Dorothy Spinner is a fictional character created by Paul Kupperberg

Paul Kupperberg

Paul Kupperberg is a former editor for DC Comics, and a prolific writer of comic books and newspaper strips.-Biography:Kupperberg entered the comics field from comics fandom, as had his brother, writer/artist Alan Kupperberg...

 and owned by DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

. She was a former member of the Doom Patrol with the ability to bring imaginary beings to life. She first appeared in Doom Patrol

Doom Patrol

The Doom Patrol is a superhero team appearing in publications from DC Comics. The original Doom Patrol first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80...

vol. 2, #14 (November 1988) as a background character until she was made a full member a few issues later.

Publication History

Dorothy Spinner first appeared in issue #14 of the second volume of the series Doom Patrol. Her name is an in-joke referring to Dorothy Gale

Dorothy Gale

Dorothy Gale is the protagonist of many of the Oz novels by American author L. Frank Baum, and the best friend of Oz's ruler Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels...

 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.

Fictional character biography

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 friend

Imaginary friend

Imaginary friends and imaginary companions are a psychological and social phenomenon where a friendship or other interpersonal relationship takes place in the imagination rather than external physical reality. Imaginary friends are fictional characters created for improvisational role-playing. They...

s 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, due to the fact that she wasn't allowed to go to school, because people thought that she would "scare" the other children.

Dorothy's psychological vulnerability made her the perfect target for the Candlemaker, a malignant egregore

Egregore

Egregore is an occult concept representing a "thoughtform" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people...

 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 disemboweled and crucified in a field. Dorothy would spend the rest of her life blocking the Candlemaker in the deepest part of her mind.

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.

Morrison Run

Starting with the Grant Morrison run of the Doom Patrol, Dorothy became a member. Her first prominent 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

Doctor Destiny

Doctor Destiny is a fictional supervillain published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Justice League of America Vol. 1 #5 , and was created by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky.- Fictional character biography :...

.

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.

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

Danny the Street

Danny the Street is a fictional character in the DC Universe. He was created by Grant Morrison and Brendan McCarthy and first appeared in Doom Patrol. His name is a pun on female impersonator Danny La Rue, as "La Rue" is French for "The Street"...

 (a living transvestite street) with Josh and Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo is a comic book character created by Grant Morrison for his run on Doom Patrol. Flex is in part a parody of Charles Atlas' long-running "The Insult that made a Man out of Mac" advertisements seen in American comics from the past....

 (The Man of Muscle Mystery) when she's kidnapped by the government-run Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and taken to the sub-sub basement of the Pentagon

The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

 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.

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 had done in the past. She then collapsed from the strain he was putting on her mind, and when Josh tried to find Niles Caulder, the Chief and head of the DP for help, he was shot by him. When Dorothy found Josh's body, the Candlemaker told her that he will bring Josh to life if she lets him out. She did so, and Josh was brought back to life, only to be killed seconds later.

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

Cult of the Unwritten Book

The Cult of the Unwritten Book is a fictional cult/supervillain group created by DC Comics which first appeared in Doom Patrol #31 .- History :...

" 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

Anima mundi (spirit)

The world soul is, according to several systems of thought, an intrinsic connection between all living things on the planet, which relates to our world in much the same way as the soul is connected to the human body...

, 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

Crazy Jane

Crazy Jane is a fictional character created by Grant Morrison and Richard Case for their work on the Vertigo Comics version of the Doom Patrol...

 and Rebis

Negative Man

Negative Man is a fictional superhero from DC Comics. He first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80.-Larry Trainor:The original Negative Man, Larry Trainor, is a founding member of the Doom Patrol, along with Elasti-Girl, Robotman, and The Chief...

, two other Doom Patrolers. Jane has multiple personalities, each with a different power, and Rebis is a radioactive hermaphrodite 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 calls "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 to 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

Metal Men

The Metal Men are fictional characters that appear in comic books published by DC Comics. The characters first appeared in Showcase #37 and were created by writer Robert Kanigher and penciller Ross Andru...

.

Will sends forth one of his new robots, Tungsten

Tungsten

Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...

, as a diversion. Danny takes them back to the Doom Patrol headquarters and then starts traveling 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.

Meanwhile, the nanomachines that the Chief created planned to swarm the world and create a global catastrophe if they weren't stopped. Cliff integrated his brain with Caulder's computer and proceeded to shut them down. Danny then expanded into an entire world, and Cliff, Jane, and Rebis decided to stay there. Dorothy refused though, and asked a red balloon to take her into the real world.

Pollack Run

Dorothy was one of the characters left over from Grant Morrison's run of the series used by Rachel Pollack

Rachel Pollack

Rachel Pollack is an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot...

.

