Monday, June 21, 2021

Doll Man versus a Box of Candy, Part 2


When we last left Doll Man, he had surreptitiously ensconced himself inside the bomb that the saboteurs planned to use to destroy the S.S. Viceroy, for some unspecified reason.  Why destroy the Viceroy, rather than some other ship? Who knows; maybe it picked the wrong piece of candy?

Are ships that unguarded? If so, it's a wonder they don't blow up more frequently.


Once the saboteur, has planted the bomb, Doll Man simply gets out of it and throws in the drink, where it does nothing because I guess Doll Man deactivated it or bombs don't like water.

So Green Suit Saboteur has to return to the office of Mr. Gruber (who's going to be "sore as all get-out") to "face the music".

Just realize that any bugs that hit Doll Man's face while he's riding along jauntily on the car's front bumper would be the size of his head.


Turns out that music is super-Locrian and green-suit's lifespan is about to be seriously diminished.

Guess who's sore as all get-out NOW.

If what Gruber says is true and "you know the penalty" then Green Suit, who voluntarily went back to get killed, is too dumb to be a saboteur.  Or alive, for that matter.

How that dead body hasn't slid off that tilted stage into the orchestra pit, I have no idea.


The saboteurs are part of larger operation, which goes a long way to explaining Doll Man's Simple Plan (tm); he's trying to catch all of them, I guess. But there's really no sense given why Doll Man would know that.  The intelligence of someone who can create a shrinking potion is beyond my ken.  

As is the intelligence of someone who would actually drink it.


In order to foil the next scheme, Doll Main trails the remaining saboteur (Mr. Blue Suit) through the dizzying Escherian nightmare that is Doll Man's city.  Let's just call it Escher City, why don't we?

Is Doll Man following the saboteur
OR
is the saboteur following Doll Man?
YOU CAN'T DECIDE NOW, CAN YOU!?!?!


Then he clobbers the saboteur in a dark alley;

Since Doll Man is clearly striking FROM the brightly-lit street, the point of the dark alley escapes me.  Perhaps Doll Man is a chiaroscuro fan.


uses a callbox to direct the police to the saboteurs' office (which he could have done to begin with);

We know that Ray Palmer's voice as Atom sounds normal because comic book physics.  But chemically-shrunken Doll Man probably sounds like a mouse in a Disney film.


but then the chemicals hit his brain and Doll Man, having reached his quota of sanity for the day, takes the box of chocolates and decides to FLY IT TO THE WEST COAST.  

No, I don't know where the suit comes from either.

No, really.

Every super-criminal in '60s Gotham City covets that post office as a hideout.

So Doll Man FLIES the package out to the severely distorted post office in San Francisco (designed by an Escher City architect, it seems). Then, after the P.O. is closed, he HIDES HIMSELF IN THE CHOCOLATE BOX.


HOW DOES HE DO THIS?! It's unconceivable.
Also; imagine spending all night inside a box of candy.


The West Coast Attenders, under the leadership of Long John Silver, pick up the package and the tiny man it contains.

"WHO TH'?" amuses me more than it should.


Chaos ensues.

"Seize the presumptuous little insect!" would immediately qualify this guy for the Doll Man Rogues Gallery, if they'd bothered to give him a name.


Doll Man has little trouble dispatching the three stooges, but his hesitance to wallop a cripple is his undoing.

Famous last thoughts before getting your head squished by a crutch.

*SWAT*!!! The Golden Age really deserved more sound effectx.

What is to become of The Doll Man now...?!?!

4 comments:

Bryan L said...

I'm trying to imagine balancing on one leg while swatting Doll Man with a crutch using only one arm. I'm not sure I could get enough force to knock him over. One-Leg must have extraordinary upper body strength.

I'm also fuzzy on whether or not Doll Man has super strength or just ordinary full-sized strength. Wikipedia says full-sized, but he hoisted that table earlier like it was nothing.

My point though, is that being six inches tall vs. having only one leg seems to be a fairly level playing field to me. Darrel's chivalry seems misplaced.

John C said...

Besides being delightful, "WHO TH'?" seems to confirm that Doll Man has a squeaky little voice. He states his name and his demands, and is met with two requests that he speak up.

Doll Man's plan is more baffling than expected. He already knows where Yellow-Suit's office is, and he can probably guess that failure to destroy the Viceroy will result in another candy-selected attempt. So, he foils the plan in the most tedious way possible, then hitches a ride back to the office, to steal the other box of candy that he could have taken in the first place. The only thing he gained in all that wasted time was the death of Green-Suit-Clash-Hat.

I feel like, if this had been an National Periodical book, Doll Man would've instead spent the next year (calendar time; three pages in book time) intercepting and doctoring the candy boxes to send the Solid-Suit gang to ironic deaths.

Anonymous said...

"Locrian"

This is why I've been checking this site for 15 years: you manage to come up with new angles that even the Escher City architects never considered.

Meanwhile I'm all here counting out "I Don't Play Like Mr Alex Lifeson" to make sure I'm correctly following.

cybrid said...

"If what Gruber says is true and "you know the penalty" then Green Suit, who voluntarily went back to get killed, is too dumb to be a saboteur"

He probably thought Gruber was just bluffing to intimidate his underlings and wouldn't REALLY kill someone for failure. Seriously, how many people actually kill their underlings for one failure? Don't answer that. :-|