My Greatest Adventure #85 is an issue of the series My Greatest Adventure (Volume 1) with a cover date of February, 1964.
Synopsis for Doom Patrol: "The Furies from 4,000 Miles Below"
When a ship carrying medical supplies that can save a terminally ill boy's life sinks, the authorities call in the Doom Patrol to use their unique powers to recover the medicine from the shark infested waters. With the help of Robotman, Elasti-Girl manages to recover the medication from the ocean floor. Upon returning to Doom Patrol headquarters, Rita tells the others that she was offered a role in a film, however she turned down her chance to revive her movie career. The other members of the Doom Patrol are disappointed in her, and the Chief convinces her that she should pursue her career and try to live a normal life. In spite of the fact that she believes that the filmmakers are just trying to exploit her powers to make a movie, she goes anyway.
At first she plays female lead, in a film about a scientist who shrinks himself down to size. However, when the actor playing her husband in the film injures himself on set, they ask Rita to take over the lead role, and re-write the script, they also take advantage of her size changing powers to make a spectacle without having to build giant sets or rely on special effects. When Rita sees advertising posters for "The Diminishing Lady" that were obviously made before the lead actor's injuries, she becomes suspicious of the filmmakers' intent, and finds out that this was all planned by the Chief himself.
Back at Doom Patrol headquarters, the Chief explains to Negative Man and Robotman his deception of Rita, and that he had done so because he felt that their next mission would be too dangerous for her. He explains that through some twist of fate, the United States and another super-power were testing nuclear weapons by detonating them underground. Triggering blasts at the same exact time had caused some sort of disturbance between the two explosions that could put the planet at risk. Wanting to investigate the problem, the Chief goes along with Larry and Cliff in his drilling device to travel deep into the Earth to solve the problem.
Deep below the Earth's crust they find that the nuclear explosions have created two nuclear spawned creatures, one attacks Larry and Cliff, who are outside the ship exploring, while the other attacks the drill, with the Chief inside. Rita meanwhile has returned to headquarters and has learned what the men are up to. Upset that they'd leave her out of a mission, she decides to see if they need her help and constructs a bathysphere to travel down into the shaft that they have dug. While down below, Robotman and Negative Man think they've destroyed the monsters with specially made explosives, however the creatures re-form and begin their attack anew. They are rescued by Rita who carries them all back to her bathysphere. When they realize that the monsters are traveling along with them, to the surface, the Chief warns that should they come to close proximity on Earth's surface they would cause the nitrogen base in the atmosphere to detonate and kill everyone on the planet.
Rushing to the surface, the Doom Patrol travel to an abandoned coal mine and crush up a large amount of coal to use its carbon content to contain the nuclear reactions inside the monsters. Spraying them down with the carbon, the Doom Patrol slows down the nuclear reactions within the monsters, causing them to discorporate, ending their menace. Later, Rita cautions the Chief about ever leaving her out of a battle again by threatening to shave off his beard as consequences!
Appearing in Doom Patrol: "The Furies from 4,000 Miles Below"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- Furies (Single appearance)
Locations:
Synopsis for "The Curse of the Cat's Cradle"
A Guatemalan plantation manager and his underling discover a giant creature trapped inside a patch of quicksand. The giant spells out a message for them by way of a cat's cradle of vines.
Appearing in "The Curse of the Cat's Cradle"
Featured Characters:
- Dan Hearn (Single appearance)
Supporting Characters:
- Hector (Single appearance)
Antagonists:
- Mike Trammel (Single appearance)
Other Characters:
- A Giant
Locations:
Items:
- Giant's gold
- Machete
Vehicles:
- Jeep
Notes
- This is the final issue of the series. The title changes to Doom Patrol (Volume 1) beginning with issue Doom Patrol #86.
- The Doom Patrol story in this issue is divided into two chapters:
- Chapter 1: The Furies from 4,000 Miles Below
- Chapter 2: The Subterranean Terror
- The Furies in this story are not to the same characters as the Furies of Greek legend, or the Female Furies of Apokolips.
- The second story in this issue is a fantasy tale and not a Doom Patrol story.
- This issue is reprinted in Doom Patrol Archives Vol. 1.