Sliding in the Wreckage

After the Doom Patrol disbanded, Dorothy began living by herself in an apartment building, when she began being vexed by African spirits who continually bothered her. These spirits wanted Dorothy to come live in their world, but she refused them because she wanted to live in the real world. One day, longing for the life she had, she had a party with her imaginary friends, including imaginary versions of Cliff, the Chief, and Joshua, when she was again bothered by the spirits. After, she was visited by Will Magnus, who convinced her that she needed to return to the human race instead of locking herself away with her imaginary friends. On a trip to the mall, Dorothy was attacked again, this time being saved by Cliff.

Dorothy returned to the DP HQ, where she and Will tried to help Cliff, whose fully robotic brain began to malfunction. At the same time, the Chief's head was being placed in a cryogenic state, but he was simultaneously appearing in a land of shapeshifters called the Teiresias. His arrival in that world began causing fits of craziness and strangeness in the world. This called the attention of a government organization called the Builders, similar in nature to the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E.. Seeing the Doom Patrol as the cause of the craziness, they attacked DP HQ.

As the Dorothy, Will, and Cliff were being attacked, one of the Teiresias presented Dorothy with a blank, human brain to be given to Cliff. She then re-awakened the Chief, who could now survive as a severed head due to the Teiresias. Dorothy then rejoined the Doom Patrol with Cliff and the Chief after the Builders were taken care of.

Moving out of their former headquarters, the three moved to Violet Valley's Rainbow Estates, an unfinished planned community whose construction was halted due to the Recession

Recession

In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...

. There, Dorothy discovered a living doll whom she named Charlie, who was made up of a teddy bear's body and a ventriloquist dummy's head. Unfortunately, she began to regress to the same mental state as the beginning of Morrison's run.

Arcudi Run

In Doom Patrol vol. 3 (2001), Dorothy is coma

Coma

In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...

tose and on life support

Life support

Life support, in medicine is a broad term that applies to any therapy used to sustain a patient's life while they are critically ill or injured. There are many therapies and techniques that may be used by clinicians to achieve the goal of sustaining life...

. She imagines Robotman, which takes form and leads a new version of the Doom Patrol until the real Robotman discovers him and traces him back to Dorothy. At the end of the series, he consents for Dorothy to be removed from life support.

Powers and abilities

Dorothy's power enables her to bring imaginary beings to life. These beings can survive as long as Dorothy is alive. In one case, a false Cliff Steele disappeared when he realized what he was, though Darling-Come-Home was perfectly aware of her imaginary status and seemed to function fine. 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.

Her imaginary friends

The list of her imaginary friends is as follows:

• Damn All: Made of a newspaper crossword puzzle
  Crossword Puzzle
  For the common puzzle, see CrosswordCrossword Puzzle was the second to last album made by The Partridge Family and was not one of the most popular albums. It was released in 1973 and did not produce a U.S. single. This album was finally released on CD in 2003 on Arista's BMG Heritage label...
  
   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
  Egregore
  Egregore is an occult concept representing a "thoughtform" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people...
  
   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, a sweater with a big "D" on it, and shoes that have skulls stitched into them.
• 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 the Morning: A shadowy, eyeless smoke being with a mouth filled with fangs.
• Heart-of-Ice: Can make ice.
• A false Robotman: Thought he was the real Robotman.
• Jolly Hangar: Made up of coat hangers.
• A false Joshua Clay
  Joshua Clay
  Joshua Clay is a fictional character, a member of the superhero team Doom Patrol in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Paul Kupperberg and Joe Staton, he first appears as the hero Tempest in Showcase #94 ....
  
  : Complete with chest wound and rotting flesh.
• A false Cliff Steele: Half man and half machine.
• A false Niles Caulder
  Chief (comics)
  The Chief is a fictional character from DC Comics and the leader of the Doom Patrol. He first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80...
  
  
• Honey Pie: Made up of a beehive with branches for arms and legs, and a honey pot for a head.
• Spinner: Spinner was actually a member of the Doom Force, a one-shot special that Grant Morrison wrote which was a cross between the Doom Patrol and X-Force
  X-Force
  X-Force is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero team, one of several spin-offs of the popular X-Men franchise. Conceived by writer/illustrator Rob Liefeld, the team was formed in New Mutants, vol. 1 #100 and soon afterwards was featured in its own series.The group was a new incarnation of the 1980s...
  
  . She appeared in the imaginary version of the Doom Patrol Dorothy summoned to protect her.
• Polly Polly Tinker Boy
• Cowboy Doll Bookface
• Rockabye Baby
• Baby Twig Lady
• All-The-Time-In-The-World

In other media

Dorothy makes a cameo appearance in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American animated television series based in part on the DC Comics series The Brave and the Bold which features two or more super heroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain...

episode "The Last Patrol!" as one of the attractions at a freak show. She is shown on a poster with the word "Spinner" written across it.