Doc Savage And His Amazing Crew

A




Who is Doc Savage?

An introduction from the back of one of the books:

WHO IS DOC SAVAGE?

To the world at large, Doc Savage is a strange, mysterious figure of
glistening bronze skin and golden eyes. To his amazing co-adventurers,
the five greatest brains ever assembled in one group, he is a man of
superhuman strength and protean genius whose life is dedicated to the
destruction of evil-doers. To his fans he is the greatest adventure hero
of all time, whose fantastic exploits are unequaled for hair-raising
thrills, breathtaking escapes and bloodcurdling excitement.

HIS AMAZING CREW—

WILLIAM HARPER "JOHNNY" LITTLEJOHN -- the bespectacled scientist
who was the world's greatest living expert on geology and archaeology.

COLONEL JOHN "RENNY" RENWICK -- the favorite sport of this
engineering genius was pounding his massive fists through heavy paneled doors.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL ANDREW BLODGETT "MONK" MAYFAIR –
only a few inches over 5 feet tall and yet over 260 pounds. His brutish
exterior concealed the mind of a world-renowned chemist.

MAJOR THOMAS J. "LONG TOM" ROBERTS was the physical weakling
of the crowd but a wizard at electricity and radio.

BRIGADIER GENERAL THEODORE MARLEY "HAM" BROOKS -- slender and waspy and the
greatest lawyer Harvard ever produced -- was never without
his ominous, black sword-cane.

PAT SAVAGE is Doc’s cousin from Canada with the same bronze hair and skin
and the same thirst for justice.

With their leader, they would go anywhere, fight anyone, dare everything –
all-the-while seeking excitement and perilous adventure!

*               *              *

They didn't used to list Pat Savage along with the guys on the back of the bantam reprints although she was in some of the stories, the description of Pat comes from one of the later books where they did list her with the others.

And here's an illustration of Pat Savage with the team from one of the later books:

Actually Pat Savage probably turns up more often in the new books by Will Murray than she did in the original series. She was the most important female character in Doc Savage adventures. Two other recurring female characters are Monja, the Mayan Princess who first appeared in THE MAN OF BRONZE and returned in THE GOLDEN PERIL and THEY DIED TWICE,

and Monk's pretty secretary Lea Aster, who was the main girl character in THE RED SKULL and occasionally mentioned in other stories afterwards.

Pat Savage was shown on the cover with Doc on the issue with FEAR CAY:

Here we have Doc Savage's Fortress of Solitude 

The Fortress of Solitude was Doc Savage's secret arctic base, which usually was only mentioned in the stories as somewhere Doc went. His usual base of operations was a skyscraper office building in New York, which is usually thought of as being the Empire State Building. Something which is not actually stated in the stories themselves.

A

Monk Mayfair, Guest Star

Monk and Ham both appeared as characters in Dave Stevens ROCKETEER, as did Bettie Page. The names Monk and Ham were not used for their characters in this story, but they are still recognizable as two of the sidekicks of Doc Savage.

Doc Savage himself appeared as a character in the story, but again the character's name was not used.




A

Monk Mayfair, Guest Star

Monk Mayfair was one of Doc Savage's "fabulous five", a team of adventurers whose exploits ran for years in the original magazine and were reprinted in a series of paperback books. But there was more to it than that. Apelike characters called Monk were used in other stories outside the series. It might not always have been because of the Doc Savage character, but it was in some cases.

Reference photo used by Bama for drawing Monk.

 The "Monk" appearing in the 1939 Universal serial THE PHANTOM CREEPS is similar.

There was no Ham, but in this serial Monk quarreled with Bela Lugosi's character a lot. This was unusual for serial henchmen in the serials of the time. Ordinarily they tended to do what they were told without a lot of arguing.

An resemblances could be coincidental, as they say, but then again they might not be.



The Monk Mayfair character was used in Ted White's CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE GREAT GOLD STEAL,

which was published by Bantam books. This was the same publisher that was reprinting the Doc Savage stories, and it was similar to the Doc Savage books, except that here Monk was one of the bad guys. Monk got killed during the course of the story, but I don't supposed that mattered very much as Monk continued to
appear in other adventures afterwords. Doc Savage books are still being published, including some new adventures by Will Murray. 




CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE GREAT GOLD STEAL:
http://bennypdrinnon.blogspot.com/2012/11/captain-america-and-great-gold-steal-by.html

A

Doc Savage Meets The Oomph Girl Of The Movies

R

 In the Doc Savage adventure THE HEADLESS MEN, Monk calls a redhead named Lynda Ladore "The Oomph Girl of the movies". That would make her Ann Sheridan, who was termed "The Oomph Girl" at the time. The name "Lynda" means "pretty" in Spanish, while in French "L'dore"
would mean "the love".


Reblogged from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1159016.Devils_of_the_Deep_The_Headless_Men


The Headless MenA mad scientist has invented a way to decapitate people and let them live as his headless slaves. The Man of Bronze and his crew pursue this deadly genius to Central America, where they are all trapped and captured. Only Doc Savage can prevent the headless horde from taking over the world — but he is strapped to a sacrificial altar and is scheduled to lose his head at midnight!
Authored by Alan Hathway.


                                                    *                           *                          *


During the course of this story Monk and Ham disguise themselves as "headless men" by making it look as if they don't have any heads. During this period they are unable to speak to each other and must resort to mental telepathy in order to continue their usual bickering over things like apes and pigs. A most unusual ability that they probably never used again afterward.






Download THE HEADLESS MEN
http://ebookbrowse.com/doc-savage-the-headless-men-pdf-d220930563






A

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE GREAT GOLD STEAL By Ted White

I've got this Captain America novel.

Ted White is a sort of a friend of mine and when I asked him about his book he directed me to something he'd already written about it.



--- In Timely-Atlas-Comics@yahoogroups.com, Ted White wrote:



"It's an oft-told story, but probably more appropriate to this list than
most.

It starts with Otto Binder. Binder wanted to write for Marvel (in the
mid-'60s) and Stan refused to let him, feeling (rightfully) that Otto
did not "get" and could not write in the current Marvel style. So Otto
made an end-run, going over Stan's head to Martin Goodman and to Bantam
Books. He talked Bantam into doing Marvel-character novels (this was
when Batman was coming on TV and there was a big (but shallow) public
interest in comics.

At this same time I had wanted to do a Batman novel, and my agent had
talked Bantam into it -- until they discovered Signet Books had first
refusal on all books originating from DC Comics characters (Signet was
then distributed by IND). I'd primed the pump, but Otto brought them
Marvel, and contracted to write an Avengers book. (Goodman would not
license the biggest characters, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four.)

When Stan found out, he was infuriated. He knew Binder was wrong for
the project, and he told Bantam they should get me to do the second
book, on Captain America. I'd met Stan a year or two earlier, when we
were both guests on a late-night radio show, and we'd gotten along quite
well. He asked me to write for Marvel, but I had no confidence in
myself as a comics writer; I was a writer of prose fiction (and a jazz
critic and a journalist).

Stan knew I "got" Marvel, so when he recommended me to Bantam, and
Bantam already knew who I was (from the Batman proposal) all it took was
a half-hour conversation with the Bantam editor (mostly, as it turned
out, about Ross Macdonald, whom we both liked a lot and Bantam
published) and a handshake and I had the contract. My agent even
negotiated a clause giving me "royalties" if/when the book passed
certain sales milestones, even though I could not own the property; it
was essentially Work For Hire.

I originally wanted to redo the plot of my Batman book as the Captain
America book, but when I discussed it with Stan, he talked me out of
it. So I hatched a brand new plot, involving the robbery of the Federal
Reserve Bank in lower Manhattan, which at that time had more gold stocks
than Fort Knox.

