20 Facts About Doc Savage

1.

Doc Savage is a fictional character of the competent man hero type, who first appeared in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s.

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2.

Doc Savage stories were published under the Kenneth Robeson name.

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3.

Into the 21st century, Doc Savage has remained a nostalgic icon in the U S, referenced in novels and popular culture.

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4.

Doc Savage became known to more contemporary readers when Bantam Books began reprinting the individual magazine novels in 1964, this time with covers by artist James Bama that featured a bronze-haired, bronze-skinned Doc Savage with an exaggerated widows' peak, usually wearing a torn khaki shirt and under the by-line "Kenneth Robeson".

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5.

Doc Savage has appeared in comics and a movie, on radio, and as a character in numerous other works, and continues to inspire authors and artists in the realm of fantastic adventure.

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6.

Ralston and Nanovic wrote a short premise establishing the broad outlines of the character they envisioned, but Doc Savage was only fully realized by the author chosen to write the series, Lester Dent.

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7.

Doc Savage is a master of disguise and an excellent imitator of voices.

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8.

Doc Savage is a physician, scientist, adventurer, detective, inventor, explorer, researcher, and, as revealed in The Polar Treasure, a musician.

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9.

Doc Savage is accompanied on his adventures by up to five other regular characters, all highly accomplished individuals in their own right.

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10.

In later stories, Doc Savage's companions become less important to the plot as the stories focus more on Doc Savage.

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11.

At least one critic questioned their necessity since Doc Savage's talents were superior to theirs and he often had to rescue them.

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12.

Doc Savage's is able to fluster Doc, even as she completely charms Monk and Ham.

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13.

Doc Savage owns a fleet of cars, trucks, aircraft, and boats which he stores at a secret hangar on the Hudson River, under the name The Hidalgo Trading Company, which is linked to his office by a pneumatic-tube system nicknamed the "flea run".

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14.

Doc Savage's greatest foe, and the only enemy to appear in two of the original pulp stories, was the Russian-born John Sunlight, introduced in October 1938 in the Fortress of Solitude.

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15.

Key characteristic of the Doc Savage stories is that the threats, no matter how fantastic, usually have a rational explanation.

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16.

In earlier stories, some of the criminals captured by Doc Savage receive "a delicate brain operation" to cure their criminal tendencies.

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17.

In interviews, he stated that he harbored no illusions of being a high-quality author of literature; for him, the Doc Savage series was simply a job, a way to earn a living by "churning out reams and reams of sellable crap", never dreaming how his series would catch on.

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18.

Red Spider was a Doc Savage novel written by Dent in April 1948, about the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

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19.

Sanctum Books, in association with Nostalgia Ventures, began a new series of Doc Savage reprints, featuring two novels per book, in magazine-sized paperbacks.

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20.

Doc Savage: The Arch Enemy of Evil would feature a deformed, German-speaking supervillain, whose pet man-eating octopus was a nod to a similar plot element in the September 1937 pulp novel The Feathered Octopus.

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