Nick Fury Agent Of SHIELD - EMPYRE!

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD: Empyre is a 2000 novel by Will Murray for Marvel's then bustling novel series from Berkely Books and is a nifty addition to SHIELD lore. Murray is the perfect writer for this kind of material, a guy well versed in matters military and able to speak with confidence about specific weapons and their capabilities. Equally valuable is his ability to craft a fast-moving tale which is loaded with surprises as well as being steeped in lore from the long history of Nick Fury and his doughty agents. Under a lush Joe Jusko cover, this one is also graced with fascinating interior illustrations by famed SHIELD alumnus Jim Steranko. 

The story begins with Nick Fury in the midst of seeming combat which in classic SHIELD swerve style is actually a training mission. When Nick is called away, he is quickly caught up in a bizarre airplane disaster at the same as another airliner crashes on the deck of the Hellicarrier, SHIELD's floating mobile headquarters. When Nick is declared dead, things really begin to heat up, especially for new agent Starla Spacek who has been tapped to head up SHIELD's revived ESP Division. The enemy is out there, and it appears they can read minds. It appears the scheme is to use airplanes as weapons of war. When the action heads to the Middle East, there's a lot to suggest that writer Murray was a fortune-teller himself. And it's not entirely out of the question that Hydra might be rearing up one of its deadly heads. 

Each of the twenty-one chapters is graced with a Steranko image which begins as the word SHIELD and slowly but inevitably resolves into the mug of head honcho Nick Fury. Steranko is always good at giving us something different and this gimmick delivers in spades. To enjoy the art as well read the novel check out this work at the Internet Archive. 

This is a cracking novel, well told and brisk. This 2000 novel is tragically prescient in the use of passenger planes as weapons of destruction. I rather liked the evocation of classic Steranko stories when the villains wear "Scorpio" tattoos on their wrists. I don't think these are connected in anyway as far as I can tell, but it's a neat touch. Will Murray is a writer I have long admired for his work on Doc Savage, and there was a sequel planned for this novel. But alas it never came to pass. More's the pity. 

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The All-New Wild Adventures Of Kong!

Skull Island is story written by Will Murray and illustrated by Joe DeVito which brings together two of the great icons of pop culture from the 1930's. What we end up with is in fact a "secret origin" for Doc Savage himself.

The story begins at the end. Moments after King Kong plummeted from the top of the Empire State Building to his doom, the aides of Doc Savage are on the spot and soon enough Doc himself arrives to make the dramatic announcement that he is familiar with the "Eighth Wonder of the World" already. In fact he says he owes his life to Kong. This cryptic comment is left unexplained as Doc and his men make arrangements to transport the body of Kong out of Manhattan and return it to Skull Island. It's at this juncture that Doc begins to tell the story to his trusted aides of how he and his father Clark Savage Sr. once traveled to Skull Island in search of his grandfather Stormalong Savage. 

Now Doc's men are more able to believe the outrageous claims made by Doc about ultimately finding Skull Island and the creatures there, because the events chronicled in King Kong happened about the same time that Doc and his men began their careers and they had had a few adventures together already including a visit to "Thunder Island" which was populated by dinosaurs of all sorts. Nonetheless, the story Doc relates is a fantastic tale of his own relative youth, a time when as a man of nearly twenty-one he was contacted by his father and the two take a crew of Mayans and a clipper ship named "The Orion", the very ship Doc was born on, to search for his missing Grandfather, a famous sailor whose ship has recently been sighted adrift.

The story of Doc Savage's early mission which finds him on Skull Island can best be understood if one has already read Joe DeVito's and Brad Strickland's book Kong, King of Skull Island which created a rich back story for the island and for Kong himself. It is this Skull Island and not just the one revealed in the RKO classic which is the setting here for Doc's adventure. At least one character is common to both tales, and the story is told in such a way that nothing previously revealed seems to be unraveled. This intertwining of the sagas of Doc and Kong seems to fit well.

I found Will Murray's story compelling, and it pushes you along to find out what will happen next as a good adventure tale ought. The story is not a short one by any means. I'd reckon it's twice as long as a typical Doc adventure, and it's not the seasoned Doc we are familiar with. We get glimpses and to some extent explanations for some of Doc's more curious aspects. His unusual trilling is explained and in fact becomes a significant plot point as does the fact that the Savage family members have golden eyes. We get to see an early prototype of Doc's all-purpose gun, the Super-Firer. And we get to understand why Doc is hesitant to rely on guns by and large as an adventurer.

