By request of Absorbascommenter Tad, we present, "Doll Man Versus The Dress Suit" (Doll Man Quarterly No. 9, Summer 1946).
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| I think the original story idea was Versus the Gingerbread Man, but the Pastry Lobby stepped in. |
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| Uncanny though it may be, the Dress Suit cannot distract me from the fact that the potential victim is apparently sleeping upside down in his bed. |
It begins with Doll Man's squeeze, Martha Roberts, walking home with a freshly baked chocolate cake on her head. It was part of the agreement with the Pastry Lobby.
It easy to make fun of "The Dress Suit" but, this is honestly a terrifying sequence and a great example of the Golden Age mastery of staging and style.
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| That's pure horror movie right there. |
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| Words (and backgrounds) are not always needed (or desired). |
Fortunately (?), Doris's house is really close to this horrific murder scene.
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Just a block away means even a six-inch may can get there pretty quickly.
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| Again; this is art, people. |
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| "No, I haven't called the police yet, dad, you dumb-ass; you scientists haven't invented cell phones yet and it was ONE BLOCK AWAY." |
Typically, Doll Man craves action more than justice, so he lies about calling the police about a murder. Do Martha and Dr. Roberts ever notice that Darrel didn't call the police? Do the police ever show up? Whatever! It's DOLL MAN TIME.
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| Doll Man Fact: In the process of shrinking to his six-inch size, Doll Man must first travel to Saturn! |
I must pause to appreciate the typewriter-ish font that Doll Man stories use for captions. It really helps ground a world in which a man compresses his own molecules simply through the power of will.
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| Sure, Darrel. Whatever lets you sleep at night. |
"Who needs the police? What can THEY do that a six-inch tall research chemist can't?" Never change, Doll Man.
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| Let's just skip over the hour that it takes Doll Man to climb those steps, shall we? |
Doll Man's on the spot, so that a MAN can confirm The Hysterical Woman's wild assertion that a man down the block was just stabbed to death.
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| Thanks, Dr. McCoy. |
If there is any advantage to being only six-inches tall, I should think it would be stealth, but Doll Man botches that almost immediately because HINGES.
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| Remember that "CLOMP! CLOMP!" for a bit. |
Consider just how oblivious Doll Man must be for the following sequence to be possible.
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| I guess when you are only six-inches tall, anything larger tends to fade into the background. |
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| How does an empty dress suit go CLOMP CLOMP? Is there a horse inside it? |
Oh, yeah, that is pretty terrifying. Although I am surprised that, at his size, Doll Man can even NOTICE that he doesn't have a head. Let's see how Doll Man deals with the situation tomorrow....
