Feature Comics #85 is an issue of the series Feature Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of February, 1945.
Synopsis for Doll Man: "The King of Beasts"
One moonlit night the zoo stays open extra late, and Martha Roberts persuades Darrel Dane to take a stroll through it. They are shocked to notice that the specially-built extra-strong cage built for one new specimen, Congo the Gorilla, is standing vacant, with its door wide open, and nobody around. Darrel starts to look around and right away finds Congo, with a dead zookeeper (Grogan) in his paws. Dane shrinks to Doll Man and leaps to fight the beast, but makes scant headway against the simian's monstrous strength, until he manages to land a rabbit punch to a nerve center, which knocks the big ape out. Zoo Curator King, followed by Martha, soon runs onto the scene, but Doll Man has already resumed his Darrel Dane identity. He takes credit for knocking out the gorilla, then is shocked when King asks him to not report this to the police, because they would want to kill Congo, who was very rare and valuable. The dead zookeeper will be reported as an accident; Dane goes along with this. As Darrel and Martha leave, the Curator and his henchmen have a brief conversation in which it becomes apparent that they are behind setting free the gorilla. They are mystified as to how any normal human could k.o. their gorilla, until one hench finds some Dollman-sized footprints next to a puddle of blood; the bad guys start to put two and two together. If Dane is, as they suspect, in cahoots with Doll Man, then they don't dare pursue him, so instead King tells them to kidnap Martha, while he sends his elephant, Jumbo, to contend with Dane. This, he declares, will be a good test of his long-range hypnotic powers.
That night two henchmen (Taub & another) show up at Martha's house with some chloroform, and abduct her, while Jumbo shows up at Darrel's house, grabs him in his trunk, and heads back toward the Zoo. Darrel shrinks his way out of the elephant's grip, and after a short, garage-smashing fight, he is able to frighten the elephant into running away. He follows Jumbo back to the Zoo, where the elephant lets itself into its pen and stands still, trembling like a leaf. This mystifies Curator King and his henchmen, but then Doll Man announces his presence, and starts thrashing the whole gang. But wait, look in that end cage: King has a hostage! So Doll Man stops fighting, and prompts King to describe his foolproof scheme, which he does. This very night, he's going to release all the animals in the zoo, with hypnotic commands to kill and destroy, and he and his gang will loot the city at will. Then King grabs a lever, to release a lion into Martha's cage, and Doll Man jumps back into action. He punches his way loose from the henchman and leaps into the cage, then directly into the lion's mouth! He pushes apart the jaws and is getting ready for the messy job of strangling the big cat when one of the panicking henchman tries to shoot him with a rifle, misses Doll Man, and kills the lion.
King sees which way this fight is going, and runs away, pausing only to release all the animals, thus covering his retreat. That doesn't work, Doll Man catches him, and in their fight King gets killed by a cobra. Doll Man gets Darrel-sized, knocks a motorcycle cop off his bike, steals the bike, and pursues the horde of wild beasts, racing out into the streets of the sleeping city. Luckily most of the beasts are staying bunched up, as Darrel finds a meat market, breaks down the door, and grabs the biggest hunk of meat there, ties it to a rope, drags it behind the motorbike, and zooms off to intercept the menagerie. It works! The big cats, at least, are lured into chasing Dane back to the Zoo. There in an enclosed indoor area, he finds Martha and several of the henchmen, and without even changing size he just plows into them and beats them down, then grabs Martha, and dragging one of the henchmen behind him, gets out a door on the far side of the enclosure, slams and locks it, just as the big cats are charging in from the first door. We don't see what happens to the rest of the henchmen, but it can't be very pretty.
Later Darrel and Martha are very happy that Doll Man has once again happened along and saved them, but for once Martha is more interested in talking about Darrel's derring-do.
Appearing in Doll Man: "The King of Beasts"
Featured Characters:
- Template:Apn
Supporting Characters:
- Martha Roberts
Villains:
- King
- King's gang
- Taub
- Grogan (Dies)
- at least 5 others (most or all die)
- King's gang
Other Characters:
- Congo, a gorilla
- Jumbo, an elephant
- Leo, a lion (Dies)
Locations:
- New York City
- the Zoo
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Big Top"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Big Top"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for Rusty Ryan: "Allura and the Rising Suns"
Appearing in Rusty Ryan: "Allura and the Rising Suns"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Boyville Brigadiers
Villains:
- Allura
- the Rising Suns
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Mickey Finn"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Mickey Finn"
Featured Characters:
- Mickey Finn
Synopsis for "Lala Plaooza"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Lala Plaooza"
Featured Characters:
- Lala Palooza
Synopsis for Swing Sisson: "The Musician of Crime"
Appearing in Swing Sisson: "The Musician of Crime"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Villains:
- Larry Lake, as The Musician (Dies)
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Perky: "In Toy Land"
Appearing in Perky: "In Toy Land"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Villains:
Other Characters:
- Lucy
- Hortense
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Spin Shaw: "Mission To Port Satsuma"
Appearing in Spin Shaw: "Mission To Port Satsuma"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Villains:
Other Characters:
- Sultan of Kowkow
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Blimpy: "Twerlin the Sorceror"
Appearing in Blimpy: "Twerlin the Sorceror"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Villains:
- Twerlin the Sorcerer
- The Fraternity of Crime
Other Characters:
- Miss Vanderworth
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- Also featured in this issue of Feature Comics were:
- "Valley of Dead Men" (text story), by Robert M. Hyatt
- Poison Ivy: "The Balloon Flight", by Gill Fox
See Also