SOURCE: "The Sunset of the Superman," in The Man Behind Doc Savage, Robert Weinberg, 1974 pp. 56-62.

Doc Savage was a superman. His men were near-super-men. Originally, they got together during the first World War where the excitement got into their blood. The—y decided to band together as a small army after it was all over for the avowed purpose of fighting evil. The war must have had a great effect on Doc and his men. It was there that they saw their first action and much of their equipment was patterned after military hardware.

It was only natural, then, that when the second World War broke out they would do their best to scramble back into uniform. Indeed, that is precisely what they did try to do; but there was a stumbling block. Doc and Company were now national figures; men whose scientific prowess overrode their fighting ability.

Many times, Doc flew specially down to Washington, D.C. to meet with government leaders, trying to convince them that he and his men belonged back in uniform and in the front lines. They wanted action; they got a run-around.

In The Fiery Menace (Sept. 1942) Doc meets with the President, the Secretary of the Navy, and other officials in a vain effort to see action. He is politely rebuffed and promised that he will be summoned should any difficulty arise requiring his special talents. Doc does not like it, but he accepts the situation at first; continuing his crime fighting activities on the home front. In the course of his adventures, he comes into contact with various enemy subversives, whether Nazi or Japanese. This whets his appetite for real war action.

As the war goes on, Doc's men are often called to Europe to work on defense projects; dams, pipelines, and similar matters. His men, in effect, become government trouble-shooters and are away so often that he is sometimes forced to press Pat Savage into service as an aid, something he would never do under ordinary circumstances.

Although Doc Savage never does see action on the front, he certainly manages to become involved behind enemy lines. The action that he encounters in enemy territory, in fact, proves to be among the most hair-raising of his career.

The first such episode, The Black, Black Witch (March 1943) begins with Doc and Monk parachuting into occupied France, responding to a message from an American diplomat being held by the Nazis. They immediately fall into the hands of some very polite and respectful Nazis, who are very glad to meet the illustrious Doc Savage. Besides being very polite, they are very excited, from Hitler on down, about something called the secret of the black, black witch. They even get more excited when the diplomat, along with the secret, escape to America. Doc and Monk get loose also, and follow the dignitary home. Back in New York, they unravel the story of Peterpence, a man who lived in the time of Nostradamus. This Peterpence—the black, black witchs—seems to have been developed a gas that bestows the power of foretelling the future upon one. By the time Doc discovers all this, it becomes apparent that the Nazis had accidentally destroyed the secret back in France.

Doc's next important brush with the Axis is an interesting one. It (Hell Below, Sept. 1943) begins with Doc again in Washington, trying to get into uniform. He, Monk and Ham get into a violent argument with a war official over their current status. Doc, especially, gets hot under the collar and walks out in a huff. They walk into a mess and end up captives aboard a Nazi subskippered by a German commander, who is on the trail of two escaped Nazi leaders. On a ranch in Mexico, they catch up with the two, Der Hase (Hare) and Das Seehund (Seal) who are obviously Himmler and Goering. They, along with much Axis gold, are on the run, convinced that Germany will lose the war. There is an interesting scheme wherein Der Hase attempts to seduce Doc into becoming part of his new plan for a master race. Of course, Doc refuses; what is interesting about Doc's attitude is that he, himself, is proof that the superman concept is a viable one.

Doc was reared to become a scientific superman by his father. He accepted this at first, without any feeling that there might be unfortunate achievement in the condition. But, with the rise of Nazi supermanism, some qualms must have crept in. The concept became subverted in the light of what the superman could mean to mankind. His conclusions are pretty well summed up in the novels Hell Below and The Time Terror. In Hell Below he considers the whole idea barbaric, and in The Time Terror (Jan. 1943), when he wrests a superman-evolving chemical from the Japanese, Doc decides to suppress the stuff because it would destroy the principle that all men are created equal and thus destroy the fabric of human civilization. This realization, that the superman is an entity unfair to mankind and inimical to democracy and world freedom, would seem to have had an impact upon Doc, for in succeeding adventures, he gradually becomes less and less a superman.

The climax of Hell Below comes when Doc stages a ruse which leads to a falling out between the two Nazis, in which Das Seehund kills Der Hase, then flees back to Germany. Doc lets the comical sub-commander escape so he can tell the Fuehrer the true story of Das Seehund's defection.

For the next few months, Doc continues to stumble upon Axis activities and has yet to be called upon by the government to get involved in anything really big.