Tarzan of the Apes is mentioned a few times during the story and in fact Murray even adopts ERB's technique of switching narrators between chapters for certain sections. (More on the Ape Man in a few paragraphs.) This is certainly a Doc who is very comfortable in the trees of the jungle, something we've seen many times in his classic adventures. Interestingly Sherlock Holmes comes up a lot too, and in one place Doc and his Dad have a very entertaining exchange of quotes from Doyle's great detective.

I won't say too much more to avoid spoiling some really sweet moments and some true surprises, but I will suggest that if anyone wanted to read a Doc Savage novel in which he unleashes hell on his enemies this is the one. This is a blood and thunder Doc who is in a life and death struggle and who fresh from the rigors of World War I seems unafraid of bloodshed. There's a lot of mayhem in this book.

This is a story any Doc fan will love. Murray put his name on this one as opposed to the classic "Kenneth Robeson" nom deplume because it travels behind the scenes more and certainly there are details some Doc fans might take issue with. But for this reader, I found this peek into the vivid history of Doc "Don't-Call-Me-Clark" Savage fascinating, and I suspect most others will too.

I give this one the highest recommendation. And now the sequel. 

In King Kong Vs. Tarzan by Will Murray from Altus Books we get a reprise of sorts of the events of the classic 1933 movie King Kong. What we have here is a story which answers the long-standing question which many who see the movie will think of later as they reflect on it, how the heck did they get that big ape to New York City anyway. The movie effectively short circuits all those complications by jetting forward in time to after the transport to the moment when King Kong will make his debut before the American public. This novel answers that question and some of it is just as tedious as you might expect.

Just like the Doc Savage story which preceded it, the story operates in the same fictional universe fleshed out by Joe DeVito in his prequel to the original King Kong story Kong: King of Skull Island where we get a back story of sorts for Kong and the natives who live alongside him and the dinosaurs across the great wall. We see as the ancient woman dubbed the "Storyteller" who tends to Kong's legend and reality and who accompanies the The Wanderer and crew as they try to take the great beast across the vast oceans. She comes up with some herbs which sedate the great ape, and we learn more than we need about the care and feeding of a monster primate. We follow the ship as they try to navigate the oceans, taking care to avoid storms and the authorities who might object to transporting such a monster to foreign lands.

The Wanderer eventually finds a safe harbor off the coast of Africa and of course Kong escapes into the jungle. Enter Tarzan of the Apes, a mythic figure that some have heard of and as we learn Denham has encountered. We see Kong as the thirty-foot monster tramples across the wilderness terrorizing the prey he encounters. We eventually meet Tarzan (it takes a really long time) who takes steps to see to it that the "King" of Skull Island is neutralized as a threat. The best way to approach this novel is to see it as two pulps put together. The first deals at length with the transport of Kong and the second Kong's misadventures in Africa. Both are obviously linked and part of the same overarching narrative, but each part has a definite focus.

This is Will Murray's second King Kong novel in recent years. The first Doc Savage: Skull Island pitted Kong against a young Clark Savage Jr. and predated the events of the classic film and the novel in which Kong meets up with the Ape-man. And to be frank this is the best writing from Murray I've seen in a while. This novel for such a pulp adventure, but it has enough going on eventually to justify that length. I was eager to see how they solved all the issues, even though we all know how the status quo must be reestablished before the novel's end. That would seem to be an insurmountable problem, but it proves not to be in this instance. Here is a link to an interview with Murray about the project.

Both of these books are recommended for a King Kong fan. 

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The Spider Chronicles!

This is a heady collection of Spider tales from Moonstone. The Spider Chronicles kicks off with an introduction from Denny O'Neil and features fantastic illustrations from Tom Floyd throughout. Doug Kaluba's cover is a powerful introduction to the proceedings. As with any anthology, the quality of the stories vary, but most of all of them successfully tap into that Spider magic in some ghastly way. 

