An Adventure with a 40-Year Time Out

 

cover art by Gil Kane

For a few years in the early 1970s, Marvel Comics held the rights to do comic book stories about Doc Savage. Doc's book, A comic book series that began in 1972 ran 8 issues, while a black-and-white magazine premiered in 1975 and also ran 8 issiues. Both series were good--it's a pity it didn't run longer.

Naturally, Marvel also brought Doc into the Marvel Universe, using time travel shenanigans to team him up with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One #21 and Spider Man in Giant Size Spider Man # 3 (January 1975). Undoubtably, both stories were written in part to help plug Doc's own books, but both were entertaining stories in their own right. Especially the Spider Man tale. 

And that's the story we are looking at today. Written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Ross Andru, the action picks up in then-modern day, with Spider Man checking out a light near an office building that is scheduled to be demolished. He runs into an alien woman who at first speaks her own alien tongue, but soon has her translator device calibrated to English.

She needs help to solve a problem left over from when the building was constructed back in 1934. To explain, she uses some super-science to show Spider Man what happened 40 years back.

Doc Savage had recieved a note asking for help at the building's construction site. He and his men go there and foil an attempted assassination of Mayor La Guardia, but Doc realizes the note is written on paper not made on Earth. Whatever the call for help is referring to, it wasn't the assassination attempt. That was just a coincidence.

From a story construction point of view, foiling the assassin was a way for the story to introduce Doc and his five assistants to us, as well as highlight just how capable they are. It's an effective trick, accomplishing its goal while keeping the action moving.

Anyway, Doc and his team head back to the building. But at this point, we are brought back to 1974, where a electricity-based giant appears, speaking the same language DeSinna (the alien girl) was speaking earlier while he apparently tries to kill her. After a fun fight sequence illustrated with Ross Andru's usual skill, Spider Man manages to at least temporarily banish the creature by short-circuiting it with an electic-powered jack hammer.

DeSinna then pulls up her image of 1934 again. Doc and his team have returned to the site and met DeSinna. We learn she's a scientist from another dimension. Her story is complicated (possibly a bit over-complicated for a story this length), but it boils down to her coming to Earth in pursuit of an insane lab asssitant named Terros, who has been powered-up after a lab accident. DeSinna has arranged to arrive on Earth before Terros arrives, hoping he can be stopped as soon as he arrives. 

Terros then puts in his appearance. It's the second time we've seen him, but chronologically, this is indeed his initial arrival on Earth. There's another cool fight scene (I have always admired Andru's ability to choroegraph cool comic book action), with Doc eventually using his scientific knowledge and a secret weapon quickly fetched from his HQ to trap Terros in the building's cornerstone.

Which brings us back to 1974, where the impending demolition of the building is threatening to release Terros. So Spider Man... picks up a jack hammer, shatters the cornerstone and let's Terros loose?

 It turns out that Terros is the good guy and DeSinna is the bad guy--something Spidey had deduced over the course of the adventure. Terros snatches up the girl and they disappear, presumably going back to their own dimension.

Spidey swings off, thinking that it is changing times and changing attitudes to allow him to figure out DeSinna was the villain after Doc and his team saw her simply as a Damsel in Distress.

I do enjoy this story, though I can nitpick a few things about it. I'm not sure I buy that Doc and his team would have been so quick to trust DeSinna. They were experienced adventurers and the concept of the Femme Fatale would not have been new to them. And, though I understand that one of the story's purposes was to introduce readers to Doc, having his whole team present did make the 1934 portions of the story a bit overcrowded with characters. 

Also, DeSinna's back story, told from her point-of-view, turns out to be at least partially untrue, but we never get to learn the truth. What was going on with her and DeSinna? Can we even be sure Spidey was right and DeSinna was indeed the villain? There's simply not enough information for us to know.

But the positives outwiegh the negatives. I've already mentioned how cool Ross Andru's art is. And having the story jump back and forth between the two time periods was clever and well-done. 

It's too bad that Doc Savage's time at Marvel didn't see more commercial success. He had himself from fun adventures during that time.

Next week, we'll go sailing aboard the U.S.S. Stevens.