The Man of Bronze

Ah, good ol' Dr. Clark Savage Jr. Imbued with stunning good looks, incredible gold flake eyes, perfect physique, and quite possibly the most perfect brain in the most perfect body ever imagined.

He sees all, knows all, and is endlessly inventive. He is the expert on every major discipline, whether it's medicine, chemistry, engineering...you name it, he's the best at it.

I mean, as near as I can figure, his only flaw (judging from the covers) is that he's incapable of keeping a shirt intact.

And in this inaugural adventure, the full set up is simply to make him and his team unimaginably wealthy, so they can do what they do best: chew gum and kick ass, and right now, they're plumb outta gum.

I first discovered the Doc Savage paperbacks when show more James Bama's glorious cover art captured my attention in the Coles bookstore in the Oshawa Centre, way back in 1974 or so, when I was a wide-eyed twelve-year-old looking for my next great read. And in Doc Savage's adventures, I found them. I could, even at that age, blast through one of the novels in two or three hours, and then head back to the mall for the next one. I read probably 25-30 of them over the next three years or so, until a certain horror author named [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg] (along with [a:Graham Masterton|10275|Graham Masterton|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1250596895p2/10275.jpg]) turned my head and set me down a new path.

Honestly, getting down to brass tacks, the writing is quite dreadful, the lead protagonist completely unbelievable, and the stories implausible...and yet, here I am with only 180 more of them to read, and fully committed to doing so over the next few years. I've restarted and stopped a couple of times in the ensuing four decades, but I've always wanted to read them all. Now, I'm gonna.

This is going to be equal parts fun, nostalgic, and painful. I can't wait. show less

While not quite a superhero, Doc Savage is as heroic and capable as a man could be. Savage was meant to combine the physical prowess of an athlete with the mind of Holmes and the conscience of Lincoln. He was the antithesis of The Shadow, bright instead of dark, merciful instead of brutal, and world-famous instead of mythical.

If The Shadow's masked alleyway justice was the prototype for Batman, then Savage as the righteous boy scout is the inspiration for Superman. Savage even has an antarctic island retreat, The Fortress of Solitude.

The Pulps have made a recent resurgence, and Doc's influence is being felt yet again. Though many fans might not realize it, many movies, films, and comics hearken back to him. Johnny Quest, Indiana Jones, show more Duck Tales, Alan Moore's 'Tom Strong' and 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', Warren Ellis' 'Planetary', and The Venture Bros all take their cues from the brilliant adventurer and his band of loyal friends.

This book is a bit of a mess, as the earliest example of the hero, but pulp makes no apologies for its weaknesses, and claims to be nothing more than rip-snorting fun. With so many stories coming out every week (Upton Sinclar was known to write 8,000 words a day, seven days a week for the pulps), authors had to attract and keep readers.

The Doc Savage books are renowned for their widely-ranging creativity, where no idea was unwelcome. The author was told to write what was most exciting, what was most original, and what was most inspiring. Savage shows this tendency in droves of far-flung ideas, though a reader might not realize just how revolutionary they were, since every single one has since been cannibalized and adopted by every author of adventures or comic books.

Beyond the remarkable creativity, the books are crammed with description, metaphor, and detail. Though often laughably ridiculous, this thick literary gumbo is certainly filling. There is an invigorating freedom in these books that one misses entirely even in many modern adventures.

The authors took themselves very lightly, they were making a product and making a living, and they would never have rights or fame from pulps. The stories, even Doc Savage, were written under pseudonyms shared by many different authors in the same publishing house. Though your boss might know who was the most capable writer, the fans couldn't know you if they wanted to.

However, fans did come to recognize and empathize with their favorites, like 'Good Duck Artist' Carl Barks, the fans could pick them out by style, if not by name. Though we now know the men behind the pens, there was no guarantee when they wrote their enduring stories that they would receive any recognition beyond a simple paycheck.

