Doll Man Moment: Making Gaines Proud

If you think Doll Man would hesitate for a moment to resort to the Injury-To-The-Eye Motif...

 

you are wrong.

The injury to the eye motif is an outstanding example of the brutal attitude cultivated in comic books — the threat or actual infliction of injury to the eyes of a victim, male or female. This detail, occurring in uncounted instances, shows perhaps the true color of crime comics better than anything else. It has no counterpart in any other literature of the world, for children or for adults.

According to our case material the brutalizing effect of this injury-to-the-eye motif is twofold. In the first place, it causes a blunting of the general sensibility. Children feel in a vague subconscious way that if this kind of thing is permitted then other acts are so much less serious that it cannot be so wrong to indulge in them either.

An eight-year-old girl said to her mother, “Let’s play a game. Someone is coming to see us. I’ll stamp on him, knock his eyes out and cut him up.”

But it has also a direct effect. Children have done deliberate harm to the eyes of other children, an occurrence which before the advent of crime comics I had never encountered among the thousands of children I examined. On a number of occasions I have asked juveniles who used homemade zip guns what harm they could do with so little power. I received prompt reply: “You shoot in the eye. Then it works.”

The children of the early forties pointed out the injury-to-the-eye to us as something horrible. The children of 1954 take it for granted. A generation is being desensitized by these literal horror images. One comic shows a man slashing another man across the eye balls with a sword. The victim: “MY EYES! I cannot see!”

In a Western comic book the “Gouger” is threatening the hero’s eye with his thumb, which has a very long and pointed nail. This is called the “killer’s manicure.” He says: “YORE EYES ARE GONNA POP LIKE GRAPES WHEN OL’ GOUGER GETS HIS HANDS ON YOU!… HERE GO THE PEEPERS!”

In one comic book a gangster gains control over another man’s racket and tapes his eyes “with gauze that has been smeared with an infectious substance!” He says: “When I get through with ya, ya’ll never look at another case of beer again!”

When a policeman is blinded, the criminal says: “Well, he don’t have to worry about them eyes no more!”

Girls are frequent victims of the eye motif, as in the typical: “My eyes! My eyes! Don’t! PLEASE! I’ll tell you anything you want to know, only don’t blind me! PLEASE!’”

The Seduction of the Innocent (1954), Dr. Frederic Wertham.

Speed Saunders and the Lost Ape

I'm sure that in your idle moments you have wondered what would happen if Speed Saunders took on a gorilla.  Let's find out!

What? Me, worry?

Sordid? Ew. What makes them say the waterfront is sordid?

DEAD END for these city kids. Officer Krupe Speed ain't.

Nothing sordid about an adult watching of bunch of semi-naked and naked boys cavorting in the toxic waterside of a major city.  Besides, these are Speed's pals.

Naked boy's on a first-name basis with The Speed Saunders and they are gorilla-gawking pals.  He's the Jimmy Olsen of the Saundersverse.

Not a ton, by the way; 500 lbs, tops.  Still, that doesn't look like an especially safe way to escort a gorilla.

I wonder where they are taking him!

In the Saundersverse, that's the same as a menagerie (or "zoo").

But the gorilla's stay at the zoo will be very short!

Well ,THAT's creepy. Even for a gorilla-napping.

The gorilla's disappearance causes alarm.

That is one ominous inky blackness.

That's a pretty cool use of the real-world headline clippings.  Whatever you can think of, the Golden Age probably did it first and you've just never seen it.

Fortunately, Golden Age citizens are a pretty jaded lot, so it's not like they are going to

Hm.  I guess gorillas were still relatively uncommon in comics at that point.

Speculation runs wild; where could an escaped gorilla have gone?

I really wish those two ladies had become recurring characters, just popping in for a synchronized "OMIGOSH" when appropriate (and, really, there are few points in any Speed Saunders story where OMIGOSH would NOT be an appropriate thing to say).

Their speculation is all in vain, for none would guess that the gorilla is DRIVING AWAY INTO THE COUNTRYSIDE MILES FROM THE ZOO.

