Stag tried to increase Metamorpho’s power, but caused a runaway chemical reaction inside him that made him grow to gigantic portions and loe his senses. The DP battled Metamorpho, but had no luck halting him. Chief realized they needed to speed up his chemical reaction, so he exposed him to a number of chemicals until Metamorpho returned to normal. Nudge sent a red alert to the DP after locating Grunt, and they went to find her. The DP rescued Grunt and Nudge, who were being pursued by the police, and Nudge revealed her history to her teammate before leaving Grunt in the care of his parents. Chief’s old enemy T’Oombala broke into Key Mordaz, freed a number of imprisoned DP villains, and tortured the Chief. The DP and Metamorpho defeated T’Oombala’s servants, and Nudge’s ghostly friend Elihu stabbed T’Oombala, releasing his hold over the Chief.

(Doom Patrol IV #13, 14) - Chief’s robotic drones repaired his body, and he showed the DP an experiment that let a mouse’s mind travel back in time to inhabit its’ past body and apply its’ future learning. Cliff used this process to prevent his accident that made him Robotman. Rita traveled back in time and professed her love for Cliff, but she was still in her thirteen-year-old body, and the police became suspicious of Cliff’s relation to her and put him in jail, making him miss the race that made him Robotman and inadvertently creating a series of new timelines. He became unstuck in time, going from timeline to timeline, including an apocalyptic future where the DP had declared war on humanity, and a utopian universe set in the 1960s. In the present day the Chief realized the damage Cliff had done and sent Rita back in time, but tethered her to the present so he could retrieve Cliff. The Justice League of an alternate timeline helped Cliff and Rita return to their rightful timeline, and Cliff made sure he was in the accident that made him Robotman. This eliminated the new timelines, and Chief decided to destroy his time machine. Rita told Cliff she’d been in love with him forever, and they spent the night together.

(Doom Patrol IV #15-18) - Cliff and Rita enjoyed a date in Sun City when the S.C.U. alerted them to the appearance of Gregory Donovan, a newborn mutant whose energy sapping powers killed an entire maternity ward and prematurely aged him. Despite the DP’ best efforts to track him down, Donovan left a body count in his wake, and when they found him he’d exhausted his powers and was dead. Vortex took Nudge to Chief after she saw Vortex’ true face, and she seemed brain-dead, but soon revived with the five separate minds he’d absorbed when he amplified her powers with Boost possessing her body. She made short work of the DP, but Vortex’ people, who’d been looking for him, arrived and took her out of action. They determined that Larry’s Negative Man was one of their own. They accidentally merged with Negative Man, causing him to grow to gigantic proportion and burst from DP hq, , before going to Florida’s mainland an sapping the lifeforce of its citizens. The DP rallied, and Rita grew to her maximum size to fight Negative Man, but was exposed to enough radiation to severely injure her. Cliff shared the life energy that powered his body to save her. Chief stopped the Negative Man’s rampage using a device that sapped chronomorphic energy, once again separating Vortex’ people, who returned to their own time with Vortex and Negative Man. Grunt rejoined the DP, and Chief took in Nudge’s brother to train because he demonstrated mutant power.

(Teen Titans III #32) - Robotman and the DP aided the Teen Titans and JSA in a fight against Superboy Prime, who was trying to kill Superboy and take his place. The rupture in spacetime that made the world forget about the DP closed, and the DP experienced a rush of memories as they too remembered their own past.

(Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime #1) - An army of Earth's heroes, including Robotman and the Doom Patrol, appeared to take Superboy-Prime down during the Sinestro Corps invasion of Earth. The heroes focused on wrecking his armor, because after a year on Oa, and away from a yellow sun his Kryptonian body still wasn't at full strength, and his armor collected sunlight. Superboy bragged that once the sun rose on Earth he'd be at full power. Superboy was battered by Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman, who blamed him for Superboy's death, as well as Supergirl and Power Girl, who blamed him for the death of the Superman of Earth-2. As the fight went against him, Superboy broke down in tears. He tried to wipe them away, saying that it was impossible foir boys to cry, and then whining that no one ever thanked him for sacrificing his Earth to save the multiverse. The battle lasted until dawn, and he flew into the sunrise. As he achieved full power he declared himself the one, true Superman. The Guardians arrived with Sodam Yat, the new Ion, and pitted him against Superboy-Prime.