My influences were Ian Flemming (James Bond) and Lester Dent (Doc
Savage) -- which is why I put Monk from Doc Savage in the opening
chapters of the book (and ended up offending some Doc Savage fans,
*sigh*). I felt it should be a fast-moving pulp-adventure story. I had
a lot of fun writing it. One Sunday I drove to lower Manhattan and
walked the area around the Federal Reserve Bank to get the feel of it.
When I got home I wrote the first two chapters immediately (finished
copy). I finished the book in less than two weeks, and it virtually
wrote itself. (I loved the unmasking scene; I'd wanted to see a scene
like that for years.)

I turned in copies of the manuscript to both Bantam and Stan. Stan
couldn't bring himself to read it and gave it to Roy Thomas to vet. (I
don't think Stan *ever* read it.) Roy was a friend of mine and he liked
it and even incorporated elements of it (the description of the Avengers
HQ) into that year's AVENGERS ANNUAL.

I wrote it in the fall of 1966 for publication in early 1967. January,
1967, Bantam brought out Binder's Avengers book. It was *awful*. It
opened with a chapter which described the Avengers' *costumes* in
tedious detail, without the glimmerings of a *story*. There was no
"hook" to pull the readers in. There was instead an opening guaranteed
to repel anyone who read it. The book stiffed, sales-wise.

So Bantam sat on my book for a year, publishing it in the late spring of
1968. By then the boomlet of interest in such books had peaked and
declined. It never sold more than its first printing (maybe 95,000
copies), although I think it did sell that printing out eventually. I
never received any additional royalties.

I think Marvel owns the book and it *could* be republished any time they
wished to. But I know that when all those Marvel novelizations were
coming out in the late '70s and early '80s, Marv Wolfman (who was in
charge of that project) refused to use it. People have told me that was
because my book was much better than those Wolfman produced, but I never
read them, so I can't say that. I can say that Marv butchered another
book of mine (DOC PHOENIX: THE OZ ENCOUNTER) and that my opinion of him
is not high.

Hope that answers your questions.

--Ted White"


THE GREAT GOLD STEAL was published by Bantam books. This was the same publisher that was putting out the Doc Savage books, it was similar to the Doc Savage books, and even featured Monk Mayfair as one of the charachters in the story. He got killed during the course
of the story, but I don't supposed that mattered very much as Monk continued to
appear in other adventures afterwords.

I think this is one of the better Captain America stories I have read, although it changed a few details, such as Captain America's having metal bones. The Red Skull is still a communist in this story, like in the 1950's comics, although later stories would have it that the Red Skull had never been a communist and that the 1950's version was an impostor. But I never paid much attention to that business anyway.

And here's the Captain America book that came out in the 1970's. I didn't think it was as good as the other book, myself.

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE GREAT GOLD STEAL At "Now Read This":
http://www.comicsreview.co.uk/nowreadthis/2009/12/06/captain-america-the-great-gold-steal/

At "Young Trek":
http://www.youngtrek.com/booksread.html


Sentinel Of Liberty ( Captain America Site ):
THE GREAT GOLD STEAL was a Captain America novel by Ted White that was published


Ted White At Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_White_(author)

Ham Brook's What-is-it, Chemistry

R

 

In the Doc Savage stories, Ham Brooks found a strange ape in an adventure set in South America.


Doc Savage and the fabulous five from the back on one of the Bantam reprints:

 

Ham is on the left, Monk is on the right. In between are Johnny, Renny, and Long Tom.

 

"Ham" seems to have been a common nickname at the time: I also remember it being used as a character name by Stanly Weinbaum during this period. It's possible it could be related to comedian Lloyd Hamilton.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Ham Brooks

First appearance	Doc Savage Magazine #1 (March 1933)
Created by	Lester Dent

Ham Brooks is one of the characters referred to as the "The Fabulous Five", the primary assistants of Doc Savage, and first appears with the full name Theodore Marley Brooks.^[1]
The character is presented as a Harvard educated lawyer,^[2] holding the military rank of brigadier general, and known as a dandy. He is also shown as always carrying sword cane with a blade coated with a knock-out chemical.
He is also shown to love fighting with his friend "Monk" Mayfair. This began during World War I, when a practical joke landed Monk in a military jail. Ham had taught Monk some insulting French words, presenting them as compliments. Monk used them while speaking to a French general and got locked in the guard house. Shortly after that, Ham was framed for stealing a truckload of hams, resulting in his insulting nickname. Ham was able to defend himself, but the fact that he was never able to prove that Monk was behind this has always been a source of irritation for him.^[2]
During the story "Dust of Death" an odd ape took a liking to Ham. He kept it due to its similarity to Monk. He named it Chemistry, to infuriate Monk. Monk often calls it "the what-is-it", since it looks to be either an ape, chimpanzee, gorilla or baboon, or a mixture.^[3]