Okay, fine; he's not driving. At least, I can't SEE whether's he driving.  

Turns out the gorilla has been kidnapped by a MAD SCIENTIST.

How dramatic!

Hm, don't think I've seen a mad scientist in a Speed Saunders story before.  But like Terentius Afer, nothing human (or even SIMIAN) is alien to Speed Saunders. So, naturally he gets assigned to the case.

At this point, they were still clinging to the charade that Speed Saunders was answerable to others and had to be "assigned" to cases. How quaint.

What does a mad scientist want a gorilla for? BRAIN SURGERY, what else?

Hm. I guess Dolores Winters wasn't available.

Note that this is nearly 15 years before The Gorilla Boss of Gotham did this and FORTY years before the Ultra-Humanite pulled this trick.

NEVER forget the Gorilla Boss of Gotham. Those who do are condemned to repeat him.

But actually, these mad scientists aren't transplanting any of their own brains into the gorilla; just... "a brain".  And even THAT isn't quite right because when the gorilla awakens, he doesn't think he's a human who OMIGOSH has been put in the body of a gorilla. 

Step 1. Obtain one (1) gorilla and one (1) human brain.
Step 2. Combine them by means of mad science.
Step 3. Get rich off this, somehow. And show all those fools who said you were mad, MAD!

No. He's just... a gorilla who suddenly has the intelligence of a human.  Maybe the scientist just squeezed the smart-juice out of the human brain and into the gorilla brain.  I don't know how these things work. I'm no brain surgeon, after all.

This is what happens when doctors don't have sufficient nursing staff.

Jeez, these scientists didn't really plan much beyond "finish surgery", and off to lunch they went, leaving their simian subject to wander off into the Saundersverse.

Sounds like they could have used some more brain juice.

What DO you do if you're a post-op gorilla with a human mind and poor grammar?  Obviously, you hop a freight train.

It's still a Speed Saunders story, after all; gotta move things along.

Then, in what seems increasing like a funny animal comic, the gorilla goes to a construction site to take a nap, because, I dunno, maybe it reminds him of Borneo.

PANIC!

Apparently, whatever little rest the gorilla got did wonders, at least for his elocution.

I swear that "Hey, what ails these people" is the single funniest thing I have ever seen a gorilla say.

Weapons are procured and the gorilla is chased, much to his growing consternation.

See, in a Captain Marvel comic, this funny guy would wind up befriending Billy Batson.  But Billy does not hang out with the boys who swim naked under the watchful eye of ace investigators.

But there's a reason for that old Borneo saying: "Jangan sekali-kali mengetuk gorila pintar di tapak pembinaan."

"Never corner an intelligent gorilla in a construction site."

Bet none of you chose "gorilla throws dynamite" in your What Happens Next betting pool.  But don't worry; I mean, it's not like a gorilla can accurately hit anybody with a stick of dynamite.

Sewers, however, are pretty easy targets.

So, we're going to ignore the fact that dynamite doesn't explode from concussion; it requires a trigger mechanism.

It looks something like this.

Scientifically accurate or not, the gorilla has just killed Many People, which makes him... Speed Saunders' most dangerous foe. Didn't see that coming.

There is a LOT of cartoon physics going on in this story.

These events do not endear humanity to our now grouchy gorilla and he swears vengeance, like Frankenstein's scorned monster.

The bandage is a nice touch.

Would've gotten back on the freight train myself.

And whom does he find back at the waterfront?

THE DEAD END KIDS.

But, against all reason, Speed intuited that gorilla would return there and has been lying in wait. Or he's just there hanging out watching adolescent boys fish.  Speed's a strange guy.

"I'll just watch quietly while he rends the brunet limb from limb.  
Then I'll save the blond kid, whom I like."

At this very early point in Speed's career, the writer (Gardner Fox, btw) was still making things happened at the waterfront, because ORIGINALLY Speed is supposed to be with the River Patrol.  It's a few more issues before Speed's apotheosis and he becomes the Platonic Ideal of Authority, capable of intervening in any situation, commandeering any vehicle, and subordinating any uniformed personnel, because, well, it's just FASTER, dang it.

