Martha Roberts (Quality Universe)



Alter ego - Martha Roberts

Abilities Ability to shrink to five and 1/2 inches in height.

Team: Partner of doll-man, ally of all-star squadren

She first appeared as Martha Roberts in Feature Comics # 27 (December, 1939) and as Doll Girl in Doll Man # 37 (1951). A new version later appeared in Titans Secret Files #2.

Martha Roberts was the daughter of Professor Roberts, who tutored his young protege' 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.



After refusing to pay Falco any more blackmail money, Martha was kidnapped by Falco and rescued by the "doll man". Finding thru 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). (Feature Comics #27)

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 began to team with Doll Man as Midge, the Doll Girl. (Doll Man #37)

After Quality Comics went out of business in 1956, DC Comics acquired their superhero characters. Doll Man and several other former Quality properties were re-launched in Justice League of America #107 (October, 1973) as the Freedom Fighters. As was done with many other characters DC had acquired from other publishers or that were holdovers from Golden Age titles, the Freedom Fighters were located on a parallel world, one called "Earth-X" where Nazi Germany had won World War II. The team were featured in their own series for fifteen issues (1976-1978), in which the team temporarily leaves Earth-X for "Earth-1" (where most DC titles were set). It was revealed during the Freedom Fighters series that Martha Roberts was now deceased on Earth-X, and Doll Man later encounted the Earth-1 version of Roberts. The Earth-1 Martha Roberts became a supporting character in the series, and also guest-starred in Teen Titans #47 as a reporter.

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a story that was intended to eliminate the similarly confusing histories that DC had attached to its characters by retroactively merging the various parallel worlds into one, Doll Girl's Earth-X and Earth-1 days were erased and her histories were merged together as one.

A version of Doll Man and Doll Girl about whom little has been revealed briefly appeared in Titans Secret Files #2. This Doll Girl also had a cameo in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #174.

Powers As Doll Girl, Martha Roberts could shrink through mental concentration to a height of 5 and 1/2 inches. She retained her normal strength, and was a fair hand-to-hand combattant. She could pilot the small "flying saucer" that the duo used, and was able to uses other small vehicles as needed.

Other Versions

In Kingdom Come, the Doll Man/Doll Girl franchise is represented by a female character named Living Doll, wearing the Doll Girl costume, and is seen sitting on Superman's shoulder acting as a sort of secretary for the Justice League. She is the daughter of the original Doll Man and Doll Girl.[4][5]

Based on comments by Grant Morrison, this alternate universe is not the pre-Crisis Earth-X.

Links

More info

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/d/dollgirl.htm