According to Plan of a One-Eyed Mystic (Jan. 1944) starts off with Renny waking up in the body of another man because he had insulted a little brown man with one eye. Shifting events lead to a Nazi sub off Labrador where the selling of a plane-destroying missile is effectively stopped.

Death Has Yellow Eyes (Feb. 1944) concerns a pair of detectives named Nat and Jay, a girl named Doris Day, an Axis financier and pairs of floating eyes. Doc and Company are framed for murder-robbery and then flown to Roumania by Nazi plane. There they are framed for murder-robbery and then flown to Roumania. They find war loot and suits of translucent cloth that enable the wearer to become invisible.

The Three Devils (May 1944) is the name of a Canadian lumber town that appears to be haunted by a ghost bear, called Black Tuesday. Numerous spooky occurences are laid at his doorstep, causing the inhabitants of Three Devils to evacuate the place and its pulp mills. The whole thing turns out to be a Nazi plot, first hatched 20 years previous, that slowly built up the Black Tuesday legend so that it could be used to close down Canada's pulp industry in wartime.

The Shape of Terror (Aug. 1944) is the first of a handful of tense, red-hot assignments that the Allies saddle Doc with. It begins with Doc being led aboard a RAF plane which crashes on an English flying field. Monk and Ham investigate, only to be blocked by officials. Then, they too are declared dead when their car crashes. All this is to convince the enemy that Doc and Company are dead. The trio then are taken to a meeting where the combined heads of Allied Intelligence give them their assignment: free Czech scientist Johann Kovic from Dabelsky Dum, a concentration camp in Prague. The Germans, it seems, have invented a terrible secret weapon that threatens civilization. Kovic has a defense for it, and he is the only man alive who knows the secret. Doc must free Kovic or the war is lost.

After escaping being poisoned in London, Doc and Kovic's daughter are flown to Czechoslovakia by a Nazi turncoat who nearly turns them over to Germany. In Prague, they rendezvous with Monk and Ham, who flew in separately and are caught up in a running series of incidents involving the Gestapo and a bogus British agent. Monk and Ham are captured, and land in Dabelsky Dum. Finally, Doc with the help of the Czech Underground, breach the castle-like camp and break out again with Monk, Ham, and Kovic in tow. An American plane returns them to London, where Kovic spills the defense that renders Germany's last chance for victory useless.

Jiu San (Oct. 1944) is an enormously important novel. A disguised Doc Savage shows up in an Alaskan POW camp, where Japanese soldiers are being held. Just prior to this, he has been demoted from Brigadier General (detached service during the present war), to Sergeant for alleged pro-Japanese leanings.

Here, Doc engineers a mass breakout of prisoners and leads them to a waiting plane piloted by Monk, who knows nothing about the whole business, except that Doc is officially a traitor. Confronted by the horde of escapees, Monk, in a very distraught frame of mind, demands of Doc that he return the Japs to the camp. Doc floors him. Monk winds up in Yokohama, where he has become a prisoner.

In prison, he meets an English actor who is disguised as Savage. Monk is whisked away, leaving the Englishman in his place. At a private home, Doc and Monk are re-united amid an assortment of characters, including a group of high Japanese officials. The situation is made clear.

The end of the war is now in sight with the fall of Japan just a matter of time. In order to shorten the mopping up after the final collapse, the Allies have contacted this group of respectable leaders with the notion of setting them up as heads of the post-war government. But there's a toad in the soup; one of them, calling himself Jiu San (Mr. Thirteen) has threatened to expose the plot to the Emperor if he is not made Emperor of the new administration. Doc's job—unmask Jiu San.

What follows is considerable violence and running around with the end result of no progress and Doc and Company ending up in the hands of Jiu San's men. Now captives, things look bleak. But a disguised Ham Brooks turns out to be one of their captors (he had parachuted into Japan some time previous).

In the final scenes, Doc, unable to unmask his foe, resorts to a bluff. His sudden announcement that he's uncovered Jiu San causes same to bolt, where one of the Japanese working with Doc butchers him. A quick escape to a waiting plane, and they're home.

Doc Savage is a very tense and frightened man in The Lost Giant (Dec. 1944) when the State Department hands him another terrible mission. So affected is he, that he turns to a Hollywood makeup man for his disguise, upon which hinges the success of his assignment and, ultimately, the course of the war.