"City of the Melting Dead" by Martin Powell is a heady tale by one of my favorite writers which pits the Spider against a malevolent foe dubbed "The Crucible" who has a deadly and horrific formula that melts human flesh. This murderous enemy is put down in the most distinctive of ways. 

"King of the City" by C.J. Henderson shows how the Spider is able to use the forces of gangland against each other in their mad scramble of greed and avarice. The true king of the city is revealed by the story's bloody finale. 

"Death from a Blood Red Sky" by Elizabeth Massie features death from above as a murderous woman uses an autogyro to wreak havoc and murder from the safety of the skies. Her killing method is singluar and savage. Her rampage is put down by the Spider with great cost to himself. 

"Death Reign of the Zombie Queen" by Howard Hopkins has Nita fall victim to the powers of a deadly woman seeking power and revenge on men for the crimes committed against her. She has created deadly cannibalistic zombies to support her deadly play for power. 

"March of the Murder Mummy" by Will Murray is a wild story which delivers on the title. We have a murderous mummy who seems to have an insatiable lust for gold. The Spider is taxed to the limit to bring down this seemingly ancient menace that can shrivel men in its grasp. 

"Regrets Only " by Chuck Dixon is a story focused on Nita Van Sloan. She is in attendance at a dinner party which turns into a potential massacre when brutal thieves and murderers overwhelm the city's elite. The Spider is seemingly occupied with another crime and Nita fears she is all alone. 

"The Marching Madmen" by Bill Crider is a wild story about an insane mob which in defiance of death and seemingly impervious to pain attack a collection of the city's most important folks. The Spider is at a loss how to deal with this threat, even to the point of seeming to lead the maddened mob at one point. 

"Fear Itself" by Joel Friedman and C.J. Henderson sets the Spider against the most ancient threat of Set and of Monks older than time. Also on hand are deadly giant reptilian beasts all too ready to rend people apart for food. These monsters are under the thrall of the Serpent Men. The Spider needs magical help to solve this case. 

"Blazing Barrels at the Reich House" by James Anthony Kuhoric is set just as WWII is coming to an end, but while the Third Reich might seem to have fallen, a mysterious zeppelin delivers deadly Nazi agents with jet packs to a Washington party at which the President is scheduled to appear. The Spider is all that stands between the President and death, and I haven't even mentioned the odd leader of the pack. 

"Senor Suicide" by Steve Englehart is a bizarre tale which begins when the Spider shoots himself in the face. We learn that the whole of the city is consumed by the rays of a device which creates emotions, especially those leading to deadly behaviors. People commit suicide by the thousands and even airplanes fall from the sky. It's all the Spider can do to save himself let alone his fellow citizens. 

"Wheelman for Terror" by Shannon Eric Denton and John Helfers is an unusual Spider story told from the perspective of a simple thug named Len who just wants to make his way in the mob. He's diligent if decidedly uncaring about his fellow man, but he makes a name for himself when he seemingly kills the Spider. While he feels he's at last a success, his fame carries a cost. 

"More Souls for Hell" by C.J. Henderson puts the spotlight on Ram Singh when he finds himself all alone having to defend the Wentworth Estate from a gang of thieves decked out in black. With blades only he cuts a lusty and savage swatch through the interlopers and so ends his boredom at having to stay behind when The Spider was elsewhere. 

"Caught in the Crossfire" by Ann Nocenti finds Wentworth and Nita in the Bahamas aboard a gambling boat which finds itself accosted by classic gangsters and real-world pirates led by a fascinating creature called "The Red Slash". It's bloody mayhem as a Monopoly game becomes a real contest between deadly agents from several quarters. This one really gets inside the mind of The Spider. 

"The Invisible Gang" by Ron Fortier features a malignant female Fagan who uses her youthful charges to carry out murderous robberies of gangsters setting off a bloody gang war. The Spider is busy dealing with the bloody consequences and has little time to find out the true nature of this invisible menace. 

"The Devil's Druggist" by Robert Weinberg focuses on a horrifying mystery of poisonous aspirin which seems to find its way into all brands. The real secret of how the poison is being delivered sets up a wild finale which pits the Spider against some exotic and quite deadly enemies. 

"The Mad Gasser of Mantoon" by Joe Gentile tells the tale of a small town which suffers from a madman who silently sneaks around and silently pumps a weird gas into the homes of various citizens. The connection between victims is hard to fathom and the motive for the crime maybe even more complex. And then there's the problem with the FBI men who seem to want to frustrate the investigation. 

