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"Lord of Lightning": A meteorite crashes in a field near the city, and the governor calls on Doctor Roberts to investigate and analyze it, so he and Darrel Dane dash out to the impact site and dig it up. The meteorite is really hot so Dr. Roberts pours some buckets of water on it, then Darrel p

Quote1 Nothing you can take there will constitute as great a theft as the meteor metal, Mr. Thrawn! Quote2
Darrel Dane

Doll Man #25 is an issue of the series Doll Man (Volume 1) with a cover date of November, 1949.

Synopsis for "Lord of Lightning"

A meteorite crashes in a field near the city, and the governor calls on Doctor Roberts to investigate and analyze it, so he and Darrel Dane dash out to the impact site and dig it up. The meteorite is really hot so Dr. Roberts pours some buckets of water on it, then Darrel picks it up bare-handed and carries it back to Roberts's laboratory. It's yellow and it glows brightly. Martha prepares some acids and test compounds while Darrel chips some particles off the meteorite. They work until late into the night, but then Doctor Roberts has his prognosis: this stuff gathers electrical forces from the atmosphere, and can be the basis for an inexhaustible electric battery. While they're discovering this, however, the meteorite is stolen, via an unguarded open window, by the farmer in whose field it fell. And before he gets very far away with it, this rascal encounters a sinister figure in an antique business suit and top hat, with a gold cape, who also was eavesdropping at Roberts's window, and who buys the meteorite from the farmer for $500 in cash. He takes it home, on foot, to his crappy boarding-house garret, and gets to work on purifying the metal.

Doll Man meanwhile has gotten small and is tracking the footprints of first the farmer and then the stranger. He finds the rooming house and sneaks inside. Mr. Thrawn has been doing noisy experimental metallurgical work this whole time, late at night, and finally his exasperated landlady orders him out of her house. Thrawn has finished forging his weapon, which he handles wearing heavy gloves; he waves the weapon at the landlady and she falls down but doesn't pass out; he tells her that a touch would have been fatal, then leaves, just ahead of Doll Man's arrival at his shabby little lab.

Mr. Thrawn visits the Puritan Trust Company, blasts open the front gate, and murders a night watchman, before Doll Man arrives at the bank, and finds Thrawn in the vault grabbing up cash and negotiable bonds. and stuffing them into a pocket in the lining of his cape. At this point Thrawn is no longer wearing his heavy gloves. Doll Man gets Darrel-sized, and confronts Thrawn, verbally provokes him into swinging the electric stick at him, then re-shrinks with split-second timing; Thrawn suddenly believes he's disintegrated Dane. Doll Man catches Thrawn's loot-heavy cloak, yanks it off, tosses it into the vault, then parries Thrawn's electrical counterstab with a rubber handstamp, then jump-punches Thrawn on the chin. Thrawn isn't knocked out; he javelin-throws the weapon at Doll Man, and misses. The sparking stick flies outside thru the still-open bank door, and strikes a metal trashcan, attracting the attention of a beat cop, who almost grabs it with his bare hand, before Doll Man knocks him back out of reach and tries to tell him how dangerous it is. While that goes on Thrawn recovers his weapon. He's still handling it without the gloves, and he's using it outdoors for the first time; there is a lot more atmospheric electricity available out here, and some storm clouds quickly form overhead.

More cops arrive and Thrawn is almost cornered but he scrambles up an iron fire-ladder onto a roof, then uses the weapon to knock the ladder to pieces. But Doll Man has scaled the building's brickwork and again confronts Thrawn on the rooftop. Thrawn is raving and waving the stick while in the background the thunderstorm builds up, then he's struck by lightning and dies. The electric stick weapon is, according to Darrel Dane, also destroyed. Doctor Roberts thinks this is just as well because as long as men like Thrawn are around, the world isn't ready for such sources of power.

Appearing in "Lord of Lightning"

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  • Thrawn's electricity-amplifying, meteor weapon

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Synopsis for Perky: "Hiccups"


Appearing in Perky: "Hiccups"

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Synopsis for Torchy: "Milk"


Appearing in Torchy: "Milk"

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Synopsis for "Hakim Ali's 'Secret of Truth'"


Appearing in "Hakim Ali's 'Secret of Truth'"

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  • The Sultan

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  • Hakim Ali

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Notes

  • All Quality Comics characters and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof were originally Trademarked & Copyright © 1951 Quality Comics. The characters and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof were acquired by DC Comics in 1956. While some of the properties acquired did not have copyright and trademarks renewed, some of those depicted here are Trademarks & Copyright © 1973-2008 DC Comics, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Also appearing in this issue of Doll Man was: "The Awful Thing" (text story)



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