Cover Date: March 1933
Volume 1 # 1
Copyright Date: Friday, February 17, 1933
Author: Lester Dent, John Nanovic, Henry Ralston
Editor: John Nanovic
Cover Artist: Walter M. Baumhoffer
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Man of Bronze by Kenneth Roberts
Outpost in Hell by Bill Cook
Snow Tricks by Lester Dent
Tigers of the Sea by Harley James
Treasure Trove by Lester Dent
The Contents page notes that the magazine is available on the third Friday of the month. Annual Subscriptions are $1.00 or ten cents per issue.
“The Man of Bronze” is actually the second version of this story. In 1932, John Nanovic and Henry Ralston collaborated on a story that was titled “Doc Savage, Supreme Adventurer. This is the foundation upon which “The Man of Bronze” was erected. Many of the items Dent included in his version were already present in the prototype story. The embellishments and enhancements by Lester Dent sealed the deal with gold.
“Doc Savage, Supreme Adventurer”
Synopsis: Doc Savage returns to his New York headquarters, located on the 86th floor of a prominent building, to learn that his father has died mysteriously. While conferring with his five associates, an assassination attempt is made on Doc. Apprehending the shooter, Doc’s men are surprised to find that the man is a Mayan who speaks an extinct language. Doc attempts to hypnotize the man and interrogate him but the native jumps to his death rather than reveal any knowledge. Doc Savage locates important papers his father hid before his death. These documents reveal that Doc Savage has a land grant in the Central American republic of Hidalgo. Doc and his men travel to Hidalgo and from there into the remote jungle interior where the land grant is located. They discover a lost tribe of the Mayan Empire. Throughout their journey they encounter resistance and attacks from some unknown malefactor. These obstacles continue even in the remote jungle valley. The criminal mastermind utilizes a deadly disease as a weapon. This is the same disease which was used to murder Doc’s father. Doc Savage develops a cure and heals the sickened people. Doc and his men are adopted into the tribe. They then learn that the legacy is an enormous golden treasure to be used by Doc Savage and his men in their quest against evil. The tribe is attacked by the villain who is using the Mayan warrior sect as his agents. Events culminate with the defeat of the warriors and the death of the villain
An assassin uses a double-barreled elephant gun made by Webley & Scott in an attempt to kill Doc Savage. The gun is described as a .577 caliber Nitro-Express rifle.
Information presented in subsequent stories from 1933 clearly place Doc’s headquarters building at the same location as the Empire State Building. However, this does not appear to be the case in “The Man of Bronze.” In this book, the location described fits the Chrysler Building as headquarters and the Empire State Building as the site from which the assassin fired.
Remarks indicate the Fortress of Solitude is on an island inside the Arctic.
Monk is called a “Houdini of the test tubes” referring to magician Harry Houdini’s amazing abilities. Houdini was both a magician and an escapologist. As the Doc Savage stories progressed, Doc Savage was revealed to be a master escapologist finding himself in many situations that mirrored Houdini’s stage performances.
Even though this is the first documented adventure, the narrator implies the multitude of scars on Monk’s skin come from the group’s past adventures. Given the degree of scaring, the author seems to be indicating that many more adventures occurred prior to this story.
The invisible chalk that fluoresces under ultra-violent light is used in this story.
Barney Oldfield, a famous racer, is mentioned in the story. Oldfield was the first racer at the Indianapolis 500 to set a 100mph lap time. In 1917 he created a sensation with his streamlined racer, the Golden Submarine. Barney Oldfield also created a racial controversy. John Arthur “Jack” Johnson was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1908 until 1915. Johnson was also a fast car enthusiast. He was also black. A race was proposed between Oldfield and Johnson to be held at the dirt track in Sheepshead Bay, New York. The AAU refused to issue Johnson a license due to his race. The July 9, 1932 issue of the Modesto Bee carried an article which mentioned this race and stated that Willie K. Vanderbilt was head of the committee at this time. A permit was eventually obtained through a little subterfuge and the race was held. Oldfield easily outdistanced Johnson and won the race.