(Titans East Special #1) - Cyborg recruited a new roster of young heroes and contacted his old friends to reform the Titans and train them. Rootman was with Changeling when he said no, and it seemed like no one was interested in Cyborg’s idea.

(Doom Patrol V #1, 6 (fb)) - Chief reformed the Doom Patrol, operating out of, and working for the newly sovereign nation of Oolong Island. The Doom Patrol and Oolong security took care of a group of infected humans who were on a rampage. The DP were becoming emotionally unstable, and Chief made plans to mold them into what he wanted. Cliff was becoming increasingly detached from everyone around him. He hired Father Leslie Davis to be their chaplain, and to give him information on what was going on in his team's minds. Chief's first mission for the DP was to have them fly to Buena Suerte and destroy the lab of mad scientist Botfly, who was bioengineering a monstrous army. The team succeeded, but Nudge died during the mission, and Grunt was left behind in Suerte. Chief had Davis talk to them, but no one seems overly bothered by her death. Davis told Chief he was worried that his team had a death wish, and Chief responded that it was for the best if they didn't overly value their health if they were to be effective pawns for him. Chief was contacted by Dr. Ackerman, the mind behind the VULCAN collider. He told Chief the collider had created a miniature black hole, and it wanted to negotiate Earth's survival.

(Doom Patrol V #7, 8 (fb)) - The makeshift Boom Tube put the DP in the thick of the Black Lantern war, and they participated in the final battle of Earth’s heroes against the Lanterns. The DP ended up in Coast City in the wreckage of the Black Lantern’s war, and asked for transportation back to Oolong.

(Doom Patrol V #6) - Elasti-Girl comforted Negative Man when he was having an identity crisis, no longer even seeing himself as Larry Trainor after his series of deaths and resurrections. He saw her as the little sister he never wanted.

(Doom Patrol V #8, 9) - Dusty talked to Robotman in the aftermath of the Black Lantern’s war on Earth, and asked him how it felt to fight his own resurrected human form. He asked her if she ever wanted anything so bad that it blotted out everything else. Robotman told her he’d finally given up on the idea of being human again, and she said a man was the sum total of the decisions he made in life. The Doom Patrol got a delivery from Oberon’s moving company, their mementos from Dayton Manor, including a portal to Danny the Street. The MSE, pan-galactic construction workers, had destroyed Danny, but Danny gave a brick to Crazy Jane to deliver to the DP so they could rebuild him. The MSE came through the Danny portal to Earth, and claimed eminent domain on the dimension, so the DP were forced to battle them. The amount of resistance forced the MSE to do a cost analysis scenario. They determined that Earth and its multiverse had been made structurally unstable by numerous crises that weakened the integrity of the multiverse by repeated rebooting. They abandoned Earth, but left up a MSE sign designating it a waste plane that could be used as a dumping ground for other dimensions. Crazy Jane used Danny the Brick to construct Danny the Bungalow.

(Doom Patrol V #10-12) - Robotman and Negative Man caught up with Crazy Jane, and since her life in Danny the World was gone, they readily welcomed her back as family. A dysfunctional family, but the only one they had. Chief wanted to talk to Crazy Jane, but Robotman warned her to stay far away from him. The villain Porcelain Doll arrived on Oolong, gunning for Chief under the orders of Mr. Somebody. The DP stopped her, but wondered about her motivations. She tried to teleport away to Jost Enterprises, but Elasti-Girl took her teleportation device and confronted Somebody’s henchmen. She was taken captive, and Mr. Somebody, in control of billionaire philanthropist Thayer Jost, used the opportunity to call a press conference. He debuted his superteam the Front Men, and demanded the Doom Patrol release Porcelain Doll from Oolong. He painted the DP as villains, showing edited footage of Elasti-Girl’s attack on Jost Enterprises. The DP wanted Rita back immediately, so they visited Danny The Bungalow’s new resident Ambush Bug, and had him teleport them to Jost Enterprises. The remaining Front Men quickly fought them to a standstill, and Botfly threatened to kill Rita if they didn’t surrender. They teleported Porcelain Doll to Jost Enterprises and traded their captives. Jost revealed himself as Mr. Somebody and explained that he’d be building his Front Men’s reputation on the DP’s backs, and had them attack the DP. Their fight spread all over Sacramento, resulting in collateral damage, and lots of negative press for the DP, especially when Somebody called the media to claim the DP attacked them unprovoked. Somebody called up Chief on Oolong, and let him know he’d purposefully paired each of his team members against each DP member. Their Front Men suits were keyed to deliver a lethal blow to the wearer when each DP member used a certain ability. He was prepared to sacrifice his team for his own ends, but knew Chief didn’t want the DP to appear to be murderers. Chief demanded that the DP retreat, and the Front Men were victorious. The DP had a sour taste in their mouths over the whole affair, but agreed to talk to each other instead of slinking off to be alone as they had been recently.

