[boox909]

I dunno...I consider Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Avenger, etc., the characters out of the Pulp Era as being tangentially related to the Golden Age of Comics. Therefore, look for my comments on DC's Firstwave Doc Savage, which hit the stands today, later tonight.

B.

[narfstar]

We welcome comments on all kinds of things. Too bad S&S will not let us carry their comics

[Astaldo711]

My dad used to tell me how he liked to read Doc Savage pulps. I'm been wanting to get my hands on one but never had the luck.

[JonTheScanner]

Many (maybe even all) have been reprinted and I think are still available in paper back.

[boox909]

What can I say about this --- if #1 is what we should come to expect, then I am not hopeful of a long term Doc Savage comic from DC. The art is weird ... Howard Porter and Art Thibert are world class creators, but their art styles collide. The story is an action packed retelling of Doc's origins (of a sort) and offer little toward leaving the reader with a thirst to follow the tale. Compared to the storytelling of the previous FirstWave line composing this particular universe, this effort is a slow start.

The gem here, is the "Second Feature" starring Justice Inc. which is engrossing in its art/coloring (Scott Hampton/Daniel Vozzo) production and storytelling (Jason Starr). It is moody and offers much!

I am going to stay with FirstWave: Doc Savage, in part because I have never been a fan of the character and I am hopeful Doc will grow on me, and secondly, because Justice Inc. is so good that I cannot miss it.

B.

[Ed Love]

The pulps were all reprinted and currently Doc, the Shadow, the Avenger and the Whisperer are getting nice glossy reprints with the pulp illustrations along with essays, behind the scenes histories and special features (such as Norgil the Magician short-stories).

Afraid I wasn't terribly impressed with First Wave #1. Did a poor job at setting the story (what year is it? No space travel but styles and model automobiles seem to be fairly modern) and Azzarello's notes on the various characters and on page treatment of the Spirit and Dolan seem to completely miss the mark. If the whole point of setting on a pulp Earth was to allow the pulp characters be more true to themselves, why the post-modern over-realistic treatment of Rima or the complete updating and revamping of the Blackhawks? Why then re-imagining of Man of Bronze, thus removing ALL relative context and points of reference to the Doc Savage character? Struck me as just being a way for a modern writer being embarrassed by the source material and thus showing us how he'd do it all better. The attitude comes through with all his interviews as well, showing only his disdain for the characters and the genre.

Haven't had the chance to look at Doc Savage #1 yet. But, given DC's track record so far they may easily succeed at making me not want to get a Doc Savage comic

[OtherEric]

Doc Savage and The Avenger were both completely reprinted in paperback.  As far as I know, no other pulp that had anything other than a very short run has been completely reprinted.  (There are actually a few Avenger short stories that haven't been reprinted that I know of, but all the novel-length stories were.)

What I'm trying to find now are the Operator #5 Purple Invasion reprints.  The first few and the last few aren't too bad, but the middle books I simply have never seen for sale.

[Captain Audio]

My dad used to tell me how he liked to read Doc Savage pulps. I'm been wanting to get my hands on one but never had the luck.

Years ago several Doc Savage books were available free online. Some public domain book sites have disappeared from the net since then of course.

[narfstar]

I have a couple Shadow pulps. I have a pretty good collection of Doc Savage and most of the Avengers paperabacks. Same story as in the pulps and easier to read

[Ed Love]

Operator 5 was one of the few hero pulps I could never get into. In fact, he may be the only one of all the ones I've sampled that I've never been able to finish a story of.

[DennyWilson]

The "First Wave" titles seem to have a mix between the visual styles of "Batman - The Animated Series" and "Superman - The Animated Series" a mix of retro and modern.

[comicsnorth]

The problem is that when the animated series did it, it was obviously a stylistic choice, and worked rather well, where as so far, the First Look stuff looks more like the work of creators who just can't be bothered to do any research.  My first thought when reading the new Doc Savage was how much better it would have looked set in either the animated "Dark Deco" look, or the brighter art deco style Jerry Ordway used for Fawcett City in The Power of Shazam!   To me, the First Look stuff so far has looked blandly generic, and just a bit lazy.  What a disappointment.

