The Doll Man's brain! It is all I need to complete the array of master minds that I alone can keep alive in my jars! Ah-hah! 
- — Doctor Python
Feature Comics #36 is an issue of the series Feature Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 1940.
Synopsis for Doll Man: "Python the Brain Thief"
Headless bodies have been found on the banks of a lonely river; Professor Roberts and Darrel Dane investigate. Doctor Python (who knows D.D.'s identity as Doll Man) sends his old, bald, scary-looking minion Professor Kreeper to fetch them to his lair; P.K. has a horizontal scar running around his ugly head. He leads them to a tunnel in the base of a mountain, then up winding stairs and down long passages, to a large house atop the mountain, and into room with a glass floor, looking into a secret laboratory. There he tries to whack them with an axe, but gets punched by D.D., recovers, flees, traps them there with a sliding panel, and uses a huge electro air pump to evacuate the air from the room. Darrel gets small, and changes clothes, and leaps up to the ceiling air vents, breaks some fans and motors, works his way through the machinery, and sneaks into the lab. There he meets Python but mistakes him for an enslaved victim, tries to recruit him to the good guys' side, gets chloroformed and stuffed into a glass bottle. The Python has been collecting the living brains of scientists, writers, and statesmen, in jars, and is able to interpret and use their thoughts for his own purposes. In the overhead glass-floored observation room, Roberts is waling away at the impenetrable window with Kreeper's dropped axe, with no immediate effect except to stir some glimmers of memory in Kreeper's damaged head. Kreeper snaps, and attacks the Python, there's a fight, and at its end Kreeper has been stabbed through the heart. Doll Man uses this distraction to roll himself and his bottle off the worktable to shatter on the floor; he escapes. The fight breaks some equipment and a fire gets started; Python catches fire, panics, and flees his lab, into the nearby woods, blazing and shrieking the whole way. Doll Man pursues him, and knocks him off a cliff, into a river. Doll Man observes him to be dead, then returns to the house and frees Professor Roberts. When he resumes normal size, this time, his costume doesn't grow, and his clothes were burned in the fire; he and Roberts return to town with Darrel wearing a red blanket.
Appearing in Doll Man: "Python the Brain Thief"
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- Template:Apn
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- Doctor Python (Dies)
- Professor Kreeper (Dies)
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Synopsis for Rance Keane: "The Anti-Cancer Serum"
Appearing in Rance Keane: "The Anti-Cancer Serum"
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Synopsis for "Big Top"
Reprints from the Big Top comic strip
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Synopsis for Samar: "Captured By the Amazons"
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Synopsis for Reynolds of the Mounted: "The Narcotics Ring"
Appearing in Reynolds of the Mounted: "The Narcotics Ring"
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Synopsis for Spin Shaw: "The Mail Plane Spies"
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Synopsis for "Lala Palooza"
Reprints from the Lala Plaooza comic strip
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Synopsis for Rusty Ryan: "The Twin Kidnappers"
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Synopsis for Dusty Dane: "Captives of Captain Frosk"
Appearing in Dusty Dane: "Captives of Captain Frosk"
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- Dusty Dane (First appearance)
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Synopsis for Poison Ivy: "Ban on Chewing Gum"
Appearing in Poison Ivy: "Ban on Chewing Gum"
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Synopsis for The Voice: "Murder Tunes In"
A radio announcer, a sound engineer, and a singer, all at the same radio station, are murdered. Mr. Elixer eats a dose of herb food to renew his super strength, then begins his investigation, by breaking into the office of the president of the radio station, John Burke, and searching through his desk and papers. Burke inconveniently returns to his office, but conveniently turns out to be the main murderer. (Incriminating papers in his desk, it later turns out, included insurance policies on the murdered men, payable to Burke.) The Voice uses his hiding skills and ventriloquism to panic Burke into fleeing, by taxi, to his home, (with elderly Mr. Elixer riding along on the rear bumper), runs inside, and alerts two thuggy-looking henchmen that the heat is on, which point is underscored by the voice of The Voice, who has followed Burke inside. All three bad guys pile back into the same taxi and take off; Burke kills both henchies and the driver then jumps out of the cab, which crashes. Burke escapes on foot.
