Thu 11 Mar 2021
Diary Review: KENNETH ROBESON – The Man of Bronze.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reviews[8] Comments
KENNETH ROBESON – The Man of Bronze. Doc Savage #1. Bantam E2853, paperback, 1964. First published in Doc Savage Magazine, March 1933.
Doc Savage avenges the death of his father and obtains a fortune in Mayan gold to continue his fabulous adventures in [what was] the first of his magazine tales. After being attacked in his New York [City] skyscraper laboratory, Doc and his crew of five fly to Hidalgo in Central America to investigate the land left to him there by his father.
Hidden deep in the interior they find a golden pyramid guarded by the descendants of the ancient Mayan civilization. The killer of Doc’s father is the leader of those who would obtain the gold for themselves.
Enormous improvements could be made in the writing style. Short sentences and shorter paragraphs prevail, slowing the reading pace. The continuity of the story itself is logical, although burdened with many fight, capture, and escape scenes, Excessive repetition of facts concerning the six men and incongruous metaphors and expression are annoying. As for Doc Savage, he must have been one of the first supermen. His popularity when he first appeared is quite understandable.
Rating: 2 stars
March 11th, 2021 at 7:59 pm
There is a good reason Clark Kent is a Clark, though Doc is not the original Man of Bronze, that was George Wort’s Peter the Brazen. Philip Wylie whose GLADIATOR influenced Superman also wrote THE SAVAGE GENTLEMAN, whose hero and his team of mentors was a model for Doc.
Doc creator Lester Dent had a gift for wild plots that somehow made just enough sense to keep you propelled through the mostly book length adventures of Doc and his team. While the Shadow had more atmosphere, Operator 5 was more apocalyptic, and the Spider spun a wilder phantasmagoria of blood, death, and violence Doc was perhaps the most consistent of the pulp heroes with touches of superhero, mystery man, SF, and pure pulp madness.
I was just the right age when the first of the Bantam Doc’s were released, and devoured them with glee then. I’m not quite as big a fan now, but I still enjoy them and some of the better pastiche by Will Murrary and Win Scott Eckert.
A few years ago there was even talk of a new Doc movie with the Rock in the role though last thing I read there was more serious interest in a television series.
March 11th, 2021 at 8:07 pm
The lineage of “supermen” heroes is a lot more well known now than it was in 1967, especially to me at the time. I think this may have been the first pulp story I ever read, other than the occasional reprint of individual stories in EQMM. I found it interesting to read what I thought about this one, more than 50 years after I wrote it.
You’re quite write about Lester Dent’s way of telling a story, slapdash at times and no holds barred. If it weren’t for the antics of Doc’s various crew members, I think I’d enjoy reading about him again, but they’re there, and I can’t.
March 12th, 2021 at 1:45 am
These Were Men with a Mission. Gotta admire, even if it was fictitious.
We should all be so lucky as to find an isolated tribe of Mayans in Latin America.
March 12th, 2021 at 9:42 am
It was weird. I was 14 when Bantam came out with the first Doc Savage reprint, and I loved it. By the time I was 16, it all seemed awfully silly.
March 12th, 2021 at 9:51 am
A comment that only confirms my theory that 14 is the Golden Age of the Hero Pulps.
March 12th, 2021 at 1:43 pm
Doc Savage’s bickering aides can be traced back to dime novel’s Frank Reade, Jr.’s Pomp and Barney. As for Doc himself I think he was a redesign of the dime novel Nick Carter. Nick traveled around the world solving mysteries and helping people. He has a group of assistants who would help him from time to time and Nick was known as “the little giant” because of his great strength. The irony is that soon after launching Doc Savage Street and Smith brought out a Nick Carter pulp. Since they had already given all of Nick’s special attributes to Doc he was just an ordinary PI and never became as popular as his dime novel predecessor.
March 12th, 2021 at 8:44 pm
The crew of mentors who raise Wylie’s SAVAGE GENTLEMAN on a private island under his father’s tutiledge are the most obvious influence on Dent and Doc, but the trope goes back to Homer to some extent and beyond that, and of course Dumas Musketeers were a direct influence as well as those mentioned by beb.
Nick Carter was clearly an influence on most of the heroes of the period as were some of Western and Frontier heroes dating back to Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.
March 12th, 2021 at 9:15 pm
You gents are quite right. Nothing on the written page or on the screen comes out of nowhere.