Doc Savage

For two generations of young readers — the original pulp fans of the 1930s and 40s followed by the reprint fans of the 1960s and 70s — Doc Savage remains not only an iconic figure but a template for all adventure heroes who came after.

Doc and his team — the ape-like chemist Monk Mayfair, his rival attorney Ham Brooks, construction engineer Renny Renwick, electrical engineer Long Tom Roberts, archeologist / geologist Johnny Littlejohn — inspired such diverse teams as Captain Future and his crew, the Challengers of the Unknown, the Fantastic Four, the crew of the Enterprise, Buckeroo Banzai’s Hong Kong Cavaliers (many of whom, we must be fair to observe, executed the formula fair more successfully than Doc and his crew), and Team Venture.

Doc also proved a direct inspiration (read “rip off”) of several key concepts later popularized by Superman, including “the man of bronze” vs “the man of steel” and first use of an arctic Fortress of Solitude for those times when he just needed a break from adventuring.

There have been radio serials, comic books, movies (one by producer George Pal, another by teen fans in the 1970s), and a heart-breaking number of announced but never made media projects, including a serial (eventually rewritten as Fighting Devil Dogs) and abortive TV projects (including a proposed animated series by Ruby-Spears that went so far afield of the original concept that it’s a blessing it got shelved after early development).

So what makes the character so fascinating?

He represents an ideal embodiment of the ultimate of humanity abilities.  Unlike Superman (born or another planet) or other superheroes (either mutants or enhanced by some form of magic or super-science), Doc’s abilities are the result of his father’s relentless training regimen for him since birth.  He’s a brilliant polymath in all sciences (a legit doctor with and MD plus a plethora of PhDs), a fluent linguist in virtually all languages including ancient Mayan and American Sign Language, a skilled mimic and disguise artist, an expert martial artist and judo master (this at a time when martial arts were virtually unknown in America), plus a pilot / sailing master as well as a world renown philanthropist.

The only thing he isn’t is genuinely human, and from the very beginning there’s an unspoken yet nonetheless present undercurrent in all his adventures that his frantic activity is pretty much a defense against admitting he really has no inner personal life.

Over the next several months (probably years) I’m going to recap the Doc Savage novels as re-published by Bantam Books in the 1960s. Their covers by James Bama probably did more to cement Doc’s iconic appeal than the stories themselves, creating the look that every succeeding interpretation has followed. While Bantam eventually reprinted all the original pulp stories, they didn’t do so in order of publication; I will add that to help you understand the development of the character and series.

© Buzz Dixon