Archie's 80th anniversary: Little Archie in "Robots of Doom"

[alicemacher]

It's not like there'd be much of a future in a clinic devoted entirely to hangnails anyway.

Little Archie takes a more heroic role in this adventure featuring the first appearance of his supervillain archnemesis, Mad Doctor Doom. (Who debuted at nearly the same time as the similarly-named Fantastic Four villain, so it's unlikely there was any influence one way or another.)


From The Adventures of Little Archie #24 (Fall 1962). Story and art by Bob Bolling.

Inside his creepy Crackstone Manor headquarters on Riverdale's outskirts, Mad Doctor Doom and his "gullible teenage assistant" Chester prepare to test his "devilish device." Doom inserts it in a toy robot's brain. Then, using a remote control panel, he makes the robot put a crow in a hypnotic trance merely by looking it in the eye.







The next day, Chester does his part at the Tacky Toy factory, then splits for Crackstone Manor once the tampered-with robot shipment is ready to go. Shortly after the robots' delivery, who should come to Bigbucks but Little Archie and his mom (whom Bolling always drew as having been rather foxy as a younger woman, not that that's strictly relevant here). She leaves him to amuse himself in the toy department while she tries on a dress.

Little Archie tries on a knight's helmet, but puts it on backwards and has trouble getting it off. While he's understandably distressed as he stumbles around, unable to see, this ends up sparing his free will, as Doom has just remotely activated the toy robots. Eventually, a tumble down a flight of stairs frees Little Archie's head from the helmet, and he quickly sees what's going on.





Young Andrews makes good use of various toys to incapacitate as many of the robots as he can.









Realizing there are still too many robots for him to take down one by one, and recalling what he knows about Tacky Toy products, he finds the sprinkler system valve.





Fun fact: in a 2005 interview, Bolling revealed that Mad Doctor Doom being green-skinned wasn't his idea, but that of the colourist, Victor Gorelick. Bolling's initial reaction was to ask him, "What did you colour him green for?", but soon the idea grew on him. Why exactly he had green skin didn't get an in-universe explanation until a decades-later story which said he was from another planet.

Comments

[donnblake]

You know, it's not actually a surprise that "lone escapee of the hostage taking sneaks around, takes out the hostage takers one by one and saves the day," predates Die Hard, but I wouldn't have thought to look at Little Archie as a predecessor.

[icon_uk]

And now Mad Doctor Doom sounds like he has Alan Rickman's voice.

That's not a criticism mind you...

[cricharddavies]

It's a bit odd that Mad Doctor Doom hides the "and then the world" part of his scheme from Chester. Did he really think that Chester would object to that, and if so, why?

[alicemacher]

A few panels before that, Chester comments that the scheme will be a great gag on the Bigbucks store. This suggests that he's involved with this for the fun of it, and assumes in his naivete that Mad Doctor Doom is too. In subsequent stories featuring the two of them, that I recall at least, Chester comes across more as a typical "greaser" teenager, into girls, hot rods and maintaining his pompadour; unllike his boss, he isn't a "muahaha evil" sort.

[icon_uk]

Good internships are hard to find, even in the Archi-verse

[bradygirl_12]

Maybe Doctor Doom will run into the Scooby Gang someday ("That meddling kid...!")

Looks like Veronica's mom was in the crowd.

Funny, I never even thought about Doom being green. Shows how long I've been reading comics. ;)