August 1942: The Case of the Living Dolls

The dashing, diminutive Doll Man’s derring-do sustained his feature for a remarkable 14 years.

Created by Will Eisner for Quality’s Feature Comics 27 (Dec. 1939), “…Doll Man was research chemist Darrel Dane, who invented a formula that enabled him to shrink to six-inch height, as well as one to bring himself back to normal,” noted comics historian Don Markstein.

“Unlike a later and more famous shrinking superhero, the Atom, who could continue shrinking all the way to the sub-atomic realm, Doll Man had only one alternate size — or at least, that’s how it was supposed to be. As actually drawn in his Doll Man form, though, he appeared anywhere from six inches to a couple of feet tall, often varying in size within a single story.”

“He made himself a distinctive costume for the purpose (a legless, armless, blue gymnast's outfit for ease of movement, combined with a high-collar red cape to make movement difficult again, rounded out with bright red footwear that looked like a pair of elf booties), and kept his true identity hidden.”

“Doll Man quickly became Feature’s most popular character, and he appeared on the cover of Feature 30, after which he alternated with humor features,” noted Mike Kooliman and Jim Amash. “He took over the lead feature the next month. In that story, he borrowed the model airplane of young Tim Smith as his personal aircraft to use to catch Grimes, a hideous jewel thief,”

Here, in Feature Comics 59 (Aug. 1942), Darrel’s girlfriend Martha Roberts gets kidnapped by a crook whose serum turns women into department store manikins. Fifth columnists intended to use it to paralyze a whole army camp.

The war was much on people’s minds in June 1942, the month Feature Comics 59 hit newsstands. That month, the Allies halted the Japanese naval advance in the Pacific in the Battle of Midway, and Anne Frank made the first entry in her new diary. It was her 13th birthday.