The World Needs a Doc Savage Movie

Batman The Dark Knight is a huge hit and there’s a boatload of comic book superhero movies in the queue. But, I really wish Hollywood would give Doc Savage another chance. Savage preceded the comic book superhero movement. The character first appeared in a pulp magazine in 1933 (5 years before Superman appeared in Action Comics #1) and was, if you will, the bright contrast to The Shadow (like Batman contrasts with Superman). There was a campy but entertaining 1975 movie (Doc Savage: Man of Bronze) made. But, I think Doc Savage deserves another big budget Hollywood shot. Its 1930s steampunk-like high tech with a built-in cast of interesting supporting characters could take off where Indiana Jones left off.

Marvel tried to move Doc Savage from its very successful Bantam Books reprints (I have dozens of the Bantam Doc Savage books stored away somewhere) to the comic book world in 1972. It really hit its stride with issue #3 IMHO. It featured the Jim Steranko cover shown above. Steve Englehart was the writer and Ross Andru the artist in #1 and #2. The difference under the cover in #3 was the inker. Tom Palmer came on board for three issues starting with #3. He really brought Andru’s layouts and pencils to life (see below).