Doom Patrol Wiki
Advertisement
Doom Patrol Wiki
Doom Patrol Wiki
706
pages
in: Characters, Article stubs, Allusions to the comics, Heroes

Negative Spirit

Sign in to edit

The Negative Spirit[1] is a being made of a yet-undiscovered form of energy who, at some point during the 1960s, became bonded to the US Air Force test pilot Larry Trainor, fusing with him and making him dangerously radioactive.

Biography[]

In 1961, when Larry Trainor flew a test plane into the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere, the Negative Spirit latched on to him, rendering Larry unconscious and sending the plane tumbling down to the ground. When Larry and subsequently the Negative Spirit were captured by the Bureau of Normalcy and tortured by Charles Forsythe, the Negative Spirit exited Larry's body for the first time to presumably kill the agents that were torturing Larry. After this, Charles Forsythe began to focus on the Spirit instead of Larry in his experiments. Charles Forsythe ended up torturing the Spirit by producing a frequency inaudible to humans that would cause the Spirit immense distress.

When Flex Mentallo entered the Ant Farm, he heard the Spirit's screaming due to this torture and perceived it to be the screaming of Larry Trainor. However, the Spirit quickly revealed that this was not the case. Inaudibly to the audience, it introduced itself to Flex, who can somehow communicate with the Spirit, and asked him for help getting back to its dimension. At some point, it also told Flex that Larry had to be on board with escaping, since the Spirit cannot go anywhere without him. Flex agreed, until Charles Forsythe threatened his wife in order to force Flex to comply, after which he refused to help the Spirit attempt to escape.

At some point after Niles Caulder collected Larry from the Ant Farm, Niles attempted to communicate with the Spirit verbally with minimal success. The Spirit, speaking through a device created by Niles, was able to speak a singular word, describing the experience of living inside of Larry Trainor as "torture".

In 2019, the Spirit left an anxious Larry's body after he went to a bar in Cloverton. When Larry tried to communicate with it, asking for ground rules, it put his body on a ceiling rafter. It also crashed Larry's bus on the way to Paraguay, becoming agitated after Larry called it a "soul-sucking parasite". In general, the Spirit seems to be happier when Larry is nice to it, and is angered when he mistreats it.

When Elliot Patterson realized he was the Unwritten Book, he became suicidal, and Larry locked him the lab to keep him safe. However, the Spirit exited his body to electrocute the controls keeping them locked in the room, freeing Elliot. The Negative Spirit then carried Larry's body to a television and made Larry watch the tape of Niles' conversation with it.

Upon Jane's retreat back into The Underground, the Spirit connected Jane's mind to the mind of Cliff Steele, sending him into the Underground to help coax Jane into returning to the surface world.

The Spirit also connected the dreams of Larry to the dreams of a dying John Bowers, and, eventually, helped Larry see John in person by writing his location - Erie - on Larry's bedroom wall in post-it notes.

It was extracted from Larry Trainor by Darren Jones upon their return to the Ant Farm to rescue Vic Stone and seemed helpless as it was trapped in a bottle, banging on the bottle presumably for help. Upon being released, it helped free all of the other individuals the Ant Farm held captive.

In the manor, it helped Larry realize that Dolores, Flex's wife, was the key to getting rid of Flex's amnesia by showing him their time in the Ant Farm together. After this vision was given, Larry realized that the Negative Spirit was just as much of a victim as he was, and told the Spirit that it was okay to leave him and go home. The Spirit left, but hovered over the manor, knowing that if it were to truly leave Larry, Larry would inevitably die as the Spirit was the only thing keeping him alive. It then returned to Larry.

Upon being trapped on Danny the Street in Eric Morden's painting, the Spirit helped Larry and his friends return to their normal dimension.

The Negative Spirit took Larry to its home, the Negative Nebula, under the pretense of starting a new life there together; however, upon reaching the nebula's entrance, the Negative Spirit disappeared home and returned Larry to the manor, both of them now separated. It was later discovered that the Negative Spirit had impregnated Larry with a baby Spirit, who would later be revealed as Keeg and raised by Larry as his other father.

This section is a stub. You can help expand this section by adding some information.

Powers and abilities[]

This section is a stub. You can help expand this section by adding some information.

Weaknesses[]

  • Fusion to Larry Trainor: The Negative Spirit is bonded to Larry Trainor, and as a result must reside in his body as a passenger, with no influence or control over Larry's self-destructive actions. For most of the first season, Larry largely views the Negative Spirit as malevolent and as something that ruined his life. When attempting to communicate with Niles Caulder, the Negative Spirit described the experience of being bonded to Larry as "torture", most likely due to the extent of Larry's self hatred, which it is forced to experience.
  • Nonverbal: Since the Spirit is made of energy, it cannot speak in the same way humans do. This means that the Negative Spirit cannot communicate with Larry, which puts a strain on their relationship. The Negative Spirit was able to communicate briefly with Niles Caulder using a machine that converts energy to sound, but only one word was able to get through before the machine broke. It can, however, communicate verbally with Flex Mentallo, for reasons currently unknown. The Negative Spirit also seems capable of echoing words back as a form of communication, though this was only in a dream sequence.

Appearances[]

Season 1[]


Season 2[]

Season 3[]

Season 4[]

References[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Becher-Wilkinson, Tamara, Farrell, Tom (writers) & Talalay, Rachel (director) (March 1, 2019). "Puppet Patrol". Doom Patrol. Season 1. Episode 3. DC Universe.
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Advertisement