Colonel Doberman is a character from the Mickey Mouse comic strip, introduced in the comic story "The Mail Pilot".
Comic History[]
Colonel Doberman was introduced by Floyd Gottfredson as Captain Doberman when Mickey Mouse decided to enroll in a flying school in hopes of becoming a mail pilot. He learns that many planes have disappeared without a trace, and eventually his own plane is swallowed by a huge dirigible owned by Pete and Sylvester Shyster. Gloomy the Mechanic and Mickey help out Captain Doberman who becomes the head of the Secret Service.
His next appearance is in "The Captive Castaways" when he asks Mickey to fly food and medicine to the snowbound town of Rock Ledge. With Minnie Mouse along, he completes the mission, but on their return, they are lost in a storm and blown out to sea where they land on the deck of a smuggling ship run by Pete.
Captain Doberman's next appearance is in "The Sacred Jewel" when Mickey and Captain Churchmouse are hired to deliver a sacred gem to the middle eastern country of Umbrellastan to the Calif Houv-Ya-Bin, but their cargo is robbed by Pete and Shyster. Captain Doberman gives Mickey a homemade blimp in order to follow the thieves' trail out to sea. Mickey, Minnie and Goofy track the crooks, and Minnie is kidnapped, while Captian Churchmouse is threatened with death if the gem is not delivered.
Next Captain Doberman asks Mickey and Gloomy to take an experiment vehicle called the submarplane in "The Pirate Submarine", to investigate the disappearance of the crews of several ships found adrift. Mickey & Gloomy are captured by Dr. Vulter who was enslaving the missing men and forming a private army.
Next in "Mickey Mouse Joins the Foreign Legion", Mickey Mouse is inducted into the Secret Service by Captain Doberman and travels to North Africa on the trail of Trigger Hawkes and stolen blueprints. Mickey enlists in the Foreign Legion to keep an eye on Hawkes and Major Beau Chest (an alias of Pete).
In "Island in the Sky", Captain Doberman and Mickey meet Dr. Einmug who has discovered the way to manipulate atoms, creating force fields and potentially devastating weapons. Pete tries to steal Dr. Einmug's atomic power formula but is foiled by Mickey. Doberman and Mickey try to convince Einmug to entrust his secrets to them to prevent them getting into the wrong hands, but he decides that his is the only safe hands and leaves for a secret destination. Mickey feels that he has let Doberman down by not getting the formulae, but the latter takes it philosophically and decides it for the best that nobody knows about Einmug and his discoveries.
As of "Mickey Mouse: The Ghost Town Airport", Doberman has been promoted to "Colonel" and is now the Director of the Secret Service. He asks Mickey and Goofy to investigate a mysterious airport near a ghost town where planes crash for no apparent reason once they near a certain spot.
And finally in "Mickey Mouse: Scoundrels in Space!", Mickey and Colonel Doberman test a new spacecraft, a criminal named Cheshire Charlie and his lackeys hijack it and threaten to use its laser ray to deplete Earth's water supply. Colonel Doberman is also a frequently used character in European Disney comics.