“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Doll Man Quarterly #1

At least today’s covers are trying to look like something.

The Doll Man Quarterly #1

Comic Favorites, Inc (Autumn, 1941)

Technically DC owns Doll Man, the pint-sided hero predating the Ray Palmer Atom. All the stories in this comic features Doll Man, so while there are multiple stories it’s not an anthology. That should work into the rotation. I have enough trouble getting time to do everything without all of these anthologies in the retro comic review. They take longer to review than they do to read due to formatting and tagging.

We are, however, ignoring the lame comedy pages, one of which features a midget named Poison Ivy for some reason wearing nothing but a toga and bowler hat, with the gag being about how he has super strength. I didn’t find it or the others funny.

[Read along with me here]

“The Phantom Swordsman”

I was hoping for an origin story, but we just get a blurb about scientist Darrel Dane coming up with a way to turn to Doll Man. A Phantom Duelist comes out of a painting and kills a film producer that a bunch of people want dead. Doll Man must help the wrongly accused and prove that the Duelist is no ghost. Or that’s how it should have gone. While Doll Man has to fight the villain, our Duelist loses by sheer bad luck, while as a mystery there are no clues to follow and the killer isn’t even one of the suspects. It’s not a good mystery but it is a pretty good adventure.

“The Vulture”

A vulture with a man’s face committing robberies? Things are not as they seem as the mini hero deals with a crazed lunatic with the power of flight. This gets his fiance in trouble…or at least the opening panel says that she’s Darrel’s fiance AND aware of his dual identity. You couldn’t tell that from the story. Here I thought this was one of the smart ones, letting his future wife in and now I don’t know what their relationship. Also curious if the Vulture will be a returning foe.

Justin Wright

I guess not every story is Doll Man. According to Comic Book Plus this was his only story. I can see why. The origin is actually okay. A lumberjack learns that he is aire to a fortune after his parents were murdered when he was still a baby and got lost going from relative to relative. Denied his parents, he decides to fight crime. It’s his vigilante codename that’s dumb: Just ‘N’ Right. That’s just begging to be found out. He’s just a dude in a silk mask that he can see out of but you can’t see back through. The lumberjack angle just seems to be there so he can be physically strong. You were almost there, Wayne Reid, and you blew it. And he’s the only creator credited in this book. the bit with the police chief’s new windowed door is kind of lame, as well. Ah well, back to our title character.

(no title listed)

A man is framed for murder but his sister is a friend of Martha’s. (That would be Darrel’s fiance/girlfriend/something.) That brings Doll Man to prove his innocence, but he busts out to get revenge. This is all action, most of which involves fighting, but except for one of the villains looking too close to the framed man (which isn’t even a plot point) it works for this story.

(no title here, either)

A man learns the oil well he bought for almost nothing is worthless, so teams with a crook to swindle investors. Then the well turns out to be good and the pair decide to buy back the stocks and keep everything for themselves, a plan that (long story short) includes framing Darrel for murder as the only witness to the well’s operation. What bugs me is that even Martha and her dad, who in this story DO know about his superhero identity, believe he’s guilty until the end of the story. Having them help clear our hero’s name would have been much better. What’s the point of support if they aren’t supportive? This ruins an otherwise basic story.

“The Black Condolier”

Did you mean “gondolier”? That’s not the name in the title, but that’s what our next villain uses, a gondola, for his operations. I think they were running out of ways to make this story interesting, as the Gondolier and a bunch of crooks operating an illegal gambling ship both fight over a gold shipment on the water. The title villain learns Doll Man’s secret and proceeds to do nothing with that information before he’s killed. This was a rather weak story to end on.

overall

The comic started pretty good but the last two stories couldn’t stick the landing. Also, an origin story would have been nice. It was enjoyable enough to keep looking at, I guess, but we aren’t getting another issue until this rotation hits April.