Number 2379: Doc Savage and the television peril

When they came out in the 1960s I read many of the Doc Savage series of paperback reprints from the original pulp magazine novels. Doc was strictly human, but he had superhero-style attributes: smarter, stronger, tougher than his enemies. He had a group of guys who went along on most of his adventures, but later in the series the gang shrank to its two core members, Monk and Ham. I had never read any of the comic book stories published by the original Doc publisher, Street and Smith, although I remember picking up and reading some of the comic book versions published in the '70s.

Like most of the readers who came along with the Bantam paperbacks, I was used to seeing Doc as artist James Bama pictured him, in a torn khaki shirt and hair with a widow’s peak. This 1948 comic book version goes along with the original conception of Doc as readers saw him in the 1930s.

By the time “Television Peril” was published in 1948 Doc had about reached the end of his original pulp run, which ended in 1949. The story has a science fiction premise of a wannabe dictator using television as a means of transporting an army through TV sets. Television has a lot of power, and at times can be considered to do about as much damage as having enemy soldiers trooping through the set and into your living room.

In the story Doc’s retinue has shrunk down to Monk only. A redeeming feature of the story is that Bob Powell did the artwork.

From Shadow Comics Vol. 8, No. 11 (1948):

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