"The Calling of The Spider" by Mort Castle is a story from the early days of the Spider in which Dick Wentworth might have had less lethal aspirations for his crusade against crime. In a story set among the music industry as well as a deadly drug culture, this story perhaps explains why The Spider deals out justice with such ferocious intensity. 

"The Spider and the Monster Makers" by Christopher Mills is the story of a madman who infects young women with a horrific disfiguring disease and uses that threat to blackmail the rich and well-to-do of the city. The true secret of the villain known only as "Proteus" is even more horrific than we at first are led to believe. 

"Banquets for the Damned" by John Jakes wraps up the collection as Jakes pays homage to his favorite pulp hero with a story set in Hell's Kitchen, and never has that name been more accurate. A wave of madness and murder sweeps through the city when a foreign chef sets up shop in town. His ultimate motives are sadly even more of the times. 

These are pretty dang good stories overall. The beauty of a collection like this is that if a certain story isn't really thrilling you, there's the pleasure of knowing a new one is just a few pages away. The sad part is that when a tale is really potent, you know it will wrap more quickly than you might prefer. Moonstone published a lot of these kinds of collections and this one is the best one I've read so far. 

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Wild Adventure Of The Empire Of Doom!

Empire of Doom teams up Doc Savage with The Shadow one more time. The time is the late 30's when the world is suffering under the threat of a worldwide war. The United States is not yet a combatant, but is helping its ally Great Britain, in various ways including sending them a decommissioned naval destroyer. But before that can happen the "Golden Master" steals it with the aid of his Mongolian soldiers. He then launches an attack on NYC and specifically the Shadow by destroying the hotel in which he resides. Shiwan Khan also steals various super-weapons the Shadow has collected and cached. Using this might he and his forces fend off attacks by both Doc Savage and the Shadow. 

Will Murray writing as "Kenneth Robeson" has spun an action-filled yarn this time. The emphasis on the previous team-up was atmosphere and mystery, more suitable to The Shadow. This time the goal seems to be to deliver as much slam-bang action as possible, which gives Doc Savage the spotlight despite the fact the villain is a Shadow regular. The pace of the story is remarkable and pulls the reader along almost as quickly as the pages can be turned. Since Doc and the Shadow now have a history, there's little need for the two of them to spar and they join forces almost from the beginning, albeit each in his own distinctive way. The scale of his story is larger too as the whole of the United States Navy is brought into play attempting to foil Shiwan Khan's plans. In fact, this tale is so large it actually feels more like two pulp adventures rolled into one, when the action shifts from the oceans to the mysterious land of Xanadu as detailed in the poem "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

The previous meeting of these two pulp giants was largely interested in the lore of the Shadow and was told very much from that perspective. This tale reads very much like the Shadow is tagging along on a classic Doc Savage adventure. In that regard we get a lot of the Shadow operating in relative sunshine, not his ideal environment. There are a great many dandy Doc moments and we all of the gang of five save for Johnny who as he often is, is opening tomb somewhere and is too busy. 

This one is highly recommended. 

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Wild Adventure Of The Sinister Shadow!

Since reading about this delightful crossover by Will Murray and weirdly Lester Dent (by way of a cache of unpublished materials) of the two most famous Street and Smith pulp heroes, I've been most eager to get my mitts on it and read it though. The Sinister Shadow from Altus Book's TheWild Adventures of Doc Savage imprint is a delight in many ways and easily something any fan of Doc Savage or The Shadow must have. For more from Murray on how it came together check this out.

(Joe DeVito)

The Sinister Shadow begins with Lamont Cranston going to see Doc Savage about the problem he has with The Shadow stealing his identity and (in his mind at least) threatening to kidnap him and extort money. He is in fact kidnapped along with Ham Brooks, one of Doc's five assistants, and that puts Doc and The Shadow both on the trail of a villain who calls himself "The Funeral Director" who has fashioned an elaborate organization of henchman dubbed variously as Morticians, Undertakers, Gravediggers, and Pallbearers. This large gang has made a business of kidnap and ransom of various rich men in the society, so much so that it has drawn the attention of the criminologist George Clarendon.

