The Hardest Job in Comics

Having given it some thought, I think the hardest job in comics would be: writing for Doll Man.

Preserving his dignity being chief among the challenges.

First of all, it's not like writing for The Atom, who can vary his size from normal scale all the way down to the microscopic.  Darrell "Doll Man" Dane has two setting: normal-size and six inches.

With all due deference to the many who assert that "normal-size" and "six inches" are the same thing.

Now, sometimes, especially early on, Doll Man's powers weren't confined to being six inches. Some how, being shrunken can him "the strength of twenty men", no need for oxygen (as evidenced by underwater adventures), enough invulnerability to be shot of guns and get stepped on, and, occasionally, superior rationality.

Given that his original transformation literally drove him insane, that's counterintuitive.

He was more "double espresso man" than "doll man".  And his powers were wildly inconsistent.

Unlike the Atom, whose powers are just ... consistently wild.  
"Curses! Answering machines... my one weakness!"

So he's kind of crazy (and certainly reckless). He has unexplained powers (no one ever explained how he suddenly just started to WILL himself into changing size without the use of his original formula or how the heck his clothes came and went).

By the time "Doll Girl" came along, she skipped straight to WILLPOWERING her way into changing size.

And Doll Man has only one useful size.

By that I mean the six foot size. What good is a hero who gets knocked out by a cuckoo clock?
Ray Palmer would have shrunk out of harm's way or sliced it in half with his Sword of the Atom. Speaking of which, shouldn't Ray carry a microsword WITH him at all times, for such occasions?

Imagine trying to come up with villains for Doll Man to fight.

Cross-dressing Nazis, sure, but EVERYONE fights those.

They did their darnedest, though!

The Black Witch was an unusual combination of gangster and supernatural threat.

There was Quippo, the evil robot ventriloquist's dummy.  Sort of a M3GAN Beta test.

The Undertaker and Tom Thumb.
Man, the death/corpse-themed Undertaker could have been GREAT but... ZERO flair or stage presence.  He just seems like your disappointed trigonometry teacher.

Queen Mab was just a pretentious nit.

The Mantis. A little light animal-theme, but mostly just creepy and deadly.

Silver Dollar. Sort of an upscale Penny Plunderer.

The real, original HUNTRESS. She shoots men 'cuz men suck.

The real, original FOOL KILLER.
What, you thought Marvel came up with that?

The Skull. See, now THAT is what The Undertaker might have looked like.

I think you can guess what became of The Flame and why he only got one appearance.

THRAWN, lord of lighting.  He had style, but, like The Flame, his career was cut short by an ironic death.

The Minstrel is what you'd get if you asked ChatGPT to craft your nemesis.

Dr. Verne and IT.
One's a steampunk cosplayer; the other's a hairy Dino-thing.
Together, they commit crime.

"Who can stop the Radioactive Man? "
Who needs to? Just wait'll he keels over.

Evil puppets. I mean, that's just inevitable.

The DRESS SUIT. 
I just LOVE the Dress Suit. A natty nightmare.

The Masked Cement Salesman!  I must confess, that never would have occurred to me.

They even gave Doll Man an oddly-named dog, Elmo, whom he fed some super-serum to make him preternaturally strong and intelligent.

Great Dane and Darrell Dane.

Come to think of it, DC missed the boat when they inherited all of Quality's superheroes.  They should have ignored Doll Man and just REPURPOSED all his villains for the Atom, who surely could have used them (and to better effect).

Which Doll Man villain would you like to see make a comeback?