(Doom Patrol V #13) - Elasti-Girl remembered that she was the one original DP member who actually died, and Chief grew an organic protoplasm version of her from a skull fragment left in Codsville. She shared her disassociation with Robotman and Negative Man, not wanting to keep anything from them. They sympathized, because neither of them was in their original body or their original selves anymore. None of them were happy with Chief, but when Robotman confronted him, he said with confidence that he’d acted with the DP in mind in recreating Rita, and in letting her figure it out for herself that she was a recreation of the original. Robotman told Elasti-Girl that she was still Rita as far as he was concerned.

(Doom Patrol V #14, 15) - Elasti-Girl finally confronted Mento, and flung him into the sea, and Robotman broke his fall so he wouldn’t die. He made it clear he wanted him dead as bad as Rita did for what he did to her, but he knew Rita would be guilt-stricken if she became a murderer. The DP convened to talk some more, and realized that even though they had some hard knocks, they had each other, and that was enough to keep them going. Chief was monitoring them, and worried they’d slip from his control. He conducted an experiment to give himself Kryptonian powers and attacked his team. He ripped off Robotman’s head, cut Elasti-Woman in half, and killed Negative Man, sending the negative energy to the last of the reserve bodies Chief had prepared for him. Chief let them know he could have killed them, but chose not to. They were obsolete to him now that he possessed Kryptonian power, and he flew off, warning them not to interfere in his goal of saving the world from itself. Chief disarmed all the nations of the world, and stockpiled the artillery in Antarctica. He met with the U.N. and said he was the father of the world now. Over the DP’s objections Veronica Cale nationalized them and set out after Chief, using contingency plans for dealing with Superman. The DP were taken apart until Millicent, Chief’s computer on Oolong, took control of Robotman and had him goad Chief, mocking his notion that he was the DP’s father when he was abusive and manipulative. She sent out rapid light pulse subliminals from Cliff’s eyes, shutting down Chief’s brain. Millicent said Chief had given her failsafes, and when he gave himself Kryptonian powers his mind had been altered by the Kryptonian template he used, driving him mad. Chief was locked away on Oolong by the Science Squad, and Robotman was glad the DP would no longer be under Chief’s thumb, but Rita wasn’t so sure.

Comments: Created by Arnold Drake, Bob Haney & Bruno Premani

Robotman received a profile in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #19. He received a profile in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #7 under the Doom Patrol I and Doom Patrol II entries.

JLA #94 initially rebooted Robotman and the Doom Patrol, removing their previous appearances from continuity, but Teen Titans later retconned this reboot explaining that everyone in the world, including the DP, forgot about the DP's history when Superboy Prime unleashed a continuity wave. This probably removed the flashback sequences (which gave a new origin for the Doom Patrol member) from Doom Patrol IV from continuity, unless they were false memories generated by the continuity wave. For the sake of completeness, here were Robotman's flashback appearances in DP IV.

(Doom Patrol IV #12 (fb) <13 years ago> Cliff crashed during a race, and although his body was destroyed, trhe Chief saved his brain.

(Doom Patrol IV #2 (fb)) - <five years ago> Chief woke up Cliff Steele’s brain, and connected it to a voicebox. Rita knew Cliff fealt utterly disconnected, and staid to talk with him.

Robotman had cameos in Beast Boy #1, 3, JLA #27 and Titans II #17.

All characters mentioned or pictured are ™  and © DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please visit The Official DC Comics Site at: http://www.batman.com