Dollmaker (comics)
Dollmaker is the name taken on by three supervillains in DC Comics.
Fictional character biography
Marcel Mannequin
| Dollmaker | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Plastic Man #10 (June 1968) |
| Created by |
Arnold Drake Jack Sparling |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Marcel Mannequin |
| Species | Human |
| Place of origin | Earth |
| Abilities | Use of dolls he can control |
The first Dollmaker seen was an enemy of Plastic Man.[1]
Anton Schott
| Dollmaker | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Supergirl #58 (January 2011) |
| Created by |
Sterling Gates Jamal Igle |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Anton Schott |
| Species | Human |
| Place of origin | Earth |
| Abilities |
Talented inventor Genius-level intellect Use of modified dolls as weapons |
Supergirl and Cat Grant enter Arkham Asylum in order to have a sit down with the Toyman. It seems Cat has been receiving a doll on her doorstep each time a kid in Metropolis is reported missing by the papers. Cat wants to know why Toyman has been sending the dolls to her. Toyman confesses he loves children and he would do nothing to harm them. Supergirl uses her brute force to get any real answers out of Toyman but she has her own reasons for interrogating Toyman. Kara uses her x-ray vision to see if Toyman is a robot or the real Winslow Schott but the real reason why she is threatening Schott because Winslow had a hand in the destruction of New Krypton. Schott was the one who triggered Reactron's self-detonation. Unfortunately, Kara can tell from Schott’s vitals that he is telling the truth but Cat refuses to let Toyman go so she waves one of the dolls in Schott’s face. In an instant, Schott recognizes the craftsmanship of the doll and just as Schott was about divulge some information, the doll became animate. The doll attacks Toyman with a knife and it begins to stab him in the chest. Kara holds back Cat and watches as the doll nearly kills Schott. Kara destroys the doll with her heat vision and rushes Schott to the infirmary. Cat insults Supergirl by saying her rash actions could have cost them any possible lead to finding the children. Kara leaves Arkham and takes her anger out on Riot, Shrapnel, Baroness Blitzkrieg as well as Composite Superman before returning them to Ryker’s. Later on, Supergirl meets with Lana Lang because Kara could tell Cat has her personal vendetta against Toyman. Lana reveals that one of Toyman's robots accidentally killed Adam Grant, Cat’s son and Superman was the one who held the boy in his arms but he still allowed Schott to live. In recent months, Lana has noticed Cat has been directing a lot of her anger toward teenagers who are ruining their lives. Meanwhile, Cat returns to her apartment after visiting her son’s grave but suddenly a doll-like figure with claws for hands appears out of nowhere and attacks Cat. Cat uses her taser gun to stun the doll but Cat soon realizes that the doll is actually one of the missing children. Someone has surgically altered the child and turned them into a cybernetic doll assassin. It is at this point, Cat’s front door opens and the orchestrator of these kidnappings reveals himself as Anton Schott aka the Dollmaker.[2]
The Dollmaker is accompanied by two other doll assassins who bound and gag Cat as they all head back to Dollmaker’s base of operations. Anton reveals his origins to Cat as his assassins make Ms. Grant more comfortable. It turns out Winslow was more compassionate towards other children than his own son even though Anton showed great promise as a skilled toymaker. As for Anton’s mother, she took off with Anton because she was under the impression that her husband was a pedophile but later she abandons Anton, leaving him to fend for himself. With nowhere to go, Anton found one of his father's abandoned toy factories and began to adapt his father’s motif in order to make a name for himself. This turn of events only enhanced Anton’s sadistic compulsions which was brought on by abandonment issues. Anton kidnapped Cat because he knew what his father did to her so he asks Cat if she wants to be his new mother. Cat spurns Anton’s heartfelt plea so in a fit of rage, Anton decides he will shut down all of his doll assassins which will kill them. Cat swallows her pride and calls out to Supergirl because she refuses to let her anger towards Supergirl to endanger the children. Supergirl crashes through the Dollmaker's hideout, uses her heat vision to free Cat and she disarms the doll assassins. Cat knocks out Anton with her right hook and Anton is most likely sent to Arkham Asylum to work out his issues with his father.[2]
Barton Mathis
| Dollmaker | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Detective Comics (vol. 2) #1 (November 2011) |
| Created by | Tony S. Daniel |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Barton Mathis |
| Species | Human |
| Place of origin | Earth |
| Team affiliations | Secret Society of Super Villains |
| Abilities | Gifted surgeon |
The third Dollmaker debuted as part of The New 52. As a child, Barton Mathis went on several "hunting trips" with his father Wesley. During these hunts, Barton watched as his father killed people and then cannibalized them. He would also witness his father being shot down by a young cop named James Gordon. After spending only a year in foster care, Barton disappeared for years before he resurfaced as the criminal Dollmaker.[3]
The Dollmaker first appeared in current continuity when he visited the Joker in Arkham Asylum. The Joker had planned to be caught and taken to Arkham for the sole purpose of having an audience with the Dollmaker. As planned, the Dollmaker cuts the skin from the Joker's face leaving the madman ecstatic with the pain. That night they celebrated believing themselves to be reborn.[4]
