FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE RED SKULL

The Red Skull by "Kenneth Robeson" (Lester Dent)  (originally published in Doc Savage Magazine, August 1933: reprinted in paperback by Bantam Books as #17 in their series of Doc Savage adventures, 1967)

In looking over my bedside bookshelf recently, I notice there were a lot of unread Doc Savage adventures.  I counted and there were 17 of them -- a situation that really needed to be rectified.  So I've started in one them with this one, an early novel in the series -- actually it was the sixth adventure to be published out of 181 novels published in the original magazine.  (There have been 35 other original Doc Savage novels published sine 1975, almost all of them by different hands, including two recent execrable novels perpetuated by James Patterson and Brian Sitts.

As an early Doc Savage novel, this one adds a lot of backstory to allow new readers to catch up.  Thus, doc Savage is described in detail:  "in stature, he was a giant, although proportioned with such symmetry that only in relation to the size of the door in which he stood showed his bigness,  His every line -- the metallic tendons of his hands, the columnar cording of his neck -- denoted great physical strength.  The man had the gigantic muscles of a Samson.  Bronze was his color motif.  His feature night have been done by some skilled sculptor in the metal, so regular were they.  His hair was a bronze a trifle darker than his skin, and it was straight, close-lying.  His eyes caught -- and held -- attention, above all else.  They were weird, commanding eyes, like nothing so much as pools of flake gold.  They radiated a hypnotic quality, an ability to inspire fear or respect -- to convey threat, determination, or command.  Even in repose, they glowed with the heat of an indominable will.  He seemed, by his appearance alone, to weave a spell -- this man of bronze whose fame was trickling to the far ends of the earth.  He was a man, once seen, never to be forgotten -- this Doc Savage."  Yada, yada, yada.  The story goes on to explain that Doc is a genius in many scientific areas. and is surrounded by five aides, each a former military officer and each a leading expert in their particular field -- engineering, electronics, geology, chemistry, and law.  Together, Doc and his "fantastic five" travel the world, facing deadly perils, helping the helpless, and stopping evil-doers.

At the start of this novel, a man named Bandy Stevens has been sent f rom Arizona to deliver to envelopes to Doc Savage.  Trying to prevent him in the deadliest way possible is a gang under control of Buttons Zortell, who is working for a mysterious unnamed "Boss."  You know that Buttons is evil because of his facial scars that looked like two gray buttons, one on each cheek -- souvenirs of having once been shot in the mouth.  Buttons and his gang, all of whom speak western comic book slang, are not as efficient as they thought, since a number of attempts to stop Bandy have failed (one with a viscous dog with false poison-tipped needle-like teeth).  Finally they manage to kill Bandy as he rings the doorbell to Doc Savage's apartment by placing a fast-acting poison on the doorbell button.  When Doc answers the door, all the dying Bandy can gasp is a name, Nate Raff.  But who Bandy was and why he came to Doc Savage remained a mystery.

A mystery not for long.  As Buttons and his gang tried several times unsuccessfully to kill Doc and his crew, Savage learns the trail goes back to Arizona, where a man named Nate Raff and two partners are self-financing the construction of a dam at Red Skull Canyon -- a dam that will provide electricity for Arizona, California, and other western states.  Doc also learns that Nate Raff was killed in a recent plane crash while on his way to see Doc.

Buttons and the bad guys kidnap Lea Aster, the secretary to one of Doc's aides, Monk.  If need be, they plan to use Lea as bait to draw Doc and his men into another trap.  But traps for Doc and his men -- and there are many of them -- just don't seem to be working, and Doc and his crew head to Red Skull canton in Arizona to rescue Lea and solve the mystery of what is going on.  We learn that there have been many attempts to sabotage the dam, which is almost near completion and was due to flood the entire Red Skull Canyon -- sabotaging the dam appears to work about as well as setting traps for Doc Savage.

Bullets fly as Doc approaches the gang's headquarters, located his on a cliff in an old Indian cliff dwelling.  The bad guys make their escape with Lea through tunnels within the cliff dwellings, past a large underground river of red-hot lava which had been diverted to prevent Doc from following them.  Doc's men also discover Nate Raff, alive and bound in a room in the cliff dwelling; he had been kidnapped from the plane and held prisoner and did not know that the plane had crashed and that he had been reported dead.

So what is going on?  Why the desperate need to stop the dam from being constructed?  Who is the murderous master mind behind the entire plot?  Will Monk be a able to save his beautiful secretary, who he has kind of taken a shine to?  Will the bad guys all be captured and sent to Doc's "college" in Upsate New York?*

All this is taken up and neatly completed in 124 pages, and it's off to the next adventure, The Lost Oasis in the September 1933 issue of Doc Savage Magazine.

Doc Savage, along with The Shadow, The Spider, Secret Agent X, G-8, The Avenger, and so many other pulp heroes made the Thirties and Forties bearable for those going through the Depression and the threat of another war in Europe.  Fun Times.

(* Yeah, Doc has a "college."  You see, Doc does not kill the bad guys (except by accident); he captures them and sends them a special institute he has created where they will undergo brain surgery to eliminate all memory of having done bad things.  They are then retrained to perform legally permissible careers and are then released back into the work to a happy, normal, and productive life.  Creepy, huh?  Doc may have been a hero for the Thirties, but sometimes he reminds me of Joseph Mengele.)