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| Art by Jim Steranko |
(No you didn't miss a chapter.
The previous posts about this story appeared HERE, HERE, and HERE at our "brother" RetroBlogs Hero Histories and Atomic Kommie Comics!)
BTW, our hero, Doc Savage, is nicknamed that because he's a licensed MD...not that he has much time to practice while globetrotting and fighting evildoers!
He also holds doctorates in several other scientific disciplines, is the world's most physically-perfect human being, and an expert in every martial art and weapon (though he tries to avoid killing)!
Whatta guy!
As to the saga itself: 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 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!
Those who followed the re-presentation of Man of Bronze/Master of the Red Death from the beginning will note that Ernie Chua/Chan took over the inking from Jim Mooney for the "Master of the Red Death!" section..
Personally, I preferred Mooney.
After this, 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, 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!
Trivia note: several other "doctor"-named superheroes were MDs in their secret identities, including Dr Mid-Nite and Dr Nemesis.
(The other "Doctor"-named heroes weren't MDs though they usually had a doctorate in another scientific discipline.)
Plus, there were some characters, like Thor and the Skull Killer, who were MDs in their alter-egos...but didn't use the title "Doctor" in their heroic identities!
One "doctor" in particular, Stephen Strange (better known as Doctor Strange), who lost his manual dexterity in a car crash and ended up journeying to Tibet to learn mysticism, recently regained full use of his hands, resulting in his book being retitled Doctor Strange: Surgeon Supreme!
...but that's a whole 'nother post!
Tomorrow...we travel to The Secret Sanctum of Captain Video to look at the 1960s (the era of Batman and James Bond), when a Doc Savage movie series was planned...and why it didn't occur!
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