Upon tracking Ray Quimby, a serial killer associated with Wesley Mathis, to a location while believing Quimby kidnapped Commissioner James Gordon, Batman is ambushed by the members of the Dollmaker's "family" (members including Matilda Mathis, Bentley, Jack-in-the-Box, Sampson, Olivia Carr, and Orifice). Batman then encounters the Dollmaker who has brought in what appears to be Commissioner Gordon.[5]
As Batman crawls towards Commissioner Gordon, he discovers that the body is simply a "doll" of human body parts stitched together to resemble Commissioner Gordon. The Dollmaker announces his plans to make a doll of Batman's flesh and then sell it off to the highest bidder. Naturally, Batman resists and is forced to fight all of the Dollmaker's family with rapidly spreading paralysis in his body. With Jack-in-the-Box clinging to his back, Batman desperately leaps out a window in order to escape becoming too vulnerable in front of his enemy. Struggling to stand, he escapes while dragging the now unconscious Jack-in-the-Box with him. At an abandoned hospital, a kidnapped Commissioner Gordon overhears his captor, the Dollmaker, explaining that he plans to remove his liver before beginning the doll process, because he must save a life before his can be taken. He expresses an interest in filming the procedure, as he has a personal vendetta against Gordon for killing his father. Commissioner Gordon is unaware of who Dollmaker is talking about, but Dollmaker tells Gordon that he is staring his own victim in the face - suggesting that the skin making up his new face actually belonged to Wesley Mathis. When Batman arrives at the hospital upon receiving a message from the Dollmaker, Batman hears the Dollmaker's voice and is attacked by Bentley who chokes Batman into unconsciousness. When Batman awakens in a makeshift boxing ring, the Dollmaker then begins to auction Batman who is hanging upside down near some Joker Dolls.[3]
Suspended like a marionette, Batman is forced to fight the Joker Dolls when a crook named Raju arrives at the Dollmaker's lair to offer the Dollmaker a large sum of money in exchange for Batman. Raju's client is the Penguin who plans to pay Dollmaker some gold bars in exchange for Batman's body. The Dollmaker uses magnetized cables to immobilize Batman completely, and Batman is surprised to realize that the cables are of his own design as the Dollmaker has somehow gained access to Wayne Corp. Regardless, he uses a demagnetizer in his suit to free himself, leaping forward and knocking Penguin's thugs out. Freed, he easily defeats the Joker Dolls and begins his search for the Commissioner. Meanwhile, the Dollmaker receives a call from an unseen benefactor who warns him that the GCPD are on their way. The benefactor orders that Commissioner Gordon be killed. The Dollmaker and Matilda make their escape while his thugs Bentley and Sampson gather all the organs and body parts they can salvage. Meanwhile, Batman begins kicking down every door in the hospital, in search of Gordon. Batman defeats Bentley and Sampson and finds the Commissioner and Olivia Carr as they get to safety. Seeing the Dollmaker escaping in a car, Batman leaps down onto the roof crushing it down around him. Unexpectedly though, the car explodes. When Batman investigates, he discovers that the car was filled with decoy dummies that he had mistaken to be the Dollmaker and that the real Dollmaker must have escaped in the police chopper.[6]
Matilda Mathis later resurfaces now calling herself "Dollhouse" when she comes into conflict with Catwoman. Dollhouse had taken up the Dollmaker's cause by kidnapping children in order to harvest their organs.[7]
During the Death of the Family storyline as Batman travels through the Joker-controlled Arkham Asylum, he discovers a twisted "royal tapestry" created for him as a "tribute from [his] faithful", made entirely of living bodies sewn together, kept alive via tubes in their stomachs. The Joker tells Batman that it was made "with a little help from the Dollmaker."[8]
The Dollmaker is later found by the Joker's Daughter, who asks him to sew the Joker's face onto her own and inject the Joker's blood into her veins. The Dollmaker follows through with her request.[9]
During the "Forever Evil" storyline, Dollmaker is among the supervillains that are recruited by the Crime Syndicate of America to join the Secret Society of Super Villains.[10]
Powers and abilities
The first Dollmaker uses dolls that he can control.
The second Dollmaker is a talented inventor with a genius-level intellect who can use dolls that he has modified into mobile weapons.
The third Dollmaker is a gifted surgeon known for creating dolls made of human flesh. He is skilled enough to make the dolls almost perfectly resemble specific human beings when he has the right pieces of flesh.[3] The Dollmaker also has some access to Wayne Enterprises technology and resources, as shown when he used WayneCorp cables against Batman.[6]
In other media
Television
- The Dollmaker appears in the Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show episode "The Case of the Dreadful Dolls", voiced by Frank Welker. This version of the character creates voodoo dolls that allow him to control the people in whose likenesses they are made, in this case, the Super Friends. His hideout is in Shott's Toy Factory. In the DVD commentary, it is stated that the show's producers created the Dollmaker to be used in the episode in lieu of Toyman who was not available to them.