Monk complains that someone pulled a whizzer on him when he is tricked. In wrestling, a whizzer is also known as an overhook.
The signature anesthetic gas that Doc Savage uses is not yet present in the series. Instead, the men use a gas that temporarily paralyze those exposed.
Hidalgo is a fictional country. In Spanish, the word refers to the nobility. Hidalgo is also the name of a state in Central Mexico. The country that best fits the description from the story is Guatemala.
The Hidalgo Trading Company is not mentioned. Doc keeps his plane at the North Beach Airport. The airport was originally named for aviator Glenn Curtis. It is now known as LaGuardia Airport.
One of Doc’s planes is an autogyro.
Jackson Heights is mentioned in the story. The Dents lived in Jackson Heights in 1932. The application to add the Dent home in La Plata, Missouri to the National Register of Historic places states that the Dents lived at the following locations 1931 – 1932.
- 1931 – 224 Brookside Avenue, Apartment D1, Mount Vernon, New York*
- 1932 – 4333 46th Street, Sunnyside, Long Island, New York
- 1932 – 8904 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights
- 1933 – 101 West 55th St., New York, New York
- *Source: 1931 Mount Vernon, New York City Directory
Doc Savage lands on a small lake north of Blanco Grande, the capital of Hidalgo. A close examination of a map of Central America reveals that no place in that local exactly fits the story’s description. A small lake, Lake Ilapango, lies to the east of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. The only other capital city with a lake is Managua, Nicaragua. Here lies Lake Managua and while it is north of the city it is not small. It is 40 miles long and 15 miles wide. Neither lake is shallow. Lake Ilapango is 750 feet deep while Lake Managua has a maximum depth of 65 feet.
The United States Geological Survey lists gold mining operations in all seven Central American countries. The legacy in “The Man of Bronze” is a fabulous golden treasure.
Locations mentioned in the story are Biscayne Bay in Florida, Havana, Cuba, Belize (British Honduras), and Ambergris Cay.
The two-hour exercise routine that Doc Savage practices daily appears here.
The first thing that generally comes to mind after reading the expression “Red Death” is likely to be The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe. So just what was the “Red Death” as described in the story? The symptoms include red patches on the victim’s neck and fever. Doc determines the disease is a version of Parrot fever. In the story, Doc Savage comes up with a treatment for the “Red Death.” Doc examines some of the sick natives before making a foray into the surrounding jungle. He returns with a collection of plants with which he treats his patients. The comments about an epidemic of Parrot fever a few years earlier was an actual fact. The headline below is from 1930.
Spanish words and English meanings: Blanco Grande means “large white” while Rubio means “blond or fair-haired.” Avispa means “wasp.” Monja means nun.
The national flower of Guatemala is the White Nun Orchid which is called Monja Blanca in Spanish.
Monk refers to Don Rubio as a “gink.” This is an insulting term for a person.
The Mayans figure prominently in the legacy left to Doc Savage by his father. The leader of the Mayans is King Chaac. In Mayan mythology Chaac is the rain god.
We also find that Princess Monja speaks excellent English and we are left to wonder who taught her. Of particular interest is her name. Why is a Mayan princess named Monja, which means ‘nun” in Spanish?
An aerial battle ensues between Doc’s plane and the blue plane used by Don Rubio. Renny uses an aircraft type Browning machine gun to shoot down the other craft. Dent describes the weapon as having a rifle-like stock which sounds like a BAR (M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle). But the weapon is described as using cartridges in a metal link belt. This would most likely make it a M1919 Browning Machine Gun. While not standard, some M1919 Browning machine guns were fitted with rifle stocks. This is likely the weapon Dent is describing.
Doc’s famous supermachine pistols make their first appearance although they are not named as such. The weapons are described as having sixty round magazines and being fully automatic. These are weapons of Doc Savage’s own design.
Notorious bank robber John Dillinger may have provided some inspiration for Doc Savage’s supermachine pistol. There are several popular photographs of John Dillinger holding a Thompson sub-machine gun. But Dillinger also had a special machine pistol that was a modified version of the .38 Super automatic.
