They reveal that General Immortus is seeking a new immortality formula developed by Niles Caulder. Robotman, who had survived the explosion and been rebuilt by Doc Magnus, agreed to join as well after the team proved their sincerity. She enlisted two unfamiliar heroes Tempest and the new Negative Woman to her cause and they established themselves in the old Headquarters. This team was originally established to deal with the threat of a rampaging General Immortus, although they would go on to a great number of other missions.

Much later, a second team calling themselves Doom Patrol was put together by a woman named Celsius, who claimed to be Caulder's widow. Zahl pushes the plunger and the island explodes, killing the Doom Patrol. Surprisingly, the Doom Patrol decide to sacrifice themselves rather than risk the deaths of the people of Codsville. He leaves it to the Doom Patrol to decide which bomb he would detonate, confident that they would elect to save their own lives rather than that of fourteen strangers. He has a second bomb ready to destroy the Doom Patrol's island. He then tells them that he has planted a bomb in a small fishing village in Maine named Codsville, population: 14. Zahl launches several weapons designed to counter each of the Doom Patrol members' special abilities. There, Zahl confronts Niles Caulder, blaming him for Zahl's disability Zahl attempts to kill him, but Rouge wants the Doom Patrol left alive so they can continue to suffer unending humiliation. Zahl and Rouge pilot their submarine to the island. Rouge teams up with former Nazi U-boat commander Captain Zahl. Rouge and her henchmen then bomb the lair of the Brain and Monsieur Mallah, seemingly killing them both.

Initially, she sends the Doom Patrol a message by destroying her old colleagues, The Brotherhood of Evil. Madame Rouge embarks upon an ambitious plot to avenge herself against the Doom Patrol. General Immortus was revealed as the proximate cause of the Chief's inability to walk. Robotman bemoaned his existence as a tin man, and Larry harbored a secret love for Rita. The Chief would try to rehabilitate Madame Rouge, but he fails and as a result, pushes her further into villainy. Rita married Steve Dayton, and they adopted Beast Boy (Garfield Logan) as their son. Throughout their career, the team would face a variety of bizarre villains. Bitter from being isolated from the world, they use their powers for the greater good. The Chief motivated this Doom Patrol (who was unaware that he caused their accidents). As a side effect of the incident, Trainor can become a being of pure energy by leaving his body as a black electrical-like silhouette form, a form he calls the Negative Man. Now Trainor exists as a living mummy, forced to wear special bandages to contain the radiation that has disfigured his body. Larry Trainor was once a US Air Force test pilot until Caulder caused Trainor's experimental suborbital aircraft's guidance system to break down, sending Trainor into a stratospheric belt of radiation.Her career in ruins, she now fights alongside the Doom Patrol as Elasti-Woman. During the filming of one of her movies, Caulder exposed Rita to strange vapors that granted her the ability to alter her size at will. Rita Farr was a Hollywood starlet and Olympic level swimmer until Caulder got his hands on her.

Chief used his scientific genius to transfer Steele's brain into the robot body. Cliff Steele, an international sportsman and daredevil whom Caulder had fatally burned by causing Cliff's race car to crash.Caulder refined his plan and selected three people: Planning to put his brain in the robot, his plan was foiled when his colleague's brain was saved by his pet gorilla. He first caused a lab explosion destroying the body of a colleague. Caulder's first plan was to recreate the Robotman like the Mystery Man from the 1940s via implanting a human brain in a robot body. He ruined their lives by making them power-housed freaks so they'd have nothing to lose, influencing them to go on suicide missions to save the world. An aging, wheelchair-bound mad scientist known as the Chief (Niles Caulder) endeavored to create a super-powered team of outcasts by arranging 'accidents' on people with successful lives.

Doom patrol wiki