A good adaptation will make you reexamine (or reevaluate) the source material. This is why Doom Patrol will endure as a great TV show. It revelled in its comic book-iness in a way that no other comics TV show would ever dare, and amplified the things about the comics that made them so unique. Gerard Way, Jeremy Lambert and Nick Derington have been turning that comics-uniqueness up in Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds, the Young Animal return for the series, and in this exclusive preview, Steve Orlando and Evan “Doc” Shaner step in to add to it.

Steve Orlando is quietly one of the best writers in the business and definitely one of the best things DC has going for it right now. He has been since his work on the Midnighter books, but it’s only been getting better through Justice League of America and now Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter, which feels like a great mid-period Vertigo comic. Here, he uses the Doom Patrol to dive deep into the Doom Patrol formula. We get an alternate future for the team that is also an alternate future comic book, complete with editorial cross referencing to comics that have yet to be published. It’s so great – just straight up wallowing in what it is to be a shared universe superhero book in a way that honors the history of the team and is also something you can only get in this medium.

Orlando’s status as a hot writer has been helped greatly by being paired with some incredible artists – ACO and Hugo Petrus improving on David Aja’s martial arts comic formula on the Midnighter books, and Riley Rossmo’s managed chaos making the perfect Martian Manhunter comic. That’s certainly the case on Doom Patrol. Orlando is working with Doc Shaner, and I spent a good 45 minutes over the weekend thinking about which corner of the DC multiverse Shaner would NOT be a perfect fit for. I came up with…like, Lobo? Maybe? Then again, Shaner is a talented enough artist where I bet he could nail an extended satire of ‘90s superhero comic art. He gets a little bit of everything the DCU has to offer in this issue – street level crime work, weird sci-fi, HUGE sci-fi, superhero beat-em-ups. The only things missing are big mythology and war comics. He, of course, nails all of it. Tamra Bonvillain (who REALLY deserves an Eisner) tells as much of the story with the color art as Shaner’s linework. The muted neon hues are expressive and engrossing.

read more: Everything You Need to Know About Doom Patrol Season 2