The stock automatic pistol was modified into a machine pistol using a kit made by the Monarch Gun Company of Hollywood, California. The machine pistol featured a longer barrel with an attached Thompson submachine handgrip. A 22-round magazine provided extra ammunition for the gun which now had a fully automatic rate of fire exceeding 700 rounds per minute. Use of this weapon was not limited to John Dillinger as it was a popular underworld weapon. George Nelson is also reported to have favored this weapon. Conversion kits were also available for the .45 auto.
On March 18, 1933, Norma and Lester Dent took a cruise on the RMS Mauretania. Over the next ten days they visited the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, returning to New York on March 30. The ship’s registry showed Dent’s place of birth as “La Plata, Wisc” while Norma Dent’s was listed as “Carlton, Mass
- March 18, 1933, Departure from New York City
- March 22, 1933, La Guaira, Venezuela
- March 23, 1933, Curacao, Dutch West Indies
- March 24, 1933, Cartagena, Colombia
- March 25, 1933, Colon, Panama
- March 28, 1933, Havana, Cuba
- March 30, 1933, New York, New York
“The Man of Bronze” is a “lost race” novel. This particular type story mechanism is attributed to H. Rider Haggard who was an author from the time of his published work, “King Solomon’s Mines” (1885) until his death in 1925. Haggard also wrote a story published in 1895 titled Heart of the World. This story centered on a lost Aztec city, a golden treasure, and beautiful princess named Maya. The basic idea in Haggard’s story closely parallels that of the people of the Valley of the Vanished in “The Man of Bronze.” The lost civilization in Haggard’s story was located in the Tabasco region of Mexico. This Mexican state is situated on the border with Guatemala.
Another famous hero had his own private source of gold bullion. Author Edgar Rice Burroughs started “Tarzan of the Apes” on a new adventure with the June 1913 issue of New Story Magazine. The story was titled “The Return of Tarzan” and introduced the lost city of Opar to the enthralled readers. Late in the story, Tarzan discovers a golden treasure within the secret treasure vaults of the city. Aided by his faithful Waziri, he removes one hundred ingots from the city for his own use. Tarzan returns again for more gold in “Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar” which was published in 1916.
Back in 1995, at the Dent estate sale held after Norma Dent’s death, fellow Doc Savage enthusiast Mark Lambert purchased a copy of “Tarzan and The Jewels of Opar” complete with Dent’s name written on the inside cover.
“Gladiator” by Phillip Wylie was published in 1930. The story’s hero, Hugo Danner, possesses superhuman strength. Aside from being viewed as a prototype Doc Savage character, there is another interesting similarity. Doc Savage finds fortune with the Mayans. Wylie involves Danner with an archaeological expedition to Mayan ruins at the end of the story.
Thomas Gann published “Discoveries and Adventures in Central America” in 1928. Only 27 years old, Gann first came to British Honduras in 1894 as a medical officer and a vigorous interest in the countless Mayan ruins dotted throughout the countryside. Gann wrote over forty books detailing his experiences and was recognized as an authority on Central American archeology. Dent made use of some passages from Gann’s work in the Doc Savage series.
It is noteworthy that Thomas Gann spent much of his time exploring in Guatemala. British Honduras, which is where he was stationed borders Guatemala on the western side. British Honduras was renamed Belize in 1973.
Bigger-Than-Life Problems
There is a problem of sorts when the villain orders the Mayan warriors to bring him all the gold ten men can carry. That would be a lot of gold. Assuming a man could carry 150 pounds, there would be 1,500 pounds of gold. Unlike Doc Savage, the villain does not have a float plane. He walks home and he cannot carry all that gold with him. That much gold would be worth a fortune. It would come to over 26,000 troy ounces. When President Roosevelt confiscated privately owned gold in April 1933, the going rate was $20.67 per ounce. At this price, the gold treasure above would tally up to over $500,000. But that is a worth based on the forced sale price. Citizens were required to sell their gold to the government for $20.67 while the government had set an international price of $35 ounce. Don Rubio’s small gold hoard would be worth over $900,000.