R&R: Found Family at the End of the World: A Rachel Pollack Doom Patrol Retrospective

Features Tate McFadden | August 4, 2026 There is a long and rich history of trans women in comics, but that history becomes far shorter when applied solely to superhero books. Writing a comprehensive list of all the trans women who have worked big two capes comics wouldn’t take very long. Which makes Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol, which began in 1993 and ran for two years, an improbable piece of comics history. Pollack is not best known for her work as a comics writer. Although she penned a few comics after Doom Patrol, including a run of DC’s New Gods, a couple one-shots and a few short series such as Time Breakers, it is her time writing Doom Patrol for Vertigo in the early ‘90s that defines her comics work. Pollack is far more known as a fantasy writer and Tarot practitioner and theorist. She was nominated for an Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1989, a Nebula in 1995, was shortlisted for a James Tiptee Award, and in 1997 won a World Fantasy Award for her queer fantasy novel Godmother Night. She wrote several seminal books on the Tarot including the widely acclaimed and beloved Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot. In order to discuss Pollack’s run, one must go back to the D...