Aunt Sheila

Sheila Doolin is the shrewish aunt of Gloria Benton's friends, Harry and Sally Doolin.

A drop-dead, gorgeous redhead with a devastating right-hook and a mouth that could gut a fish, her main ambition seems to be making Harry's life miserable at every opportunity.

According to a number of flashback scenes, Sheila Doolin first moved to Everdale with her family in January 1941. Once settled into the community, she soon made friends with her next door neighbors, Fred and Dora Benton. This relationship would endure for over ten years as Sheila's niece, Sally, grew up with the Benton's high-spirited daughter, Glory.

Seeking employment in nearby Chamberlain, Sheila began working as a receptionist at Engulf & Devour, gradually working her way up the ranks to become District Manager. Spending most of her days at the office, she left her nephew, Harry, in charge of his little sister, Sally, warning him to "keep her out of trouble or else. This proved easier said than done, as by that time, Sally had fallen under Glory's malignant influence.

As time went by, Sheila earned a formidable reputation within the real estate industry, commonly referred to as "The Barracuda" for her shrewd business acumen and cut-throat tactics. An inveterate gambler from early youth, she was also known for her impervious poker face and mathematically-impossible winning hands. Her greatest victory came in the form of an Ace High Straight, with which she bankrupted her former employer and drove him into a pauper's grave.

Having secured control of Engulf & Devour, she immediately set about driving the competition out of business, resulting in a rash of suicides all across the city. The first six or seven unexplained deaths yielded two unexpected consequences, the first being that Sheila Doolin became the wealthiest woman in Everdale. The second was that she was never invited to another card game as long as she lived.

Subsequently retiring from public life, Sheila suddenly discovered her true calling, which was making her nephew's life as miserable as possible. Blaming Harry for his sister's frequent misconduct, she demonstrated the importance of setting a positive role model by breaking a vase over his head whenever he shirked his responsibilities. From there, she worked her way up to bowling balls, baseball bats and flame throwers. At one point, she dropped a grand piano out a third floor window after he complained that she'd thrown everything at him but the kitchen sink.

This state of domestic bliss continued until Harry started college. With her idiotic nephew safely out of the way, Sheila finally had time to relax and take stock of the future; within a few years all of her chicks will have flown the nest and her familial obligations would be fulfilled. She could now consider selling her business and moving to Las Vegas.

By the end of the decade, Sheila had come full circle: with both her children living away from home, there was nothing left to keep her in Everdale. Auctioning off her assets for a paltry three million, Sheila Doolin pulled up stakes and bought a one-way ticket out to Nevada. Unfortunately, history does not record how well she fared in The City of Sin, but given her exploits up to this point...it's not that difficult to imagine.

Faux Publishing History
Sheila Doolin debuted in the back pages of ''Holy Dooley! Comics'' issue two (Mar-Apr 1941), introduced as Flash Harry's spinster aunt. As the strip gained popularity, Sheila was redesigned as a shapely redhead in her early thirties, becoming younger each year until she settled to around age twenty-seven. Although she was never featured in her own series, she appeared in virtually every story up to 1954.

After Holy Dooley! went into hiatus in 1955, Sheila and the other Doolin characters were transferred to Glory Bee Adventures, where children's humor was combined with teen romance in an attempt to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Around this time, a decision was made to phase Sheila out of the strip due to the increasing popularity of the Glory-Kitty-Carrie triumvirate. Sally lasted a few months longer before vanishing without a trace; Harry followed suite towards the end of 1959.

Two years later, when Landmark relaunched its superhero line, several members of the "Everdale Gang" were revived as supporting characters, but by that point, Aunt Sheila had long since slipped into oblivion. When Carrie Madison eventually folded in 1973, the entire Doolin Family was little more than a footnote in comics history.