-- Mr. Elixer returns to the radio station and breaks into a wall safe, Burke again shows up, darkens the room, then shoots twice at Elixer and unsurprisingly misses; both sides escape the encounter unscathed. Mr. Elixer returns to his apartment building and recruits Tommy the doorman to return with him to the broadcasting station. Nobody else except Burke has been at this station this whole time; apparently it closes down at night. In the control room, Elixer makes some adjustments to the radio equipment, while in the studio, Tommy gets kidnapped by Burke, who again flees the building and returns to his home. The Voice uses a special device to cut in on the private communications system in the police chief's office, and puts out an APB on Burke. At his home, Burke puts Tommy on a chair, tied up, in an all-magnetic-metal room, with an iron cannonball bouncing rapidly and randomly around in it. The police arrive in time to catch Burke as he's leaving the house; Mr. Elixer arrives in time to rescue Tommy; they both leave before the police even know they're there. The Voice then again takes control of the police dispatch band, makes a detailed accusation against Burke, and gloats: "... he was about to collect the insurance on Gary Taylor and then disappear ---- But I have triumphed! This is The Voice!"
Appearing in The Voice: "Murder Tunes In"
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- Template:Apn
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- Tommy
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- John Burke
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- Gary Taylor, radio singer (Dies)
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Synopsis for Captain Bruce Blackburn, Counterspy: "The Mystery Motor"
Appearing in Captain Bruce Blackburn, Counterspy: "The Mystery Motor"
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Synopsis for "Mickey Finn"
Reprints from the Mickey Finn comic strip
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Synopsis for Zero, Ghost Detective: "The Ghost's Vengeance"
Jane Darwell shows up at Zero's home one evening; she's being haunted, can he help? "Come into my lab! I'll test you for wraiths." There, a super Q-ray shows Zero her ghostly "escort," a silhouette of a man in a top hat. Zero's description of his findings remind Jane of an old, sword-dueling enemy of her grandfather's. Then it's time for Jane to return home to act as hostess at a party; Zero accompanies her there. Janey's house has a ballroom, and enough guests to pretty well fill it. An invisible ghost tugs at Jane's arm and leads her off the dance floor, up the stairs, and down a hall to the library, with Zero following behind. The ghost shows them a vision, from an earlier generation, of Steven Fiske's dastardly misbehavior and Jim Darwell's gallant rescue of Nell Farrel from his murderous hands. Then the ghost becomes slightly visible, identifies itself as the late Steven Fiske, and leads them both outside, to reveal another chapter, set many years later in this same garden, in which Steven Fiske vengefully attempted to murder Jim Darwell but ineptly stabbed Nell Darwell instead. Now the ghost makes its move: "You are her living likeness and shall return with me to the past!" As Zero is charging to the rescue, his eye is caught by a glint of light from a dagger laying in the garden; he immediately identifies this as the same blade that killed Nell, "How long has it lain there?" he asks, so we won't have to. Zero uses the silvered blade to reflect moonbeams onto the ghost, which backs away in muted horror. Helpless, the blinded wraith begs for mercy, backed against a big tree. Zero stabs through the ghost and carves a cross in the heavy bark of the tree, banishing the wandering spirit to eternal rest. Jane and Zero return to the party and some romantic dancing.
Appearing in Zero, Ghost Detective: "The Ghost's Vengeance"
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- Stephen Fiske, a ghost (Dies)
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- Jim Darwell
- Jane Darwell
- Nell Farrel Darwell
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- Zero's Super Q-ray
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Notes
- Doll Man villain Prof. Kreeper looks very much like Rondo Hatton, who at that time was not yet famous, but had appeared in several movies.
- We no longer actually see Darrel Dane take a pill when he's shrinking, and have not seen him do so since Feature Comics #32, and the pills stopped being mentioned, in dialogue and captions, after that issue also.
See Also
Links and References
- Feature Comics #36 entire issue
- Feature comics #36 index entry
- Feature Comics #36 spoilers
- Read "Python the Brain Thief" online