In this rousing and fast-paced but unusually lengthy pulp adventure, we at different times find Doc and The Shadow battling each other and even working in tandem to bring down the Funeral Director's vile gang. The Shadow's men include Harry Vincent, Clyde Burke, and Cliff Marsland. Doc is helped by Monk Mayfair, Ham Brooks, and Long Tom Roberts. Sadly, neither Renny Renwick nor Johnny Littlejohn show up in this hair-raising war on crime.

(Joe DeVito)

Murray tells the story in precise short sentences and quickly paced paragraphs and the action rarely slows down and almost never stops. We get some very evocative descriptions of the characters, in particular The Shadow. If there is a big complaint about this one it's that the Doc fan gets slighted as The Shadow and his men seem to dominate much of the action. Each hero is showcased though and by the story's end the heroes appear to understand one another better.



The story, full of action as it is, needed a few more twists and turns. It does do a vivid job of drawing from the early stories of both characters, set as it is relatively early in the careers of both heroes. And we do get some neat switches for the fans. But maybe even more would've been nice. Not as well read in Shadow lore as I am in Doc, I felt most fortunate that I took the time last year to read the first three Shadow novels, they come in handy.

It's a pricey package, but a highly readable one. This wonderful pastiche gets the Dojo's highest recommendation.

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The Radio Adventures Of Doc Savage!

The Radio Archives collection of The Adventures of Doc Savage is an eight-disk collection, and features two Doc Savage stories adapted for serial radio performance in the 1980's on public radio. The two stories adapted were The Thousand-Headed Man and Fear Cay. First up is the seven-episode saga of Fear Cay proved ideal listening for hurtling down the highways. 

Fear Cay was featured in the eleventh issue of the original Doc Savage run and offers up a cracking tale featuring Doc and all his five aides along with Pat Savage his cousin. These six find themselves confronting a gang of vicious thugs who are trying to get hold of a mysterious prize on a lost island in the Caribbean. There is also a strange old geezer who claims to be 131 years old, and who gets around quite quickly for someone of such age. There's plenty for all the aides to do with Monk, Ham, Renny, Johnny, and Long Tom all getting some decent exposure. The action is spread around well, despite the pacing being rather relentless.

The producers of this program drew pacing inspiration from the classic Republic serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel and it really works. There are some great fights and some ferocious gun play. The characterizations are crisp, and I had very little difficulty telling the players apart, despite there being a large cast of folks to keep track. The plot is classic Doc, with a battle raging in the streets of NYC before shifting to an exotic locale. There is weird mystery and plenty of raw pulp beats to suit any Doc fan.

I frankly didn't expect these to be as good as they are. Many of these later radio shows can be a bit bloodless, clear copies of an art form that once thrived but now is all but gone. This seems to be more than a mere copy, but a true revival done by real pros who are adept at the business of crafting radio drama. The quality made me very eager to dive into the second adaptation. 

That second adaptation is of one of Doc Savage's most famous stories for a host of reasons. This story is an exceedingly popular one, and it was chosen by Murray partially because it was also the story singled out by movie producers back in the 1960's for a proposed Doc Savage movie starring Chuck Conners. The project did not develop ultimately but did result in a Gold Key comics adaptation. I took a look at that comic here.

 

The story from 1937 pits Doc and his assistants against a gang of thugs seeking a mysterious treasure in far-off Asia. There they find a hidden ancient cult which seeks to keep its secrets with the sacrificial deaths of any who happen along. It's a whopping good story, with lots of chances for action and many opportunities for Doc to show off his physical skills.

The radio adaptation is pretty close to the original but does alter the last part of the story somewhat by adding Renny as a partner to Doc as he uncovers the mysteries of some distinctive temples. In the novel Doc prowls alone, but it was decided that giving Doc someone to converse with would make the discoveries seem more natural to the listener and less artificial. It works quite well for me as Renny is a favorite of mine and gets too little attention in the adventures. This adaptation is a bit shorter than "Fear Cay" and I think that helps the pacing a bit. There is no sense that the story lags even a little bit. If you haven't sampled these, I highly recommend them. They are first rate entertainments. There is also a disk with interviews of the creators of the radio dramas about how they came to be made. 

