I always liked the power to shrink and I'm fascinated by such stories. Also it makes for interesting artwork--not every artist is up to handling the strange perspective required by these stories. Doll Man is a silly name and it's pretty funny that the cops take him seriously. But I never take Golden Age stories too seriously--that's part of the fun. I also like GA stories, because they give me a chance to fill in all the holes. Just like with Rulah, there's a lot of back story you have to fill in for Doll Man.
Just how Doll Man shrinks is never fully explained. Some of the artists (not Crandall) insert an outer space shot, when the change happens--as if that's supposed to explain anything. Darrell Dane himself, despite being a scientist, is a man of adventure. He seems to have travelled the world, has martial arts skills, and he's quite the lady's man (women go wild for him), but his heart belongs to Martha. Martha is a progressive woman, good in a fight, and an experienced pilot. She may have a checkered past, because the first story has her being blackmailed over a letter she wrote--it's never explained what she did in her past, but it must be something juicy or she wouldn't be paying hush money. So there's lots of holes to fill in--which is just how I like it.
Also the Eisner/Iger studio writers are very good at what they do. Like with any GA material, there's plenty of repetition and unoriginal plots--but every now and then there's some really innovative approaches to story telling. I'm always surprised when these guys don't just phone it in. Comics were so popular in the Golden Age that publishers could put out any piece of junk and it would sell. They only had to keep churning out more material to feed the market--so it's quite amazing when writers and artists actually make an effort and go beyond the call of duty.
Quality seems to have had a problem with wartime quotas on paper. The DOLL MAN title takes a three year hiatus after issue 7 (while FEATURE COMICS goes to bimonthly) which I believe was a result of Busy Arnold's problems with the quotas. BLACKHAWK had a similar problem, having to wait until UNCLE SAM ended, before it could continue in that slot (with the same numbering) and even then there was over a year wait between the first issue (numbered 9) and the next. I think if Arnold and other publishers didn't have restrictions like the paper quotas, then we would have seen even more material in the Golden Age than what there already was.
