collected edition shows, the Patrol's perennial villain "Mister Nobody" is seen wearing a Santa hat in a few panels, and apparently the story does take place at Christmas, since the chimerical character is seen giving away a toy-store's merchandise to thrilled kiddies. However, there's not much Yuletide content in the three issues. Nobody and his comical cronies also parody the Last Supper, though that theme would seem to have more to do with Easter.
To be sure, the date that most concerns writer Grant Morrison in this sequence is not December 25, but Election Day 1976, when some parodists, probably associated with the Yippies, started the first "Nobody for President" movement. Morrison doesn't directly reference that historical event, but "Hofmann" is a positive ode to all things Yippie-ish, and to all aspects of the counterculture's determination to break down "the doors of perception." For instance, the "Hofmann" of the title is not the horror-story writer associated with the famous opera, but Albert Hofmann, the Swiss scientist who first synthesized and ingested LSD.
Mister Nobody, originally a minor functionary in the Silver Age DOOM PATROL, was re-imagined by Morrison and artist Richard Case as an opponent for their version of the Patrol. However, whereas the original Patrol had contended against the preachily named group of villains known as "the Brotherhood of Evil," Mister Nobody brought together a bunch of freaky fiends to become his "Brotherhood of Dada." Though his original group were exiled from Earth, Nobody returns to the mortal plane, and promptly recruits yet another merry band of pranksters, and then decides to run for president of the United States. The members of the current Doom Patrol-- Robotman, Rebis, and Crazy Jane-- don't quite know how to deal with this non-destructive rampage, any more than cops of the sixties and seventies knew how to cope with the planned insanity of the Yippies.
As in most if not all of his DOOM PATROL scripts, Morrison firmly endorses an ethics of ecstasy and resistance to the "tedium" of ordinary existence. That said, he might be a little more cautious than the average Timothy Leary disciple, given that he does show a "bad trip" on the part of one of the recipients of Nobody's distribution of LSD-like experiences. However, even if the superheroes aren't quite ready to shut down these wacky malefactors, the U.S. government is more than prepared to do so.
While Morrison could have simply created some standard government super-operative, in "Hofmann" he shows his enthusiasm for "found art." The cover of DOOM PATROL #51 reproduces, albeit with alterations, an unused cover for a DC series that was never launched, concerning a disguise-master named "Yankee Doodle." Probably this aborted concept owed something to similar fare like the pulp-character SECRET AGENT X, but naturally Morrison's concern is to show his version of Yankee Doodle as an agent of the repressive status quo.
The one thing that keeps "Hofmann" from being the best example of a Morrison DOOM PATROL script is the fact that the three issues utilize a somewhat bizarre melange of contributing artists: not only the dominant penciler Richard Case but also Stan Woch, Rian Hughes,, and (most jarringly) Jamie Hewlett. But Morrison still presents a rich discourse regarding humankind's problematic ability to imagine anything, versus their confinement to the Tedium of Ordinary Life.
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