A train ride to a ski lodge in Lake Placid is Doc's first move. The lodge is swarming with unsavory characters all with a single purpose: find a flier named Chester Wilson. Wilson has been kidnapped by persons unknown. For some reason, he is the key to some great thing. Doc joins up with a pair of very vicious types who also seek Wilson. The two penetrate Doc's disguise, but don't let on to the fact. Unknown to them, Doc knows they know who he is, which makes for a very hairy situation.

Monk and Ham show up; stumble upon two foreign agents who are to meet with Wilson's captors. They take the agents' places and make the contact successfully. They are flown to Wilson's location and then on to Devon Island in the Arctic, while Doc, still playing cat-and-mouse with his two unsavory types, trails behind.

In the Arctic, the whole affair explodes into violent clarity. In an unarmed plane, Doc gets into a dog fight with a pair of German Heinkels, succeeding by luck more than anything else. The wild battle that follows occurs in and around a wrecked army transport where Winston Churchill (not mentioned by name) is stranded. Churchill's plane went down some time ago in a cold front, after eluding some Nazi fighters. Wilson, in his own plane, got away from the wreck. He's the only one who knows Churchill's location. Thus, he was kidnapped. And thus the resulting affray. Doc digs in with Churchill, while Monk and Ham grab a downed Heinkel and raise hell with the encroaching Axis. When all is set to rights, Doc learns that one of the two unknowns he's been running around with, is actually a State Department agent, sent to back him up. Doc is hardly overjoyed to learn this; the double agent having contributed mightily to his emotional strain.

Violent Night (Jan. 1945) is as hellish an assignment for Doc Savage as The Lost Giant, which immediately preceded it. Doc's emotional state is very similar; unending tension, a feeling of being made responsible for things too big for one man to handle himself—even a superman.

Lisbon is where it begins. Doc rendezvous with Monk and Ham and discovers to his horror, that Pat Savage was following them from London, where her war correspondent's clearance was revoked for raising hell over the fact that she was not allowed to go to Europe and see action. (Just like Doc.)

Doc's situation and emotions are so precarious that, for once, he allows Pat to horn in without an argument. This has the effect of scaring her somewhat, as well. Doc is in Lisbon at the request of the White House, where he will receive full instructions though he has a good idea what he's been saddled with. From the beginning, they are shadowed by a red-haired man. The four manage to collar this worthy, who gets the drop on them with Pat's old six-shooter. The red-head gets away, though Doc reclaims Pat's pistol.

At a secret meeting, Doc gets his assignment in a nice neat package from the head of combined Allied Intelligence and other officials. Germany nears collapse. Hitler (again, not mentioned by name) has fled Germany leaving a double in his place who is to be assassinated. The assassination will make Hitler a martyr, thus prolonging the war and possibly leading to the reemergence of Nazism twenty years hence. Doc has two days to locate Hitler and expose the plot to the German people. He has no clue to the Fuerher's whereabouts; only that he is in disguise and the Allies have a set of fingerprints that will definitely establish his identity.

While Doc is mapping his strategy, Monk, Ham, and Pat get mixed up with a man named Carter and his toughs who are after, of all things, Pat's shooting iron. Monk and Ham, in typical fashion are held captive, while Pat gets away. She meets a girl, Barni Cuadrado, who is working with her cousin, Hans Berkshire (the red-haired man) in trying to foil Hitler's plan.

Unbeknownst to Pat, Carter is working for Doc, trying to scare Pat into going home. The ploy succeeds, with Pat going home by clipper plane. But, unbeknownst to Doc, Carter is actually a Nazi agent who overtakes Pat and again demands the six shooter, which Doc secretly holds.

Meanwhile, Doc and Barni meet with Hans Berkshire, who decides to let Doc do the actual catching of Hitler for the purpose of authentication, rather than having his underground do it. Berkshire seems to know where Hitler might be; accordingly, they all fly to Switzerland.

There, in a great mansion, all the principals involved in the affair gather. In a tense and terrible standoff, Carter and some Nazis hold Barni, Pat, Monk, and Ham at gunpoint and demand that Doc turn over the six-shooter. At the time, Doc is standing holding the pistol on Adolph Hitler—Hans Berkshire in disguise!

It's a hellish moment, with strung-out Doc Savage screaming that he'll kill Hitler at the slightest provocation. As the tension mounts, it comes out that Hitler only passed himself off on Barni as her cousin. The scramble for the pistol stemmed from the time Hitler (as Berkshire) grabbed the weapon in Lisbon, leaving fingerprints on its handle.

Then, the Nazis throw down their guns and rush Doc and friends. The ensuing fracas sees Doc victorious and Hitler in Allied hands.

