It surprises me greatly that more writers haven’t pastiched or parodied the Doc Savage canon. Of those that have tried, success has been of varying degrees. It is difficult to create a convincing superman, even in Lester Dent’s day.

The first people to try to copy the Bronze Man were Street & Smith, Doc’s own publisher. Paul Ernst was hired in 1939 to write THE AVENGER after going over the ropes with Lester Dent and Walter Gibson (writer of THE SHADOW). Dick Benson, The Avenger, can assume the faces of others because of an accident that gave him his ghostly white putty skin. He is followed by his own entourage, Algernon Heathcote Smith, better known as Smitty, Fergus MacMurdie, and Nellie Grey. Warner Books published the short-lived pulp character in a Bantam Look-a-like series that ran three years.

(After Ernst’s work ran out ghosters Ron Goulart and Will Murray continued the series. Authorship of the Avenger books is controversial. Another who has been said to have written them is Emile C. Tepperman. We offer this list with some reservation.)
 

Avenger (as by Kenneth Robeson)

Paul Ernst  (1899 - 1985)

            1. Justice, Inc. (1972)
            2. The Yellow Hoard (1972)
            3. The Sky Walker (1972)
            4. The Devil's Horns (1972)
            5. The Frosted Death (1972)
            6. The Blood Ring (1972)
            7. Stockholders in Death (1972)
            8. The Glass Mountain (1973)
            9. Tuned for Murder (1973)
            10. The Smiling Dogs (1973)
            11. River of Ice (1973)
            12. Flame Breathers (1973)
            13. Murder on Wheels (1973)
            14. Three Gold Crowns (1973)
            15. House of Death (1973)
            16. The Hate Master (1973)
            17. Nevlo (1973)
            18. Death in Slow Motion (1973)
            19. Pictures of Death (1973)
            20. The Green Killer (1974)
            21. The Happy Killers (1974)
            23. The Wilder Curse (1974)
            24. Midnight Murder (1974)
            25. The Man from Atlantis (1974)
            26. Red Moon (1974)
            27. The Purple Zombie (1974)
            28. Dr. Time (1974)

Will Murray (1953 - )

            22. The Black Death (1974)

Ron Goulart (1933 - )

            29. The Nightwitch Devil (1974)
            30. Black Chariots (1974)
            31. The Cartoon Crimes (1974)
            32. The Death Machine (1975)
            33. The Blood Countess (1975)
            34. The Glass Man (1975)
            35. The Iron Skull (1975)
            36. Demon Island (1975)

After the passing of the pulps, it took nostalgia freak, Philip Jose Farmer, to try and recreate the Doc Savage feel. Farmer created Doc Caliban in 1969 with A FEAST UNKNOWN, a sex-filled contest between Farmer’s version of Savage and Tarzan. It was followed by two more traditional Savage-type adventures, LORD OF THE TREES and THE MAD GOBLIN in 1970. Farmer would later pen the second unmade Doc Savage film as well as ESCAPE FROM LOKI, the only Savage adventure published without the Robeson pseudonym.

The 1970’s would see two new Savage clones. Ted White would create Doc Phoenix for Byron Preiss’ book series WEIRD HEROES. Due to a personal tragedy, White would not write the book, only outline it. The embellishing would be finished by Marvel old-timer, Marv Wolfman. In THE OZ ENCOUNTER (1977), Phoenix, a super-surgeon, has to travel inside a child’s injured mind to save her. Though the Savage debt is obvious, it is not the only influence.

The best Doc Savage pastiche was published two years earlier. Lin Carter was the King of the Pastichers. His Doc Savage imitation features a superhero known as Zarkon, Lord of the Unknown, featured in five volumes, beginning with NEMESIS OF EVIL (1975), followed by INVISIBLE DEATH (1975), THE VOLCANO OGRE (1977), THE EARTH-SHAKER (1982), and HORROR WEARS BLUE (1987). The Ultimate Man and his five assistances (collectively known as the Omega Team) bear more than a passing resemblance to Doc and the Fab Five. If there is any doubt after seeing the books’ covers, Carter removes it by dedicating the first novel to Lester Dent. Though set in the 1970’s, the entire series rings of Doc’s Depression era world.

Prince Zarkon is an enigmatic figure, vague, secretive. Physically, Zarkon is over six foot, well-built, about thirty years in appearance. He dresses entirely in gray. His skin is a strange tan while his hair is pewter-colored. We are told that his skin-tone and hair are false, giving the Man of Mysteries an even more veiled and secret origin.

Carter does not disappoint, explaining toward the end of the first novel, that Zarkon is from the extreme distant future, where Mankind is nearing its end. Arkon Z-1000 is a genetically engineered agent (thus he acquires the name Z-arkon). The Man of Mysteries’ purpose is to fight the forces of super-criminality that will eventually destroy the Earth in the centuries to come. Zarkon is projected into the past into the small Balkan country of Novenia, which rises up from the primitive mire to become a world power. Zarkon leaves Novenia with the title of Prince and a mission for the entire planet.

The five souls who follow Zarkon through his adventures are all men that Zarkon has saved, one from suicide, another from drink, yet another from cocaine and institutionalization. The five assistants are “Scorchy” Muldoon, a hot-tempered Irishman who loves a good fight—something he is good at since he is a professional boxer; Nick Naldini, a former stage magician and master of sleight of hand, is a sartorial and refined figure while he enjoys taunting Scorchy; “Ace” Harrigan, a top-notch flyer and pilot of the Omega Team’s aircraft; “Doc” Jenkins, a human computer with total recall of names and faces; Mendel Lowel “Menlo” Parker, a gruff electronics master and kung fu expert, whose constant grumbling masks his willingness to be part of the greatest group ever assembled.

Though none of the five are exactly like Doc Savage’s men they do more or less correspond as follows:

 Scorchy—Monk
 Nick—Ham
 Ace—Renny
 Doc—Johnny
 Menlo—Long Tom

The Omega Team is housed in a strange incognito complex in Knickerbocker City (a thinly veiled New York), which has virtually indestructible walls, false doors and unbreakable windows. From this secret building near the docks, the team can easily reach their uncharted isle, Omega Island. From the subterranean and camouflaged base on the island, Zarkon can choose from a selection of jets, submarines and other equipment, including THE SHOOTING STAR, his personal plane that can take off vertically.
 

In the 1980’s TSR had a short-lived two book series that was in the style of the pulps if not Doc Savage precisely but since 1987 (Carter’s last book) no one has attempted the recreation of the pulp super-hero directly. Fan fiction and small homages continue to this day but no true descendent of Doc’s has taken up the torch. Perhaps if Arnie S. would made that Doc flick we would be up to our eyeballs in them again? We can only hope.

Copyright G. W. Thomas