 In other media

• In the film Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, he was played by Darrell Zwerling.

Monk and Ham are the most important of Doc Savage's assistants, and they during the course of their adventures they have an ongoing quarrel, which their pets frequently become involved in.

 

 

But getting back to Ham's pet "What-is-it", I suspect that this was because of  the then-recent story of a discovery of an unknown new species of ape by Francois De Loys.

Ameranthropoides loysi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    

Ameranthropoides loysi

(de Loys' Ape Didi)
Creature
Grouping	Cryptids
Sub grouping	Hominid, primate
Data
First reported	1920
Country	Colombia/Venezuela Border
Region	Tarra River
Habitat	Rainforest

"Ameranthropoides loysi" (De Loys' Ape) is allegedly a large primate encountered by François De Loys in South America. Apart from testimony of claimed eyewitnesses, the only evidence of the animal is one photograph.
Controversy continues about the authenticity of the animal, with critics contending that the de Loys' Ape is a hoax and that the photograph shows only a posed spider monkey carcass, though cryptozoology enthusiasts and a few others support the notion that Loys did indeed encounter an unknown primate.^[1]

Contents   1 Encounter 2 Publication 3 Controversy 4 See also 5 Sources 6 External links

 Encounter

François de Loys, a Swiss oil geologist, led an expedition from 1917 to 1920 to search for petroleum in an area along the border between Colombia and Venezuela, primarily near Lake Maracaibo. The expedition was unsuccessful, and furthermore suffered greatly due to disease and skirmishes with natives; of the 20 members of de Loys' group, only four survived.
According to de Loys' later report, in 1920, while camped near the Tarra River, two large creatures approached the group. Initially, de Loys thought they were bears, but then noted that they were monkey-like, holding onto shrubs and branches. The creatures – one male, one female – seemed angry, said de Loys, howling and gesturing, then defecating into their hands and flinging feces at the expedition. Fearing for their safety, the expedition shot and killed the male; the female then fled. De Loys and his companions recognized that they had encountered something unusual. The animal resembled a spider monkey, but was much larger: 1.57 meters tall (compared to the largest spider monkeys, which are just over a meter tall). De Loys counted 32 teeth (most New World monkeys have 36 teeth), and noted that the creature had no tail.
They posed the creature by seating it on a crate and propping a stick under its chin. After taking a single photograph, de Loys reported, they skinned the creature, intending to keep its hide and skull. Both items were later abandoned by the troubled expedition.
According to other reports, more photographs were taken but were lost either in a flood or during the capsizing of the scientists' boat.

 Publication

After de Loys returned to Europe, he kept the story of the unidentified ape to himself until 1929. That year, his friend the anthropologist George Montandon was perusing de Loys's files, seeking information about South America's native tribes. Montandon discovered the photograph, and thought it to be very important. De Loys finally related his account in the Illustrated London News of June 15, 1929, and three scientific articles regarding the creature were published in French journals. Montandon suggested a scientific name name for the creature: Ameranthropoides loysi.

 Controversy

A spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi), for comparison. This species is not usually found where de Loys' specimen was shot however.

