DOOM PATROL Casts Abigail Shapiro as Dorothy Spinner

The Chief finally has a daughter!

TVLine has revealed that the DC Universe/HBO Max series Doom Patrol has cast newcomer Abigail Shapiro as DC Comics character Dorothy Spinner.  The role will be recurring during the show's upcoming second season.

In the TV version, Dorothy was revealed to be the daughter of Dr. Niles Caulder, a.k.a. The Chief (Timothy Dalton), and a primitive woman named Slava (Pisay Pao).  She first appeared in the Season One finale "Ezekiel Patrol", although her face wasn't shown.  In the series, Dorothy's existence motivated the Chief to cause the tragedies that created the Doom Patrol as part of a plan to extend his life so that he could continue to protect her.

According to the official description for Dorothy, "Niles loves her very much and has gone through great sacrifice to protect her, and the world, from her special abilities.  Now that she is no longer hidden, Niles will go to even greater lengths to protect her."

Shapiro, 19, is a newcomer from a singing and dancing background, having only appeared in the film shorts Broadway Kids Against Bullying: I Have a Voice and Broadway Support Lihsa.

Created in 1988 by Paul Kupperberg and Erik Larsen, Dorothy Spinner first appeared in Doom Patrol (vol.2) #14 as a young girl whose mother gave her up for adoption when Dorothy was a baby.  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 friends for company.  She eventually discovered that she had the power to bring these "friends" to life.  Her imaginary friends taught her how to read and write, because she wasn't allowed to go to school and people thought that she would "scare" the other children.

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

She first encountered the Doom Patrol when the team 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 turned up again for the funeral of Doom Patrol member Celsius.

Dorothy soon joined the team, and quickly became problematic during an event involving Dorothy's first period and the Materioptikon, an old device used by former JLA villain Doctor Destiny.  The device boosted Dorothy's powers and brought back three of her old imaginary friends, Damn All, Darling-Come-Home, and Flying Robert (all nightmarish representations of her neglectful and abusive family), whom she killed with an imaginary gun.

During the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and Pentagon saga, Dorothy was on Danny the Street (a living genderqueer street) with Doom Patrol member Joshua Clay and Flex Mentallo (The Man of Muscle Mystery) when she was  kidnapped by the government-run Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and taken to the sub-sub-basement of the Pentagon called the Ant Farm, 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.

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 Joshua 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 Joshua tried to find the Chief for help, the Chief shot him.  When Dorothy found Joshua'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.  Dorothy attempted to use a gun on the Candlemaker to no effect, but at that moment, computer programmed nanomachines that the Chief had created to cover the world, swarmed over him.  The Candlemaker still went after Dorothy, but Rebis, whom the Candlemaker had also killed, was resurrected in a new body.  Rebis attacked the Candlemaker and reduced him to a single flame that Dorothy put out.

Shapiro will be the first actress to portray the character in live action, although the back of an unknown actress' head was shown toward the end of "Ezekiel Patrol".  The character also appeared briefly in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "The Last Patrol!" as one of the attractions at a freak show presented on a poster with the word "Spinner" written across it.

Doom Patrol is expected to return to DC Universe for Season 2 sometime in 2020.