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"Monk, Son of Opar"
(Nov 11, 2001)
A little speculation that's wilder than usual, but what the heck.
In sixteen years of Doc Savage books, Monk Mayfair is repeatedly described as apelike in all but two or three of the late 1940s ones. People who have never seen him immediately remark how closely he resembles a gorilla, and Ham's pet Chemistry successfully passes for Monk several times. Once in fact, Monk enters a room naked and Renny (who has known and worked with the guy for thirty years) honestly believes it's Chemistry.
This goes beyond mere commonplace homeliness. Monk's arms are several inches longer than his legs, not a normal medical condition. Although he does not exercise or train with weights, he is by nature strong enough to straighten out a horseshoe, fold a half-dollar coin between thumb and forefinger and in one instance, he yanks a pistol from a crook, bends the barrel back double, and hands it back to the man. He also takes a crippling amount of physical punishment without noticeable harm, until the very end of the series. Monk is struck on the head and kocked unconscious so often (three times by Doc himself) that a normal man would have been reduced to staggering around the nursing home in a nightgown.
So what's the story?
We are told that he grew up in Oklahama and the fact that he is not surprised to learn of a British uncle (in BEQUEST OF EVIL) implies the Mayfair family is from that country (as the name suggests).
My theory is that at some point in the late 1880s a British woman from this Mayfair clan was in Africa, possibly doing missionary or scientific work, when she and her party found a very particular lost city. Perhaps she was abducted and escaped, finding out back in England that she was now pregnant. Or (I like to think) there may have been some passion on her part in the brief meeting, maybe even a brief if doomed romance. Certainly, as grotesque as her son would be, he had extraordinary luck with the ladies. To minimize the scandal, our Miss Mayfair relocated to live with relatives in distant Oklahama.
The "short, stocky" men of this ancient city are described as gorilla-like many times. They have "receding brows" and "wicked little close-set eyes. Their crooked legs were short and heavy, their arms long and muscular." Although white-skinned, they have coarse black hair (suggesting Monk's mother was a redhead).
The city was the last surviving outpost of an antedeluvian empire, presumably Atlantis, and the inhabitants may have been descended from earlier hominids such as Neanderthals, judging by their appearances. All were soon to vanish, the final generation of a dying race, but they would send out into the world a true champion who would become the closest friend and assocate of the greatest hero of his time.
The fateful encounter and birth of Andrew Blodgett Mayfair took place roughly twenty years before Tarzan of the Apes first discovered Opar.
"Did Renny Have Acromegaly?"
(July 28, 2002)
Acromegaly is a disorder of the pituitary gland which causes the secretion of growth hormones after the long bones of the body have stopped growing. The result is marked by an enlarged jaw, huge hands and feet, and is today treated with counter hormone drugs.
Rondo Hatton, who appeared as The Creeper is several 1940s movies (THE BRUTE MAN, HOUSE OF HORRORS, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PEARL OF DEATH) had obvious acromegaly and his movies rather cruely exploited his appearance. The actor who played Lothar in THE ROCKETEER was made up to resemble Hatton.) I have heard that Ted Cassidy (who played Lurch on TVs ADDAMS FAMILY) and Richard Kiel ("Jaws" from two James Bond films) were also afflicted this way.
So what do you think? Deep voice, enlarged lantern jaw, grossly oversized hands (I don't remember his feet being mentioned specifically). Does this sound like our favorite engineer?
Luckily one of his best friends was the world`s most brilliant surgeon, who removed a small lesion from the pituitary, instituted some hormone counteragents, and arrested the condition before it became life threatening (due to the dangerously high blood pressure and probablility of rheumatoid arthritis).
"Was Derek Flint Raised Like Doc Savage?"
(July 14, 2001)
Okay, bear with me. In his later career, Doc Savage had misgivings and doubts about his strange upbringing, but back in 1933, when he had first gotten the Mayan gold, started the Crime College and was eager to save the world, he felt differently.
Maybe he thought about a successor. He certainly was not likely to have any children but there were many orphans living in poverty during the Depression. With his wealth and influence, Doc might have selected an infant boy with good genes and the potential to be a second superman.
Many of his own teachers were still available. Possibly some of the five aides may even have taught the child, although Doc himself kept his distance. Thirty years later, we find Derek Flint. As recorded in the wonderfully wry 1966 movie OUR MAN FLINT and its sequel IN LIKE FLINT, Derek Flint is a wealthy former secret agent who only takes cases that interest him. He is master of a vast number of skills, including karate and yoga, chemistry and disguise, skydiving and skindiving, and he flys his own Learjet. He speaks Russian, Japanese, Italian, French and German (he also is communicating with a dolphin named Eric who is staying in his pool). Flint also uses gadgets, including a cigarette lighter with 82 functions-- "83 if you wish to light a cigarette."
Doc may not have sired any children, but he seems to have trained an heir. In the first movie Flint meets and brawls with "Triple-0 8" to get information, and they mention SPECTRE. The main difference is that Flint is an unabashed hedonist and playboy. He enjoys fine food and wines, teaches ballet in Moscow, and he has between three and five live-in girlfriends at any one time (bets the hell out of having Johnny and Long Tom hanging around). These women are an interesting multi-national mix, and the way they handle his various projects when he's on a case certainly implies that they are his partners in the secret agent business.
So when Doc had his last recorded adventure in 1949, Flint was just old enough to enter the Army, where he won the Medal of Honor in Korea...
All just speculation. Still, watch OUR MAN FLINT on video (it's a fine movie with strong elements of parody but entertaining in its own right) and see if this isn't how Doc would be presented in 1967.