Eventually, adventure serials like this one would go out of favor, replaced by superheroes, science fiction, and cartoons. However, the tropes, plots, and characterization of the pulps carried through into the new stories, and even if most Superman and Batman fans have never heard of Savage, the adventures they read or watch each month are not new. The Man of Bronze was overcoming them before world wars had numbers. show less

This starts out much better than your average pulp, i'd describe it more as a pulp-noir. Doc Savage is a pretty interesting character with some unique attributes. There's also some very interesting elements such as someone inventing a laser-pointer which i'm pretty sure they didn't have in 1930.
However as the story progresses it becomes more pulp like and the numerous incidents which pile on top of each start to bore rather than excite.
Overall disappointing after the great opening and i fear that with the novelty of the character wearing off the many subsequent stories might be even more of a let down, but we shall see.

He's as strong as Superman, as resourceful as Batman, as clever as Brainiac-5. He is physically as impressive as Hercules and as mesmerizingly beautiful as Apollo. He swims faster than Michael Phelps and runs quicker than Usain Bolt. He's a brilliant surgeon/physician. He is Clark 'Doc' Savage Jr.
And he's completely ridiculous, larger-than-life, over-the-top alpha male. But this is grade-A pulp, and it's just too entertaining to be put off by the it's-just-too-much-of-a-good-thing greatness that is the man of bronze.
The novel is non-stop action and running around by Do and his crew (5 men, all the top of their field (archeology, geology, law, chemistry, engineering) only to be surpassed by their fearless leader, and all brawny to show more boot).

If you're prepared to take this not too seriously, it's a fun read.

favourite quotes:

p10. "Alongside Renny, Doc was like dynamite alongside gunpowder"

p56. "Monk emitted a great howl. Monk's fights were always noisy, unless there was a reason for them to be quiet. Like a gladiator of old, Monk fought best when the racket was loudest." show less

The first novel based upon the Doc Savage pulp fiction series originally published by Street and Smith Publications in the 1930's and 1940's. Definitely not a "deep" novel but a nice distraction in the action/adventure vein with the main character accompanied by a colorful supporting cast known as the "Fabulous Five" (Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair, Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks, John "Renny" Renwick, Thomas J. "Long Tom" Roberts, William Harper "Johnny" Littlejohn) on the back cover of the reprints but never within the novels. Each character is described in detail in just about every novel to give the reader a good mental picture. In later novels, the number of the supporting characters dimishes (explained as being working somewhere show more else unable to take part in the adventure at hand) until only "Monk" and "Ham" remain with Doc Savage. The plots are pretty formulaic and if you read the entire series, you'll notice a lot of the plots become quite similar and even recycled. However each novel in the series remains a fun little romp. This particular novel was adapted into a campy and quite disappointing movie in 1975 starring Ron Ely as Doc Savage. With the success of the Indiana Jones series, there have been periodic attempts to remake "The Man Of Bronze" into a new movie leaving out the campiness of the 1975 film. I managed to get the entire series of books including some hard-to-find related materials and still enjoy the series today. I do hope a new movie version of the novel is made someday. show less

Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze. A more perfect physical specimen does not exist. He's a Greek god come to life. Not only does he possess a perfect physical form, he is also the most keen mind of his generation, being an expert in every field he has taken the time to study.

Doc is one of the greatest pulp heroes ever, because he has a superior moral code. He is a man of action, but also a thinking man's hero. And he ain't got time for dames, not when there's a world to make better.

The dialogue is reminiscent of something I would have written as a child, but that's partly due to the time period and partly due to the audience these books were written for, young men and old men who still act like young men. It's a pure adventure tale in which show more Doc and his five friends, all the top men in their respected field, surpassed only by Doc himself, find themselves in cliffhanger after cliffhanger until the whole thing is resolved in a thrilling climax.

Better pulp fare you will not find. show less

The Man of Bronze is the first volume of the long-running men's adventure series featuring Clark "Doc" Savage, Jr. The action starts right out of the gate, as Doc Savage's curious quartet of adventurers - Ham, Long Tom, Renny, and Monk - greet him to share the news of his father's death at the hands of a mysterious illness, just as attempts are made on their lives by strange assassins with red-dyed fingertips. Before you know it, Savage and his men are on their way to the uncharted jungles outside of Hidalgo, foiling countless assaults and ambushes as they search for a hidden Mayan civilization, the man who killed Doc Savage's father, and most importantly of all, the source of his legacy...

Man of Bronze is a perfect example of the show more tight, action-packed narratives of the dawn of men's adventure novels, no doubt one of the reasons why the character of Doc Savage is still recognized today. show less