[Ed Love]

Definitely part of the problem. The writer of FIRST WAVE seems to go out of his way to remove context instead of establishing it which is bad writing. As it is on its own Earth, he needs to establish the world the characters inhabit. It LOOKS like the world outside the window, but the characters are from the 1930s and 40s. Ok, well in DCU proper you have Batman, Superman, JSA all operating in the modern world, so that's fine. But, then you have reference to no space travel. You have the narration of Johnny referencing a war. That's a topical reference. Doc and his men in the pulps often mentioned the Great War and then peripherally involved in WWII as well as many conflicts between fictional countries and in our current world, we are involved in a War. The reference confuses things because it would seem to suggest context but it doesn't actually give us any. He then sets things up as this being in part a re-telling of the first Doc pulp thus removing all of that character and everything known about Doc and throwing it out the window. To a lesser degree the same is done with the Spirit and Dolan. Almost everything is a contradiction between script, story, art and known history thus working against establishing the world and context of the characters.

The review of Doc Savage #1 at comicbookresources doesn't inspire any confidence in me. Seems the story is ok but the art is stiff while the Justice Inc half is the opposite. Richard Henry Benson is called "Benny" by his men? Seriously? That has to be a deliberate effort to try and NOT to write the actual characters with fidelity. It takes work to pull off something like that.

[boox909]

The review of Doc Savage #1 at comicbookresources doesn't inspire any confidence in me. Seems the story is ok but the art is stiff while the Justice Inc half is the opposite. Richard Henry Benson is called "Benny" by his men? Seriously? That has to be a deliberate effort to try and NOT to write the actual characters with fidelity. It takes work to pull off something like that.

I'd wager that it never occurred to the editors at DC to consult with a Pulp expert. 

[DennyWilson]

Would it have been wrong with a faithful c.1940 world with these characters?

I don't like these changes  - this is the same problem they are having with the RED CIRCLE heroes,and we saw how THAT turned out! Even the Charlton Heroes had a better survival rate in the DCU! Blue Beetle and Captain Atom ended up in the Justice Leauge and The Question had a long sucessful run.

[Ed Love]

Got and read the first issue of the Doc Savage comic. The Doc story wasn't all bad, most of the bad notes were dictated by the First Wave "bible" ie Renny being the ugly one, the total mix-match of science and technology (Monk is talking about quantum physics, but Doc flies a blimp from Africa?). None of the aides look quite right, Ham looks too vintage in manner of dress as opposed to best dressed, Long Tom has brown hair and looks fairly normal, and the torn shirt seems to be treated as Doc's uniform as he never bothers to change to a fresh shirt. The plot and storytelling seem fairly solid though, a very pulpish threat and beginning and introduces the individual characters quite well.

The Avenger was worse than I even thought it would be. Other than the character names, the story and art completely miss the boat on the character. It has less in common with the source material than the FF and X-Men movies did with the comics.

[boox909]

http://flashbackuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/05/doc-savage-fail.html

Our friends over at the Flashback Universe blog have a few round-up items on how Doc Savage was received.

OY!!!! 

B.

[paw broon]

Doc. is not one of my preferred pulp characters but I thought I'd buy #1. Sorry to say it didn't do much for me.  The story was interesting enough, I suppose  but I feel DC, by giving the reader such a short episode, wanted to try and sell the next one.  Might not work, that, as the art is pretty shoddy and there were a couple of occasions I had to re-read because I hadn't understood, from the art, what was going on.  As for that back-up Avenger story.  That was bad.  Even allowing that I dislike the Avenger pulps, this was a turn off.  From the few Avenger pulps I've read, I think Ed is correct in how far this comic version is from the original.

[Ed Love]

The sad thing with the Avenger is that of the majority of the pulp heroes, he's actually the one most suited for superhero style treatment in comics or movies.

Doc Savage: suited mainly for international and large threats. Don't often see him going after gangsters or solving a murder mystery or just a bizarre crime.