- Barton Mathis appears in the Arrow episode "Broken Dolls", played by Michael Eklund. Mathis is portrayed as a serial killer who murders young girls by pouring "a flexible polymer" into their throats, which hardens and suffocates them. He subsequently dresses and poses the bodies in the manner of a bisque doll, prompting the police force and media to nickname him 'The Dollmaker.' Detective Quentin Lance had imprisoned Mathis six years before the episode and is determined to recapture him after his escape from Iron Heights Penitentiary during the Undertaking. Quentin contacts Arrow and they work together to capture him, but he manages to escape a trap Lance and Team Arrow set. Mathis later kidnapped Lance and his daughter Laurel and attempted to turn Laurel into a doll with Quentin watching, but Arrow shows up and saves the Lances. Barton threatens to turn the vigilante Canary into a doll as well. The Canary, who is secretly Quentin Lance's long-lost daughter Sara Lance, kills Barton in retaliation for attacking her family. In the episode "State v. Queen", it is revealed that Count Vertigo released the Dollmaker during his own break out of the prison and claimed to be a fan of Mathis's work.
- The Dollmaker appears in Gotham, portrayed by Colm Feore.[11] This version of the character is a "mad European scientist" named Dr. Francis Dulmacher.[12] He was first mentioned in the episode "Selina Kyle", in which he has two of his minions named Patti and Doug to pose as members of the Mayor's Homeless Outreach Program to kidnap street kids as part of a child-trafficking ring while using Trident Intercontinental Shipping as a front for their smuggling. When the Dollmaker's minions get the street kids, they ship them off to the Dollmaker's lair. Detectives James Gordon and Harvey Bullock end the trafficking ring, however. During the course of "The Scarecrow" and "The Blind Fortune Teller", it is revealed that the Dollmaker has been kidnapping and imprisoning people for unknown purposes, among them being Fish Mooney. Mooney eventually learns from the unnamed prison manager that they are intended to be used for organ trade and the Dollmaker's surgical experiments. The Dollmaker makes his first physical appearance in the episode "Everyone Has a Cobblepot," in which he visits an imprisoned Mooney upon learning that she tore out her own eye to avoid being used for organ trafficking. Mooney tells the Dollmaker about her history with Carmine Falcone and attempts to convince him to let her become his partner. To show her the consequences of crossing him, the Dollmaker shows her one of his experiments: the male prison manager whom he dismembered and reassembled with different women's body parts. In order to prove herself to him, Mooney ends a mutiny among the prisoners. After the job is done, the Dollmaker welcomes her to the upper management. Upon looking outside the window, Mooney finds that his facility is on a remote island somewhere off the European coast. In the episode "Beasts of Prey," the Dollmaker confronts Mooney as she tries to escape and threatens to turn her into one of his patchwork creations. At the last moment however, Mooney's cronies from the facility beat him up allowing Mooney and the prisoners to escape.
Film
- The Anton Schott version of Dollmaker appears in the animated film Batman vs. Robin, voiced by "Weird Al" Yankovic.[13] A strong man and the almost victim of his serial killer father in childhood, Schott wears a broken doll mask and kidnaps children from Gotham City turning them into cyborg dolls (with modifications like chainsaws implanted on their arms) in an abandoned toy factory. Schott claimes that this way, they can never be hurt again. After fighting against Robin (who reluctantly spares his life), he is killed by Talon of the Court of Owls who rips Schott's heart out and inadvertently frames Robin for the murder when Batman arrives just as Talon left making Batman think Robin did it.
References
- ↑ Plastic Man (vol. 2) #10 (June 1968)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Supergirl (vol. 5) #59 (February 2011)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Detective Comics (vol. 2) #3 (January 2012)
- ↑ Detective Comics (vol. 2) #1 (November 2011)
- ↑ Detective Comics (vol. 2) #2 (December 2011)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Detective Comics (vol. 2) #4 (February 2012)
- ↑ Catwoman (vol. 4) #7-12
- ↑ Batman (vol. 2) #16
- ↑ Batman: The Joker's Daughter #1
- ↑ Forever Evil #1 (November 2013)
- ↑ "Report: GOTHAM Finds Its DOLLMAKER in THOR's COLM FEORE". Newsarama.com.
- ↑ "Matt's Inside Line: Scoop on Arrow, Once, NCIS, The 100, Vampire Diaries, Gotham, Bones, H50, Castle and More". TVLine. December 17, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
- ↑ "Animated 'Batman vs. Robin' Movie Finds Its Voice Cast (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. January 14, 2015. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
External links
- Dollmaker II at DC Comics Wiki
- Dollmaker III at DC Comics Wiki
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