Doll Man versus The Runaway Formula, Part 3: High Praise, Indeed

You know what most people don't consider about skydiving? 

It's cold.  

I've parachuted out of planes (generally as part of plan) and had a partner who was a paratrooper, so I am here to remind you: the higher you go, the colder it is.  

Degrees, specifically.

The temperature drops off at about 5.4F every 1000 feet you ascend (if it's sunny out).  So, when you are snuggled in that PanContinental jet cruising along to visit Costa Rica, just remember that on the OTHER side of that plane's wall it is between -40 and -70 degrees F.  

Now, among WWII-era planes, even bombers would only go up to, say, 20 maybe 25K feet.  Normal flying-around two-seaters would be flying somewhere more like 5 or 10K feet.  

All of which goes to say: Doll Man is not dressed for riding outside on the landing gear of a contemporary airplane.

Note that he's still dizzy from the briefcase buffeting.
FAA regulations frown on riding airplane gear while dizzy.

But ride he does, until the spy plane lands in the woods. 

FAA regulatory interpretations also clarify that "if it has a big-ass tree in the middle of it, then it does not constitute a forest clearing, as detailed in AC 150/5325-4B (07/01/05)."

Because the spy hideout is in an Old Ramshackle House.

Or as the Zillow posting puts it, "a secluded homestead with old world charm that only awaits your finishing touches."

He leaps to the window using what we have to assume is his flea-like abilities from weighing only two ounces but having the strength of a normal man.

Well, not a NORMAL man. Darrel Dane is not normal.

And what he sees shocks his senses:

FOREIGN EXTERMINATORS.

So it turns outs that this band of (presumably) Nazi rodent-killers --let's call them "The Rat Patrol"-- DO have Dr. Roberts Formula and have already whipped up a batch and proved its efficiency as a death-dealing weapon.  Did they... get the formula from Joe Spinell earlier? Hm, no, the timing suggests that they just received the formula, meaning... it had to be in the briefcase. The one that Dane said didn't have the formula in it.  

I have no clue.  Dane, being insane, may very well simply be an unreliable narrator.  Maybe he lied to Dr. Roberts just in the hopes of getting a ride on the landing gear of an airplane and a chance to punch out some Nazi scientists. It's Doll Man, so whatever. Doll Man is BASED on a contradiction, since his powers make no sense, and, as any logician will tell you, if you except a contradiction as a given you can use that to make ANYTHING possible.

Then the artist pulls out all the stops to let you know that THIS PANEL CONTAINS EVIL.

The dead rat is a nice touch.

But before he confronts the Rat Patrol directly, Doll Man has a job to do: muck up the formula.  And, if there's anybody who can muck up a formula, it's Darrell Dane, since that's how he became Doll Man in the first place.

I should think that writing with a pen larger than you are would take considerable practice.

Ah ha. This panel finally makes sense of the story's initial splash panel:

THAT is why Doll Man is depicted writing something with a pen; because that's actually the crux of what he needs to accomplish in the story.

Naturally, the Rat Patrol will never notice or unravel Dane's additions to the formula; Nazi scientists are gullible like that.

I bet you any money he just wrote, "+ some hypersulmide."

NOW, it's good to go, and Dr. Giggles here orders his Rat Patrol flunky to (unknowingly) send the now-altered, harmless version of the formula to Germany.

I mean, they COULD be from India. Or Estonia. Or Chile.
But I'm sticking with my original guess.

THEN Doll Man shows his hand.

"A little man? A doll? It's some sort of...
of...
well, I'm not sure what to call it."

The Rat Patrol is not as sanguine as the flight deck crew was about a red-caped homunculus skittering about, and tries to capture The Doll Man.

This sequence, by the way, explains the COVER of this comic:

Yeah, yeah, a lot of guys think that about themselves, Darrel.

Using his proportionate flitty-ness of a mosquito, Dane handily avoids the Rat Patrol.

That is, UNTIL he is undone by the unexpected:

LOOK OUT, DOLL MAN, IT'S SYLVIA PLATH!

Dr. Giggles is poised to kill Doll Man with the gas he's already prepared from the unedited version of Dr. Roberts' formula, but Doll Man NEUTRALIZES it with the quantity of hypersulmide he's been carrying around since the story's second panel.

The real Dr. Giggles would have loved this bit.

I mean, when you're Doll Man, isn't EVERYONE a big boy?

PERSPECTIVE PORN, AWAY!

On the one hand, you'd think crashing your head through solid glass would hurt, especially someone so easily destabilized by some buffeting in a briefcase.  On the other hand, if Doll Man experienced brain damage, who would notice?

And, so, one routing montage later...

that, as the saying goes, is that.

Told you.

Then, in a remarkable display of Golden Age economy of action, he simply picks up the phone and asks, um, the operator (?) to get him, uh, The District Agent (FBI?) in Charge, because he's... Darrel Dane?  It's Doll Man, so whatever.

"Kind of, but our higher priority is dangerously deranged, self-important chemists, so... stay put."

"So... it WAS in the briefcase and you could have avoided all this?
Are you still taking your pills, my boy...?"

And the tale ends with Dane getting the greatest reward any man could imagine: mild praise from Dr. Roberts.