SLOWLY?!  Remember this panel well, folks. It is the last time you will ever see Speed Saunders do anything "slowly".

A trap? Okay, that's more Speed-like.  I guess all the while the gorilla's been killing scores of people downtown, Speed's been at the central branch of the metropolitan library, researching gorilla traps, probably in the original Malaysian.  I can't wait to see what he's cooked up!

There aren't a LOT of wordless Speed Saunders panels, but each one is a context-free masterpiece of incomprehensibility.

TIME TO SPRING SPEED'S TRAP!

<eyeroll>

Really, Speed? You just magically called forth a bunch of Keystone Cops with billy clubs, as if you were a Heroclix figure with the special power to generate free bystander pogs?  And you thought that would capture a 500-pound intelligent gorilla? You need to leave the waterfront beat pronto, so you can spend more time at the library instead of watching naked boys swimming. 

Fortunately someone ELSE is there to take command of the situation!

THE MAD SCIENTIST!  Must have lunched near the Waterfront.

Phew!  As this creature's creator he'll be able to settle things down.

"I, Roskoffin, The Great Scientist!"
I love the Golden Age.

The Creature, overwhelmed by the desire for the loving approval of his Creator, embraces him in weeping relief!

Or..."BOP!"  Looks like the gorilla intends to put the 'coffin' in Roskoffin, or vice versa.

Wow. It's almost as if the mad scientist who decided to Tamper In God's Domain was dangerously overconfident. Lesson: if you are in Speed Saunders story do not try to exert any authority unless YOU are Speed Saunders.

Whoa. 

OMIGOSH! Is this where Speed does something amazing to stop the gorilla and save the scientist?

Hm. Apparently not.

So. No Speedsplanation.  No bizarre leaps of deduction (unless you count the "I figured he'd come back to the waterfront").  No gunfights. No fistfights.  No tesseracting.  No shadow-traveling.  No stomach-pumping.  Speed... doesn't do anything. At all.  Speed serves no narrative purpose in his own story.  It's not that the story didn't require Speed; it didn't require ANY protagonist AT ALL. 

Just when I think there's nothing Speed can do to surprise me...

Speed does nothing. And thereby surprises me.  You win again, Speed Saunders.

Forgotten Archie Characters: Pearl

 

Well.

I see why SHE didn't show up in CW's "Riverdale".

Doll Man: Blowing Up The Help.

Ladies and gentlemen, Martha Roberts (from Doll Man Quarterly #3):

Martha stops off at an orphanage to pick up some fresh orphans for her activities.

Darrell "Doll Man" Dane:
"Orphans? How tedious. Are they contagious?"

Martha is a trustee. 

Darrell: "I'll remain here, plucking my eyebrows, lest I catch any orphanic diseases.  Is orphanism contagious?  No self-respecting hero should be an orphan."

Martha, as an absentee trustee, is shocked to find:

Martha: "Don't mind me, MISSUS Noble, I'm just accentuating my free-flowing bachelorette tresses in contrast to your de-sexualized butch cut."

that there are orphans at the orphanage.

"O-o-o-ORphans?!"
Yes, there are orphans at the orphanage of which you are a trustee, Martha. I'd hate to see your reaction to Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Mercifully, I'm skipping most of the scenes of fifth columnist midgets disguised as orphan boys.

Pictured: Comforting o-o-o-orphans.

Blow up the help? No wonder she's upset; good help is hard to find.

Martha was a pioneer in Rule 34.

#snowwhitefanfic

Just in case you are wondering what Darrell "Doll Man' Dane is doing during all this.

Getting his *** kicked by a Nazi dwarf, named "The Dwarf", who is the master of the midget fifth columnists, because of course he is.

Doll Man saves Martha (and the factory), as you would expect.  The midgets survive, but the dwarf succumbs to comic book irony.

There is a lot to deride in Doll Man stories, but Doll Man creator Will Eisner was a master of innovative panel layout.