To really set the proper mood for a scary story, you need the right ingredients. You need elements like lonely Scottish moors, you need ominous moons haunting overcast skies, looming over crumbling castles filled with eerie sounds and disgusting vermin. But enough about the royal family! What else do you need? You definitely need toys.


These ingredients all combine into an early adventure of that well-known master of menace, Dr. Droll, no doubt filled with his trademark brand of (looks up definition) dry amusement and self-mockery. Wait, that can't be right.


Not only has this evil toymaker - I've been reading comic books all my life and damned if I've EVER seen a toymaker that WASN'T evil - not only has he created mechanical walking nine inch robots with amazing rat-blasting ray guns - he's taken them out of the protective packaging, and they aren't in mint condition any more. Now THAT'S evil.


Sandy here suddenly realizes if there's one thing better than discovering an army of little robots armed with paralyzing guns, it's that these things scare the hell out of his sister.


"This is great," thinks Sandy. "This is better than the time I put on the mask and hid behind the sofa. Gotta remember to thank Dr. Droll after all this is over."


Is this it? Have we achieved peak Frightened Jo?


The thing about making deadly weapons disguised as and the same size as toys is that they can be defeated by toy-sized methods, methods that are themselves actually toys, like, say, slingshots.


Jo won't feel safe until she finds a policeman, and I'm guessing she doesn't know many policemen.


To be honest, I wouldn't believe these kids either. However I probably wouldn't express my thoughts with a crazy made-up exclamation like "Scrivens."


Part Two of this evil world domination plan? Sell these robots one at a time at bargain prices to passersby on the streets of a mid-sized Scottish town. Sure, grin triumphantly, Droll! You've earned it!


Gee Dr Droll, I wonder how those kids recognized you in your "crazy goggle-eyed bushy-browed hollering maniac" disguise?


So far this world domination master plan has three weaknesses - meddling kids, slingshots and dogs.


The only force more powerful than an army of menacing robots is the ear-grabbing clutch of the Scottish Auntie.


Quickly tiring of the tedious task of physically selling these robots one at a time, Droll instead realizes as the manufacturer he can pass his products on at wholesale prices to businesses who focus solely upon individual sales. Congratulations, genius, you've invented capitalism.


Toy spacemen come to life, working on the other little toys with their little tools! Self-replicating themselves using any available matter and energy until all Earth has been rendered into nanotechnological "gray goo" by their processes! No, wait, they're just zapping shopkeepers with their paralysis rays. That's fine.


Pretty sure every night for the constable here involves gasping, losing control of his bike, and sprawling on the cobblestones in fear of mysterious wee folk glimpsed in the shadows (holds hand to face in drinking motion, makes "glug glug" noise)


Cautiously, the youngsters find a tiny Soviet style May Day parade happening in their back garden. Quick, unfurl the tiny giant portrait of Lenin before the tiny Politburo reaches the tiny reviewing stand!


Look Sandy, I know how you feel. I also think those drones are noisy, annoying and potentially dangerous!


Inside that tiny toy helicopter a tiny toy door gunner is explaining to a tiny toy reporter that it's easy to shoot tiny toy bullets at children, you just don't lead 'em so much.


They're paralyzed into immobility by the robot's ray gun, while the readers are paralyzed into immobility by those tartan-pattern knee socks.


Like a lot of comics this one tends to wander away from its core mission, which is to depict Jo in states of anxiety and frightfulness. Come on comic, make with the scares!


Look at this inhuman monster, manufacturing tiny toy rockets and tiny tanks and tiny cannons and tiny missiles and tiny SLBMs! Everyone knows that only *regular-sized* destructive weapons are acceptable!


Sure, the easy joke here is to say something about the terrible state of his dental work. But Droll here has been assaulted and abused by his hair stylist, his optician, whatever shop sold him his last razor, whoever advised him on his wardrobe, and the esthetician who said "sure, your eyebrows are fine, don't touch them!" He's owed some revenge.


YES he invented a paralyzing ray. But right now he's going to tie them up with good old fashioned rope. It's traditional!


Sure, we already have bombs and grenades and mines and explosives of all kinds. Did we have one that looked like a mouse? No.


Nothing says "world dominating super villain" like cramming yourself into a child's toy tractor.


I don't care what the TSA says, I've got to have my penknife on me at all times. Who knows when I'll be tied up by a crazed toy-making madman?


After seeing movie after movie starring entire armored divisions of these model tanks uselessly blasting away at Godzilla and Gamera and Rodan and you name it, I don't know that they quite inspire the requisite fear.


Meddling kids, slingshots, dogs, and garbage cans. FOUR weaknesses.


And we're back to emotionally scarred-for-life Jo. I knew you could do it, comic!


You see all these news reports about hooligans and vandals pushing over rocks and destroying geological formations in state parks, and now we're forced to ask, did they happen to be battling an army of tiny paralyzing robots?


Stone the crows... and the tiny robots and tanks and Dr. Droll himself! It's all over for the evil doctor as he's carted away to serve what's no doubt a lengthy sentence for violating all the laws against building a army of tiny robots and exploding mice. Will he escape and menace the world again? Will Sandy be there to stop his evil plans while Jo looks on with increasingly horrified expressions? Will this exact story be reprinted in weeklies and annuals at least three times? Only the UK comics industry knows for sure.

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