“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Doll Man Quarterly #3

That only works in cartoons and comic…oh, right. Continue.

The Doll Man Quarterly #3

Comic Favorites, Inc (Summer, 1942)

There’s an ad in the comic for Feature Comics stating that Doll Man is one of the characters featured. Meaning like with Blue Beetle and Mystery Men Comics we’ll be seeing more of the mini marvel on Golden Age Fridays…or would if I were bothering with the comics. Most of the stories I read over in that anthology weren’t very good so I dropped it from my pulls at Comic Book Plus’ virtual newsstand. There’s still this series coming out once a season.

We’re also getting a story with The Dragon. I forgot he showed up previously. The rest of the stories are all Doll Man adventures, though. The titles come from Comic Book Plus or wherever they got them from, because they aren’t in the comics themselves.

[Read along with me here]

“The Dwarf And His Midget Marauders” by William Erwin Maxwell

A misshapen dwarf is doing sabotage for the Nazis, so they send him and his midget minions (don’t jump down my throat–that’s what they used back then and I can’t keep up with the PC terms because they change so often) to blow up an airplane factory, going undercover at a nearby orphanage. Except Martha, Darrel’s fiance, is a sponsor of the orphanage and uncovers the plot. This could have been a good story. It’s a solid plot, but the execution is as silly as the art. The Nazi’s accents are comedically thick, the idea that Hitler would be cool with a hunchback dwarf and a team of midgets who do a terrible job hiding they’re not kids is laughable if you know anything about his eugenics view (even Hitler wasn’t good enough for Hitler), and I’m not even sure why they needed to be in an orphanage for the plot to work. It’s just a badly thought out story with goofy art.

The Dragon: “The Rescue Of Princess Lotus Moon” by Fred Guardineer

From the “how times change” department: Japanese soldiers capture a village of Christian Chinese. One of them is an old friend of Red McGraw, so he goes to rescue her. Apparently she studied in America in fifth grade. Okay. The general that buys her reminds me of the scarecrow from Spirited Away and everything else is very much a product of its time, but ultimately an okay adventure for the amount of space it has to tell the story.

“The Gold Shirts Of Mexico” by William Erwin Maxwell

Axis sympathisers in Mexico want to blow up a scientific gathering where Dr. Roberts is introducing a new invention. We won’t see what it is, but we will see Doll Man fight some incompetent Mexican Nazis while Martha tries to figure out who the “big little man” a fortune teller said would save her. Is she not living her life? Another decent plot ruined by bad execution and overdone stereotypical accents.

“The Mephast Dagger” by William Erwin Maxwell

Which is apparently a trend with this writer. This time the target is India as a fight breaks out over a priceless dagger. Maxwell also seems to love having Darrel go back and forth as Doll Man and fighting everybody in both identities. Not sure what the point is. Also, either someone used a thought balloon when they should have use the regular word balloon or Doll Man can read minds.

“The Hollywood Spies” by William Erwin Maxwell

Nazi spies have a rather elaborate scheme to make Dr. Roberts’ murder look like an accident by getting him into a movie and loading a prop gun with real bullets. As a bonus they’re tricking Martha into killing her own father until Doll Man arrives to save the day. The pattern continues, but the accents aren’t as obnoxious to try to read this round. It’s still a plot lacking a better payoff. Plus, people are taking the idea of a doll sized man a lot too leisurely given that Doll Man isn’t a household name at this point.

“The Tropical Disease Serum” by William Erwin Maxwell

In our final story, a supposed friend of Dr Roberts’ nephew is staying with the Roberts but it’s actually part of a Nazi plot to steal a formula Roberts and his greedy partner Dr. Zito is working on to cure a particular tropical disease. Roberts wants to give it to the US military for the war effort in tropical region, Zito wants money, and the Nazis want to trick them both. Credit where it’s due, this story finally has a decent execution, even if it is still just Doll Man and occasionally Darrell punching Nazis half the time.

overall

A big disappointment. All of the plots are fine but all but one suffers from poor execution, while the guest star has the better comic in the whole anthology. I hope they step their game up before we get to the Autumn issue.