History
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 through intense concentration, Dane could affect his height, he decided to begin to fight crime as Doll Man, often assisted by Martha (who also became his scientific research assistant). [1]
In 1944, 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 briefly teamed with Doll Man as Midge. [2] In 1951, Martha adopted a longer-lasting super-identity as Doll Girl.[3]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Size Alteration: 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 combatant.
Abilities
- Aviation: Doll Girl could pilot the small "flying saucer" that the duo used, and was able to uses other small vehicles as needed.
Paraphernalia
Transportation
Flying saucer
Notes
- Doll Girl was first created by the defunct publishing firm Quality Comics. After Quality Comics went out of business in 1956, DC Comics acquired a majority of their super-hero 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 relocated to a parallel world, one called "Earth-X" where Nazi Germany had won World War II. The team was featured in their own series for fifteen issues (1976-1978), in which they temporarily left Earth-X for "Earth-One" (where most DC titles were set). It was revealed during the Freedom Fighters series that Martha Roberts of Earth-X was now deceased (murdered by the Nazis, along with her father), and Doll Man later encounted the Earth-One version of Roberts. The Martha Roberts of Earth-One became a supporting character in the series, and also guest-starred in Teen Titans (Volume 1) #47 as a reporter. It was later revealed that the Freedom Fighters had not originally been native to Earth-X though, but had migrated there from Earth-Two. The Earth-Two Martha Roberts (who did not relocate) was the 'original' version, and apparently the only one to adopt the Doll Girl identity. Following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths however, there was now only one Martha Roberts in existence; the original version. It has since been revealed that Martha is now deceased, having been struck down by cancer. Apparently, she became trapped at Doll Girl size and, at that size, could not receive the necessary medical treatment.
Links and References
- 54 Appearances of Martha Roberts (New Earth)
- Minor Appearances of Martha Roberts (New Earth)
- Media Martha Roberts (New Earth) was Mentioned in
- Images featuring Martha Roberts (New Earth)
- Quotations by or about Martha Roberts (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Martha Roberts (New Earth)
- Doll Girl at Wikipedia
- Doll Girl at Cosmic Teams
- Doll Girl at International Hero
- Doll Girl at the Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe
Footnotes
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