The was once upon a time a Doc Savage radio show way back when Doc was just getting started. It was produced in fifteen minutes episodes. They were broadcast across the nation in the piecemeal way that radio operated in at the time. Sadly, the recordings are lost, but the scripts have been preserved. They were gathered and published several years ago by Moonstone in Doc Savage - The Lost Radio Scripts of Lester Dent. The folks who did the radio show in the 80's briefly considered using some of these, but they found the length insufficient for their needs and I think the creators were anxious to adapt their favorite stories. These stories are curiosities in script form and better than not having them at all for Doc fans. 

For the record both this book and the cover of the radio plays feature artwork by Bob Larkin. Great stuff indeed!

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Kings Of The Jungle!

King Kong Vs. Tarzan by Will Murray from Altus Books has been sitting on my shelf since I first got my copy and finally spurred by the new movie Kong Skull Island I was filled with an immediate hankering to read it. To be fair to myself I started it sometime ago, but found the beginning of this rather longish pulp adventure a slow trudge in its first hundred pages.

We get a reprise of sorts of the events of the classic 1933 movie King Kong. What we have here is a story which answers the long-standing question which many who see the movie will think of later as they reflect on it, how the heck did they get that big ape to New York City anyway. The movie effectively short circuits all those complications by jetting forward in time to after the transport to the moment when King Kong will make his debut before the American public. This novel answers that question and some of it is just as tedious as you might expect.

The story operates in the same fictional universe fleshed out by Joe DeVito in his prequel to the original King Kong story Kong: King of Skull Island where we get a back story of sorts for Kong and the natives who live alongside him and the dinosaurs across the great wall. We see as the ancient woman dubbed the "Storyteller" who tends to Kong's legend and reality and who accompanies the The Wanderer and crew as they try to take the great beast across the vast oceans. She comes up with some herbs which sedate the great ape and we learn more than we need about the care and feeding of a monster primate. We follow the ship as they try to navigate the oceans, taking care to avoid storms and the authorities who might object to transporting such a monster to foreign lands.

The Wanderer eventually finds a safe harbor off the coast of Africa and of course Kong escapes into the jungle. Enter Tarzan of the Apes, a mythic figure that some have heard of and as we learn Denham has encountered. We see Kong as the thirty foot monster tramples across the wilderness terrorizing the prey he encounters. We eventually meet Tarzan (it takes a really long time) who takes steps to see to it that the "King" of Skull Island is neutralized as a threat. The best way to approach this novel is to see it as two pulps put together. The first deals at length with the transport of Kong and the second Kong's misadventures in Africa. Both are obviously linked and part of the same overarching narrative, but each part has a definite focus.

This is Will Murray's second King Kong novel in recent years. The first Doc Savage: Skull Island pitted Kong against a young Clark Savage Jr. and predated the events of the classic film and the novel in which Kong meets up with the Ape-man. And to be frank this is the best writing from Murray I've seen in a while. His previous Tarzan novel was too long and this one is long too, but it has enough going on eventually to justify that length. I was eager to see how they solved all the issues, even though we all know how the status quo must be reestablished before the novel's end. That would seem to be an insurmountable problem but it proves not to be in this instance. Here is a link to an interview with Murray about the project.

Recommended.

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Tarzan The Relentless!

The new addition to the Tarzan canon, officially sanctioned by the ERB folks is Return to Pal-Ul-Don by Will Murray from Altus Press. This sprawling adventure is available now in paperback sporting a lush wraparound cover by Joe DeVito. I was eager to tear into this latest adventure of the Ape Man, I was in a rush to revisit one of the most evocative ERB environments, and so I started the book with real excitement.

The story is a sequel of sorts to the early Burrough's novel Tarzan the Terrible which takes the Ape Man into a hidden land full of dinosaurs and different species of tailed humanoids. The land of Pal-Ul-Don (translates I think to the "Land of Man") but that is part of the problem here. The novel by Will Murray, a writer I have great confidence in considering his evocative and exciting Doc Savage adventures, alas disappoints. For one thing it's too long, considerably so given the meager plot. During WWII Tarzan as a member of the British military enters Pal-Ul-Don to find a missing courier who brings a potent secret to the Allies. He quickly finds himself allied with Torn Ear, an noble elephant and they penetrate the land of dinosaurs. We meet first Turtle People and later a single representative of the tailed people he'd met before. It's mostly a lengthy series of battles with a new breed, a silent, albino, and deadly race of Spider People who occupy most of the story and that's the rub.

