| Midge | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Martha Roberts |
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First Appearance |
Feature Comics #27 (Dec. 1939) |
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Original Publisher |
Quality |
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Created by |
Will Eisner (as "William Erwin Maxwell") |
Origin[]
Martha Roberts was the daughter of Professor Roberts, who tutored his young protégé Darrel Dane in his home laboratory. During the summer of 1939, Martha was being blackmailed by a criminal named Falco over love letters she had written one of her former college teachers. After imbibing a concoction, Dane found himself shrunk to the height of six inches, but with his normal strength intact. Martha sewed him new clothes to wear, and he began to worry that he might never be able to regain his normal height.
Martha at her regular height.
After refusing to pay Falco any more blackmail money, Martha was kidnapped by Falco and rescued by the "doll man". Finding that through intense concentration, Dane could affect his height, he decided to begin to fight crime as the Doll Man, often assisted by Martha (who also became his scientific research assistant).
Several years later, while wishing and concentrating about being able to shrink down to aid Doll Man, Darrel also was thinking about the same thing and suddenly, Martha's height and weight dwindled down until she was on the same scale as Doll Man. She teamed with Doll Man as Midge. Even though she was unmasked, Martha was not recognized by Doll Man during their adventure. At the end of this case, Martha returned to normal size and did not shrink again.
Public Domain Appearances[]
- Feature Comics #27, 32, 34, 37, 40, 48, 53, 58, 60, 62-63, 76-77, 79, 81, 86-91, 94-99, 106, 109-111, 114, 121, 123-139
- Doll Man #2-3, 6, 9-10, 13, 16-25, 28, 32
- Doll Man (I.W. Publishing) #15
Notes[]
- Should be noted (hence being in the "Notes" section), that DC renewed the copyrights of Doll Man Quarterly #33-47 so stories from those issues, which include all appearances of Martha as "Doll Girl" (#37-47), are not in the public domain.
- In the first Doll Man story in Feature Comics #27, Martha knows Darrel is Doll Man, and yet by issue #50, Martha and her father seem unaware that Darrel is Doll Man, for unexplained reasons. This remained that way until Feature Comics #111, where Martha learned Darrel's secret, again.