She was there from the very beginning... when the original Mighty Mite first appeared. The perpetual fiancee of Darrel Dane, aka the Doll Man, Martha Roberts was a stalwart girlfriend to her guy's dual identities. Indeed, all three of her were loyal to him!
Doll Man originated on Earth-Two, and thus that world had its own Martha, who along were her father Professor Roberts were the only ones who knew of Darrel's secret life. And from 1939 until at least 1942, the two lovebirds were near inseperable. Then what happened?
Somehow, Doll Man as well as fellow mystery man Midnight heard of a man named Uncle Sam recruiting various heroes for an urgent mission. Arriving to late, as Sam and six other superheroes disappeared from their world, Doll Man and his new friend followed them through the rift created. They ended up on Earth-X.
After a couple months on that world, the pair along with Sam returned to their native world, meeting at the Perisphere where the full membership of the All-Star Squadron had been invited for a joint meeting. After a brief trip back to Earth-X with his fellow All-Stars, Doll Man soon returned home, into the loving arms of Martha.
However, a couple months later in April of 1941, Uncle Sam returned to recruit a larger group of All-Stars for his Freedom Fighters on Earth-X. Among those was Doll Man, who like the others moved Earths during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. He no doubt believe this was a temporary move, until they defeated the Axis Powers, however took many years to do this.
On Earth-X, Dane eventually formed a new relationship with that world's Martha Roberts, who was an ally of Doll Man and his Freedom Fighters teammates. We know this Martha wasn't the Earth-Two version, as she didn't become Doll Girl in order to protect herself and her father when Nazis attacked and killed her!
 |
| Batman verifies that the Freedom Fighters return to Earth-Two |
Doll Man and his allies returned to Earth-Two in the late 1970s to visit the Justice Society, as Batman acknowledged they had appeared there at that time in his infamous Dairy. While this would have been a brief reunion with their old allies from the All-Star Squadron... and more recently from when the Justice Society with the Justice League traveled to Earth-X accidentally to aid the Freedom Fighters in liberating their adopted world.
While it is logical that the individual members would look up old family and friends... Phantom Lady's father Senator Knight and her cousin Ted "Starman" Knight, Black Condor his former girlfriend Wendy Foster, Human Bomb's ex-girlfriend Jean Adams, Uncle Sam's sidekick Buddy... there were no lasting bounds between them. However, the bond between Darrel and Martha was deeper, more profound, with both driven toward being together. This bond traversed even the dimensional barriers of separate universes, with Darrel always gravitating towards the Martha of whichever Earth he was currently living.
After having left the original Martha decades ago, Darrel traveled back to the 1940s to reunite with Martha (no doubt using the Flash’s recently built Time Vortex in Justice Society headquarters)*. We know this because Martha’s “Who’s Who” entry mentions her being with Darrel when he became Doll Man in 1939, and in 1951 joined his crime fighting crusade as his partner Doll Girl. Between those dates, the Earth-Two Martha continued to have hundreds more adventures in the late 1940s and early 1950s. And really, it is unimaginable that he would leave his first love behind indefinitely!
The dynamic between Doll Man and Doll Girl echoed that on Earth-One between Superboy and his childhood girlfriend Lana Lang, in her various aliases such as Sky Girl, Flying Girl and Gravity Girl. Like Darrel and Martha on Earth-Two, Superboy's alter ego Clark Kent and Lana Lang rekindled their love as adults many years later while working together as news anchors.
* A later told tale of the Freedom Fighters returning to Earth-One to assist Superman versus neo-Nazis would've occurred just before they left for Earth-Two and Doll Man journeyed back to the mid 1940s. And a later 1985 appearance of Doll Man alongside his teammates on Earth-X was of a temporarily time-displaced Darrel Dane… as many heroes from the past were pulled into the present day including Doll Man’s fellow All-Stars Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle!
No comments:
Post a Comment