Doc in Roger Zelazny's ROADMARKS
(May 2, 2002)
First, I'm not here to do a real review of Roger Zelazny's 1979 ROADMARKS (as much fun as that would be). I have spent many happy hours lost in LORD OF LIGHT, THIS IMMORTAL. CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS, JACK OF SHADOWS...but for some reason, not the Amber books yet.
No, here on Doc's newsgroup, we should focus on the delightful cameo our bronze hero and his most famous opponent make. ROADMARKS, as briefly as I can describe it, concerns a sort of metaphysical highway that runs from the beginning of time to the end of it, with exits and sideroads leading to every possible alternate universe. While the book itself is a delight, our concern here is Doc's guest shot. Like his brief appearance in Farmer's "After King Kong Fell" or the original Dave Stevens ROCKETEER comic book or even Arnold Schwarzenegger's torn shirt pose in TRUE LIES, our hero pops up in unexpected places.
First, though, we encounter a sinister fellow, "big, skinny, with eyes like Rasputin*...hands such as Modigliani might have painted..." This guy is dressed completely in green, down to his emerald ring. Then abruptly, he's dressed all in yellow, with a topaz ring. Hired to assassinate the book's main protagonist, Red Dorakeem, this has to be a version of John Sunlight. He even threatens to hold Red off the ground with one hand and strangle him with that same grip. (Was it FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE or THE DEVIL GENGHIS where Sunlight did this?)
But the most stunning moment comes when Red calmly tells the killer that someone is on his way at that moment."A big golden-eyed guy with one hell of a suntan....driving a hot little 1920s roadster. Had on a torn shirt. Said he was going to do a lobotomy on you with an icepick."
Yep, that's our boy! He shows up with a black physician's bag, gives the defeated Sunlight a check-up and injection, then cuffs him and hauls him away.Before leaving, Doc offers to give Red a hand in resolving the plotline, but is politely declined.And the punch line comes as he flings the prisoner over one shoulder. "His shirt tore across his back as he did so."
There are SO many reasons to buy a copy of ROADMARKS and read it more than once, with its dozens of bizarre characters and inventive scenes. That image of Hitler in a VW forlornly driving up side roads, looking for an alternate reality where he won, still haunts me. But Doc Savage fans should be aware of this charming little cameo.
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*Hah! I never believed for a moment that Doc was John Sunlight's father. It was Rasputin. The Russian origin, hypnotic powers, abnormal psychology.... John Sunlight was Rasputin's kid, all right.
"God of the Naked Unicorn"
(Sep 7, 2001)
From a 1976 issue of FANTASTIC Magazine, this thirty-page short story is a fascinating experiment that starts off wonderfully but falls completely apart half-way through.
It was done by Richard Lupoff (under the odd name Ova Hamlet), a science-fiction writer whose own stories are far outweighed by his contribiutions to adventure fiction scholarship. He was co-editor of the terrific essay anthologies about comics, ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME (1970) and THE COMIC BOOK BOOK (1973), and he wrote the very enjoyable EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS: MASTER OF ADVENTURE (1965). Lupoff's love of high adventure is well established. In this story, he is basically establishing a team of the great heroes of the 1930s. An elderly Dr Watson is escorted to the Fortress of Solitude, where he meets Doc and eight other champions. After the impressive meeting, though, the story becomes sketchy and turns into a cartoon sort of fantasy that ends on a false note.
(The actual God of the Naked Unicorn is a priceless statuette that is the national treasure of a European nation and its theft is mentioned but really never develops into anything. And are there unicorns which AREN'T naked?)
In the Fortress, we first meet Doc Savage, the classic giant bronze man who is presented true to the way we know him. It's Doc who flies with Watson in a rescue mission to save Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan, who have been kidnapped by a maniac named Agricola. The best part is the perfect description of the meeting chamber of the Fortress, with its roaring fireplace, guttering candles and iron chandelier. Lining the walls in expensive bound volumes are the published and the secret exploits of the great heroes (and wouldn't you LOVE to spend a few weekends locked in that room?).
Doc is host to the loose society of pulp heroes who have been meeting for centuries. A portrait of the Musketeer D'Artagnan on the wall honors him as founder of the tradition, which has included Nick Carter, Jules de Grandin, Steven Costigan, and Sir Denis Nayland Smith. But seated at the table to welcome Watson on this day are the Avenger, John Carter, the Shadow, the Spider (giving the Shadow a dirty look), Flash Gordon, David Innes, the Green Lama and Captain Future. Quite an assemblage.
Unfortunately, despite the well-handled entrance into the Fortress, Lupoff uses a prose style that is an overdone parody of Conan Doyle, with some Perils of Pauline exaggeration. Most of the heroes do nothing more than spout a few of their own references. There is also a woman who is apparently some sort of protean changeling who has been Pat Savage, Irene Adler, Margot Lane and others. This is just so wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know what the point was. Surely Lupoff did not think Pat Savage and Irene Adler were interchangeable?
When Doc and Watson locate their missing friends, they also find Albert Payson Agricola, who is making them dance by typing away furiously, and that Tarzan and Holmes are visibly shrinking.
There are many possible identifications for Agricola (the name of a saint, a founder of geology, and more) but I can't help thinking it's supposed to be Philip Jose Farmer. Agricola=Farmer? He refers to adding Holmes and Tarzan to his "collection of puppets and husks" as he shrinks the two heroes down into the size he wants. By this year, Farmer had published TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE, and Lupoff may be criticizing the way Farmer revised the classic stories to fit his own interpretations.
My copy of the story is from an anthology SHERLOCK HOLMES: THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (Blue Jay Books,1984), an anthology edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh. It also features "The Problem of the Sore Bridge" where Farmer relates how the gentleman burglar Raffles foiled an alien invasion (explaining the remarkable worm unknown to science, among other things.) If you ever spot this in a used book store, leap upon it and snatch it up like your life depended on it. |