Heroic Halloween Hospital Horror GIANT-SIZE DOC SAVAGE "Master of the Red Death!" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Art by Jim Steranko showing Doc in his original vest rather than the shirt seen here

Investigating the death of Doc's father in Hildago, the Man of Bronze and his five associates enter the Valley of the Vanished and encountered the Mayan residents of a hidden City of Gold.

Its' ruler, King Chaac and his daughter, Princess Monja, welcome the son of the late Professor Clark Savage (killed by an unknown disease) and those who accompanied him.

However, urged on by the costumed Son of the Feathered Serpent, others are not so friendly towards the outsiders.

Under cover of darkness, they kidnap three of Doc's aides and throw them into a sacrificial well filled with poisonous snakes.

Monk, whom they'd left unconscious, follows them and...

While Doc's skills as a physician were not usually spotlighted (except in reference to his performing brain surgery on captive criminals), he has used his surgical talents to save his aides' lives on several occasions (and devised innovative techniques at the same time) as shown in these excerpts from Marvel's Doc Savage V2N7 (1977)...

In the course of this adventure, one of Doc's friends and aides, electronics expert Long Tom is ambushed...




Doc, of course, catches up with the ambushers...

...who are, in fact, reformed by Doc's brain surgery!

After Giant-Size Doc Savage, instead of reviving the color comic, Marvel decided to do a b/w magazine featuring book-length original stories rather than adaptations of the pulp tales.

(Marvel's foray into a field previously-dominated by Warren Publishing had proven successful, with b/w magazines in horror, martial arts, and the Planet of the Apes movie/tv franchise proving to be solid sellers.)

The eight-issue magazine run is considered superior by many (including me) to the earlier comic run, with longer, more involved, original tales, all written by Doug Moench, that followed the Doc spirit more than the Lester Dent-conceived story structure.

Not to say the color comic didn't have it's good points including a couple of Jim (The Shadow, Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.) Steranko covers and some of penciler Ross Andru's best artwork ever!

Next Friday, on the Eve of Halloween...
Nope, We're Not Telling You!
If You Want a Treat, You've Gotta Be Here to Receive It!

Support Medical Comics and Stories!

Visit Amazon and Buy..

Doc Savage

His Apocalyptic Life
by Phillip Jose Farmer
(A "biography" of the Man of Bronze including his medical background)
Paid Link

Heroic Halloween Hospital Horror GIANT-SIZE DOC SAVAGE "Master of the Red Death!" Part 1

We Have Already Seen...

Scientific adventurer Doc Savage and his five associates, having survived an assassination attempt by a gunman in Mayan ceremonial garb at their NYC headquarters, are proceeding to the Central American country of Hidalgo to investigate the suspicious death by unknown disease of Savage's explorer father.

As they come in for a landing at the airport...

Are Monk's buddies dead?

Did Ham's suit get wrinkled?

And, where's the Man of Bronze when you really need him?

Tune in Next Friday for both the Astounding Answers and This Titanic Tale's Cataclysmic Conclusion!

Support Medical Comics & Stories

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Doc Savage: the Man of Bronze
Paid Link

Heroic Halloween Hospital Horror GIANT-SIZE DOC SAVAGE "The Man of Bronze" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Hero(s)...

Art by John and Sal Buscema

Learning of his father's death due to a rare disease, adventurer/scientist Doc Savage returns to his headquarters in New York City, where he is greeted by his five associates, each an expert in a different science or discipline.
Suspecting foul play, they are about to read the elder Savage's personal papers to ascertain clues, when an assassination attempt is made on Doc.
The group (except for lawyer Ham, sent on another assignment) now goes in pursuit of the gunman...

To Be Continued...Next Friday!

Support Medical Comics & Stories

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Doc Savage

The Man of Bronze
Paid Link

Heroic Halloween Hospital Horror GIANT-SIZE DOC SAVAGE "The Man of Bronze" Part One

 Who's the superhero whose origin is tied to deadly disease?

And, ironically, he's one of the few superheroes who's also a practicing MD!

Doc and his buddies go in pursuit of the would-be assassin...
Next Friday!

In the early 1970s, bolstered by the success of Conan the Barbarian, both DC and Marvel attempted to launch other pulp characters who had successful papaerback reprint series as comic book titles!

Hoping that the audiences for them would carry over just as Conan's had, Marvel acquired the rights to Doc Savage, while DC snagged both The Shadow and The Avenger.

The Doc title lasted only eight issues from 1972-73, but the license remained in Marvel's hands when the Groege Pal-produced movie came along, and Marvel invoked their right to do a comic based on the film!

Compare with page 7 above.

Since the flick was an adaptation of the premiere novel "The Man of Bronze", which Marvel had already used as the basis for the first two issues of their 1972-74 comic, it was decided to repackage that existing material as a double-sized one-shot to tie in with the movie's release!

The art was modified to match Doc's appearance in the movie, substituting an open-collared shirt for his Marvel-created blue vest and a buzz-cut for the James Bama/Bantam paperback "skullcap" (see left).

(I always wondered why Marvel didn't go with the torn-shirt look of the Bantam paperback covers on the comics.

Maybe they didn't want people confusing Doc with their resident torn-shirt aficionado, Nick Fury, who still appeared in both his WWII Sgt Fury incarnation and his present-day Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. version!

Thankfully, Marvel returned to the torn shirt "look" on the 1975-77 b/w magazine covers by Ken Barr.)

The original two-issue comic adaptation of "Man of Bronze" had updated the 1933 novel to the then-present 1970s.

The Giant-Size Doc Savage "re-mastering" retro-fitted the technology back to 1930s levels, except the adaptation's replacing of the Mayan assassin's elephant gun with a laser rifle, which remained!

They also re-colored Monk's hair from the incorrect black-with-blue-highlights to the red color it had in the pulp stories (and the remainder of the Marvel run).

Support Medical Comics and Stories

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Doc Savage

The Man of Bronze
Paid Link