After this publicity, de Loys’ account was deemed unreliable by several critics, notably Sir Arthur Keith, a prominent anthropologist. Keith suggested de Loys was trying to pass off a normal spider monkey as something more exotic. The photograph did not clearly indicate the creature's size, and Keith also noted that by not photographing the creature’s posterior, de Loys had left open the question of whether or not it had a tail.
According to the cryptozoological researcher Ivan T. Sanderson, the particular area of South America in which de Loys allegedly found the ape has no reports of oversized hominids. Sanderson believes it to be nothing more than a spider monkey. He says of the mystery surrounding the ape, "it is an outright hoax, and an obnoxious one at that, being a deliberate deception."^[2]
Another cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman, also supports the hoax theory, and even goes as far as to say that Montandon perpetrated it in order to support his views on human origin. Montandon had suggested the name Ameranthropoides loysi to propose that the specimen was a missing link ancestor of the Western Hemisphere's "red" people. He had previously stated that Africans evolved from gorillas and Asians from orangutans.^[3] However, as researcher Richard Ravalli has pointed out, Coleman failed to point to any direct evidence of a hoax by either Montandon or de Loys.^[4] Since then, research has come to light, noted on Coleman's blog, suggesting that the stump of a banana tree can be seen at the right side of the entire photograph. Bananas are not indigenous to South America, making their occurrence in the remote jungle highly implausible, thus making it probable that the photo was not shot at the location de Loys indicated.^[5] This argument and other findings which strongly indicate a hoax, largely the result of Spanish-language work by Venezuelan scientists Bernardo Urbani and Angel Viloria, were essentially unknown to cryptozoology researchers prior to the summer of 2007. In 2009, Urbani and Viloria translated and published their findings in English.^[6]
Others have argued that de Loys could have encountered an unknown creature. The crate the creature was posed on was similar to ones commonly used for transporting gasoline, which measured just under 18 inches tall. Assuming this crate was the common type, its size would appear to support de Loys’ measurement of the creature, although others say the crate is only 15 inches tall and the ape would measure under 4 feet - smaller than de Loys' claims. Researcher Michael Shoemaker, while noting some similarities to spider monkeys, argues that the creature has a few pronounced differences: its chest and hands are different; its face is much more oval than the spider monkey's distinctively triangular visage; it lacks the spider monkey’s pronounced underbite; and has a much higher forehead than spider monkeys.

 See also

• Mono Grande
• Spider monkey

 Sources

• Jerome Clark, Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena (Visible Ink Press, 1993).
• Bernard Heuvelmans, On The Track Of Unknown Animals (Hill and Wang, 1958).
• Michael Shoemaker, "The Mystery of Mono Grande", Strange Magazine, April 1991.
• Karl P.N. Shuker, Extraordinary Animals Revisited (CFZ Press, 2007).
• Bernardo Urbani and Angel L. Viloria, Ameranthropoides loysi Montandon 1929: the History of a Primatological Fraud / Ameranthropoides Loysi Montandon 1929: la historia de un fraude primatologico (Libros en Red, 2009).

1. ^ http://alchemipedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/de-loys-ape-ameranthropoides-loysi.html
2. ^ De Loys' Ape - Unknown Hominid or Just a Hoax?
3. ^ Newton, Michael (2005). "De Loys's Ape". Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: A Global Guide. McFarland & Company, Inc.. pp. 128–129. ISBN 0-7864-2036-7.
4. ^ Loren Coleman and El Mono Grande
5. ^ De Loys’ Well-Known Prank
6. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Ameranthropoides-loysi-Montandon-1929-Primatological/dp/1597544450

 External links

• Skeptoid #302: De Loys' Ape at Skeptoid

                                                            *               *                *

Here is the surviving photograph of the De Loys ape. It may or may not have been a hoax, but the story of this unknown ape could very well have been the inspiration of the "What-is-it" that was supposed to have been found in the same part of the world in the Doc Savage story DUST OF DEATH.
 

Chemistry:
http://www.supremeadventurer.com/chemistry.htm



Doc Savage Organized:
http://docsavage.org/



Doc Savage At Pulp Net:
http://www.thepulp.net/the-links/docsavage/



Doc Savage, Supreme Adventurer:
http://www.supremeadventurer.com/



Doc Savage Home Page:
http://www.docsavagelibrary.com/superhero-library/doc-savage/doc-savage-home-page.aspx

R