Shadow: whereas the Shadow was always focused on the criminals and crimes. Some were bizarre or large threats, but rarely did he cross over into Doc's territory. The Shadow also has the drawback that he is best a semi background or supporting character in his books. His influence should always be felt, but you really don't get to know the man. Hard to pull that off consistently in comics.

Secret Agent 'X': cool stories and a variety of types of crimes and threats that he can face, but like the Shadow, a big part of his thing is the character himself is a cypher. This also poses the problem in a visual medium like comics, his whole thing is to stay in disguises.

Phantom Detective: He has a real identity, tackles a variety of crimes, but his thing again is disguises which doesn't really play to the character's strength in visually based media.

The Spider: Real identity and goes after some of the worse super-villains imaginable. AND he has a couple of strong visuals to go by (whether interpreting the literalness of the pulp stories, or the slightly watered down looks on the pulp covers). The downside here is that outside of the original stories, no one has been able to capture the passion of the characters and instead play up the violence and thus instill a psychopathic nature that's not really there. Look at the fate of all Dick Tracy's villains, but he's not played up as a homicidal cop.

In terms of adapting to a visual medium, especially comics, the Avenger has the strengths of the others, but not their drawbacks. He fights international crime and world threats, but also the gangsters and murderers. His origins are based in crime and wiping it out (indeed his origin and back story are easily as powerful and tragic as those that fuel Batman and Spider-man). In that, we know the man and his friends. They are more fleshed out than that of the Shadow's. Just as he is more approachable a character than either the Shadow or Doc, and more can be done with him. While he is now a bit apart from society, he has a whole past life that can be explored. He has the passion of the Spider but not the cold-blooded killer. He has a unique look that fits well with the comics (especially if following DC's cue and using the paperback reprints as a model).

The Avenger could easily be of Batman caliber in the comics if played to his strengths whereas in the pulps he came off as what he was, a pale imitation of Doc & the Shadow. This comic instead made him even more bland.

One of my favorite single issue comics is actually the 1970s Shadow story that guest-starred the Avenger.

[Captain Audio]

Got and read the first issue of the Doc Savage comic. The Doc story wasn't all bad, most of the bad notes were dictated by the First Wave "bible" ie Renny being the ugly one, the total mix-match of science and technology (Monk is talking about quantum physics, but Doc flies a blimp from Africa?).

The groundwork was well established by the time Doc savage would have operated.

Main article: History of quantum mechanics
The history of quantum mechanics began with the 1838 discovery of cathode rays by Michael Faraday, the 1859 statement of the black body radiation problem by Gustav Kirchhoff, the 1877 suggestion by Ludwig Boltzmann that the energy states of a physical system could be discrete, and the 1900 quantum hypothesis by Max Planck.[7] Planck's hypothesis stated that any energy is radiated and absorbed in quantities divisible by discrete "energy elements", such that each energy element E is proportional to its frequency ν:


where h is Planck's action constant. Planck insisted that this was simply an aspect of the processes of absorption and emission of radiation and had nothing to do with the physical reality of the radiation itself.[8] However, at that time, this appeared not to explain the photoelectric effect (1839), i.e. that shining light on certain materials can eject electrons from the material. In 1905, basing his work on Planck's quantum hypothesis, Albert Einstein postulated that light itself consists of individual quanta.[9]

In the mid-1920s, developments in quantum mechanics quickly led to it becoming the standard formulation for atomic physics. In the summer of 1925, Bohr and Heisenberg published results that closed the "Old Quantum Theory". Light quanta came to be called photons (1926). From Einstein's simple postulation was born a flurry of debating, theorizing and testing, and thus, the entire field of quantum physics, leading to its wider acceptance at the Fifth Solvay Conference in 1927

On the otherhand they are still struggling with Lighter than Air Ships.

The main attraction of pre WW2 sci fi is the blending of old and new ideas, and the mixture of technology.

[kaneda]

Torrent downloads of Shadow or Avenger would not be legal.

Radio Archive and Amazon are putting out Kindle editions of The Spider, Moon Man, G-8, Black Bat, Operator 5 and other titles at reasonable prices.

[WileyJ]

chuck Dixon writer-lee weeks art....problem solved. but that would be a smart choice and todays editors are complete idiots.