John Byrne wrote: ...if anyone actually pays attention, the deeper similarities are, indeed, much closer to the FF... ...if the folk at DC were, in fact, deliberately copying Marvel's success, they would have only the FF to borrow from, in terms of this kind of group dynamic...

On thing I always point out to people who insist on comparing X-Men and Doom Patrol is that The Doom Patrol is more like the Fantastic Four in characters and in tone. And the tone of the book was definitely not like any other DC comic at that time.

You have the super-intelligent leader.

You have the female member.

You have the orange-colored misfit trapped in a body he hates, who is a gruff fellow, but also the heart of the team.

You have the youngest male member, a flying, radiant character.

And they would bicker and quarrel with each other at times.

I know Arnold Drake was big on claiming the X-Men ripped off his ideas, but come on...! Doom Patrol was certainly DC's attempt at doing the Fantastic Four. Luckily for DC, Marvel's X-Men came along and took off the attention on those similarities, and people focused more (almost entirely it seems) on the similarities between the X-Men and the Doom Patrol.

Frankly, IF Marvel (Stan, Jack, and others) were "ripping off" Doom Patrol with X-Men, then it was a case of DC ripping off Marvel ripping off DC back again.

Edited: I wrote "Fantastic Four" when I meant "Doom Patrol."

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Or what we in the Industry call "Tuesday".

 I would hazard to guess that the Doom Patrol's Brotherhood of Evil came first.

Just did a web search...looks like BOTH debuted in March of 1964. Weird!

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Certainly the Doom Patrol was TURNED INTO that, by later writers, but there is little evidence to support this view in the original series.

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Fantastic four is at its heart about family.

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And DOOM PATROL isn't? It doesn't take blood and marriage to make a family, you know.