Joe DeVito's panoramic cover art

The battles with the Spider folk seem to go on forever, and while the relentlessness of both the enemy and Tarzan is admirable, it all seemed too much of the same for too much of the story. We needed more human characters (or at least vocal ones) to stand as counterpoint to Tarzan's specific attitudes. There is some real excitement here, but between those moments we get long passages which seem to offer verisimilitude but not really much atmosphere. Fifty pages of this tome could've disappeared and the story would never have noticed.

I can only offer a limited recommendation for this one. It's certainly a new Tarzan adventure and for fans that's sufficient, but it's not the best one I've read, by far. Too bad.

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The Sinister Shadow!

Since reading about this delightful crossover by Will Murray and weirdly Lester Dent (by way of a cache of unpublished materials) of the two most famous Street and Smith pulp heroes, I've been most eager to get my mitts on it and read it though. The Sinister Shadow from Altus Book's TheWild Adventures of Doc Savage imprint is a delight in many ways and easily something any fan of Doc Savage or The Shadow must have. For more from Murray on how it came together check this out.

Joe DeVito

The Sinister Shadow begins with Lamont Cranston going to see Doc Savage about the problem he has with The Shadow stealing his identity and (in his mind at least) threatening to kidnap him and extort money. He is in fact kidnapped along with Ham Brooks, one of Doc's five assistants, and that puts Doc and The Shadow both on the trail of a villain who calls himself "The Funeral Director" and has fashioned an elaborate organization of henchman dubbed variously as Morticians, Undertakers, Gravediggers, and Pallbearers. This large gang has made a business of kidnap and ransom of various rich men in the society, so much so that it has drawn the attention of the criminologist George Clarendon.

Dave Stevens

In this rousing and fast-paced but unusually lengthy pulp adventure, we at different times find Doc and The Shadow battling each other and even working in tandem to bring down the Funeral Director's vile gang. The Shadow's men include Harry Vincent, Clyde Burke, and Cliff Marsland. Doc is helped by Monk Mayfair, Ham Brooks, and Long Tom Roberts. Sadly neither Renny Renwick nor Johnny Littlejohn show up in this hair-raising war on crime.

Joe DeVito

Murray tells the story in precise short sentences and quickly paced paragraphs and the action rarely slows down and almost never stops. We get some very evocative descriptions of the characters, in particular The Shadow. If there is a big complaint about this one it's that the Doc fan gets slighted as The Shadow and his men seem to dominate much of the action. Each hero is showcased though and by the story's end the heroes appear to understand one another better.



The story, full of action as it is, needed a few more twists and turns. It does do a vivid job of drawing from the early stories of both characters, set as it is relatively early in the careers of both heroes. And we do get some neat switches for the fans. But maybe even more would've been nice. Not as well read in Shadow lore as I am in Doc, I felt most fortunate that I took the time last year to read the first three Shadow novels, they come in handy.

It's a pricey package, but a highly readable one. This one gets the Dojo's highest recommendation.

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Ride 'Em Cowboy!

It was a relatively light day at the local comics store yesterday. I went in to get the latest issue of the awesome Popeye Classics, and also found the very intriguing cover for the most recent issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. I don't usually pick up this magazine, but this time they featured King Kong on the cover barebacking a dino. As it turns out the Popeye comic also features a similar scene as the Sailor Man is taking it on himself to saddle train the local swordfish. Eye-popping covers both.

Of interest the FM issue are several articles on classic King Kong celebrating the 80th anniversary of the awesome movie, including stuff on Japanese Kong as well an interview with Will Murray and Joe Devito on the recent Doc Savage novel Skull Island reviewed at this blog here.

Alternate Newsstand Cover by Bob Eggleston
Hidden behind the action-packed Kong cover though are some pretty strong articles, especially a very informative one by S.T Joshi on H.P.Lovecraft and his creation C'Thulhu. I realize I've been saying it wrong all these years. Even the stuff on the late Gerry Anderson's many creations was both interesting and informative. So while the price on Famous Monsters these days is pretty steep, for me this time it was worth it.

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