Doc Savage - It's Clobberin' Time And Space!

In 1975 Marvel published Giant-Size Doc Savage #1. It's tied into the movie which was hitting theaters, and it's essentially a reprint of issues #1 and #2 of the original series. But there is substantial redrawing of Doc throughout the story to make his image more consistent with what was appearing in the B&W magazines. (More on that later.) There are also a couple of pin-ups of Doc from the B&W magazines here in color. The comic closes with an article by Robert Sampson called "Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze" which gives brief character sketches of Doc and his team. 

(Look for Doc hanging between the Vision, Thor, and the Human Torch.)

But Doc Savage made a few guest-starring appearances while he was hanging out at the House of Ideas. 

Giant-Size Spider-Man #3 is titled "The Yesterday Connection!". It's written by Gerry Conway and features artwork by Doc Savage's main man Ross Andru this time inked by his longtime partner Mike Esposito. The cover is by Gil Kane. The story begins in 1974 with Spidey on patrol when a flickering light catches his attention. He gleans it's a message for help and off he swings to the location of a vintage 1930's building about to be demolished. Suddenly he's attacked from the shadows but a backflip later he sees his attacker is a stunning blue woman clad in strategically placed straps. She says her name is Desinna and by using a translating device she tells Spidey a story from 1934 when the building was just being constructed. 

We cut to 1934 and find Doc Savage and his team (Monk, Ham, Renny, Johnny and Long Tom) attending the dedication when a mysterious gunman tries to kill Mayor La Guardia. Doc dispatches the villain but isn't at all convinced that that threat was the reason they'd been summoned to the building the night before. They return to the Doc's headquarters and after some lab tests determine the message they received came from another world. Back to 1974 and Spidey and Desinna come under seeming attack by a giant ghostly image resembling a satyr. After some fisticuffs, Spidey determines the creature is electrical in nature and uses a jackhammer to short the being out. Then Desinna reveals she was there in 1934 with Doc Savage. The story cuts back to 1934 and Doc and his men are searching the building site when they encounter Desinna who tells them of her other-dimensional world that exists alongside Earth but in such a way as time effectively is absolute. She speaks of a scientist named Tarros who has an experiment go wild seemingly killing him but creating the electrical creature Spidey had fought earlier (or later depending on how you view it). She claims she needs Doc's help to capture the creature and after much ballyhoo Doc and his men succeed in trapping Tarros inside the building's keystone where he will be trapped until the building is torn down. Back to 1974 and after jackhammering the keystone, Spidey frees Tarros but in a twist he's realized that Desinna is the villain, something that Doc and his guys weren't culturally capable of detecting (or so claims Spidey) and her story is not true completely. Tarros takes Desinna and the pair disappear. Spidey prepares to swing away and in the background is a nodding Doc Savage. 

Marvel Two-In-One #21 happens two years later. The story is titled "Black Sun Lives!" and it's written by Bill Mantlo. It's drawn by Ron Wilson with Pablo Marcos on inks. The cover is by Wilson with Joe Sinnott inks. This one begins 1976 and 1936 respectively. Two tales are told simultaneously so be patient as I wind through this saga. In the Baxter Buidling in 1976 The Thing and The Human Torch get a visitor; likewise in 1936 in the Empire State Building HQ of Doc Savage, he and his partners Monk and Ham get a visitor. The Thing and Torch welcome in a beautiful woman; likewise, so do Doc and his men. The woman in 1976 collapses; so does the woman in 1936. The woman in 1976 named Lightner tells of her twin brother named Tom who is obsessed with the scientific work of his father and has bankrupted them to follow his passions; the woman in 1936 is also named Lightner and tells of her husband and how his scientific work has overcome his reason. 

Both women tell similar stories of how the two generations of scientists work to complete the sky cannon, a telescope affair that apparently can tap the power of the stars. Then in 1976 the sky goes dark and a glow in the distance seems to come from the location of the sky cannon; likewise in 1936 the sky goes dark and there is a mysterious glow in the distance. The Thing and Torch along with Miss Lightner take the Fantasticar to investigate; Doc Savage and his aides along with Mrs. Lightner do likewise. When the two aircraft reach their respective targets a ray blast envelops both and suddenly the limits of time are broken and the members of the Fantastic Four and the Fab Five and Doc find themselves together confronting a menace composed of both the father and the son called BlackSun. The teams quickly come to terms with the peculiar situation and work together against the seemingly all-powerful villain. After much battle Doc finally notices that the absence of starlight weakens their foe and so when the Human Torch enlightens the environment with his flame BlackSun becomes weakened enough to be captured. With his fall time's limits reassert themselves and Doc and his men fade away while Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm plan to take the injured Lightner to a doctor. 

And that's a wrap on Doc Savage's color comic book career at Marvel. Soon I'll begin to examine the Black & White run of magazines featuring Doc Savage. 

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