In this very difficult assignment, there is an interesting scene where Doc falls under the spell of Hitler briefly, as the disguised dictator attempts to sway Doc into working with him.

Although Strange Fish (Feb. 1945) takes place in America and is something that Doc happens to stumble across, it is similar to some respects of Jiu San. In New York, WAC Paris Stevens runs into trouble over something called a belonesox. The trouble leads to a ranch in Oklahoma crawling with Nazi agents. The belonesox, when uncovered, turns out to be an unusual fish, in whose tank is a roll of film. The film reveals the Allied-picked head of Germany's post-war government as an ex-Gestapo officer responsible for the execution of countless Nazi prisoners.

Cargo Unknown (April 1945) is another tense tale peripherally related to the war as Renny, Monk, and Ham are assigned to ride the Pilotfish, a sub from London to New York. The sub has a secret cargo in a sealed compartment, which triggers sabotage that sinks the sub. Renny escapes leaving Monk, Ham and crew trapped. Renny reaches Doc and together they wade through violence, frustrating setbacks, and terror as time runs out for the trapped men. Step by step, they are blocked by those who are after the U-boat spirited out of Germany so that it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.

The Screaming Man (Dec. 1945) takes place after the war's end. Doc and Company are in Manila, looking for Johnny Littlejohn who has been missing for the past six months. Doc does some poking around POW camps and becomes involved with a lady Economic Planning Representative, assorted heavies and a Dutchman, Van Zandt Basset with his friend, Jack Thomas.

The Thing That Pursued (Oct. 1945) takes place in America at the close of the war. It concerns a dangerous little man named Pansy Orchid Heather and glowing balls of light which dog aircraft for mysterious reasons. The tale attempted to explain the phenomenon popularly called Foo Fights, which bedeviled Allied pilots during the war. The bad guys are after the device which creates the fireball effect, unaware that the Nazi invention has little practical use.

When the lady, Annie Flinders, gets into difficulties and is spirited aboard a ship, Empress Margaret, because of her prying into Doc's presence in Manila, Doc boards the ship. The ship is ferrying Nazi and Japanese POWs to the States. For some reason, the prisoners begin to act strangely during the voyage; exhibiting signs of extreme fear without just cause.

As the journey wears on, and strange things continue to pop up, we learn that Johnny has been on the trail of a near-legendary genius called Jonas Sown, a man at whose doorstep is laid the blame for World War Two. The reason for this lies in a device which is supposed to control the minds of great masses of people. This device, it seems, is aboard and affecting the POWs. Further, Sown may be aboard, as might Johnny—a prisoner and the only man who might identify Sown. Johnny, for some reason, is being referred to as the Screaming Man.

As things get hotter, the prisoners become increasingly unstable. Doc finds Johnny a prisoner and together they move toward the final confrontation, where Basset—a Dutch againt—learns the secret of Jonas Sown and shoots the unmasked supervillain very dead. The mind-control device that supposedly created the psychological atmosphere that led to war in Europe is lost when Sown's henchmen cast it into the ocean.

With The Screaming Man, Doc's activities directly related to the war close. A few later stories have their roots in the war, however. Terror and the Lonely Widow is the inevitable lost atom bomb story. Death Is a Round Black Spot, concerns illegal Axis securities. Fire and Ice is about a gang that smuggles war criminals, for a price. Finally, The Exploding Lake deals with a fugitive Nazi scientist who's perfecting a device that turns lead into gold.

Doc emerges from the war no longer the superman that he was; nor is he quite the free agent of the thirties. He is now strongly identified with Washington and the State Department. As stated in Rock Sinister (May 1945) Doc has become an international figure, thrust into prominence as a result of his involvement in the affairs of the collapsing Axis nations. In fact, in this novel, Doc is framed by a South American dictator in order to put America's good neighbor policy in a bad light. As time passes though, this tie fades as Doc's activities center on detective work, and his industrial holdings, though he would still become involved with international intrigue (Danger Lies East and Terror Wears No Shoes, most notably). Curiously, while he's held in such esteem by the government, Doc is currently under suspicion from the police—a problem that always plagued him—but one which apparently reached a critical point in The Three Wild Men (Aug. 1942) because the difficulties he encountered therein were referred to in succeeding novels as the authorities only slowly and grudgingly reaccept him.

His critical missions all occur during the last stages of the war, by which time he has worked himself into a state of nervous expectation, very, very, anxious to participate in a significant way to the war effort. His aides are anxious too and are pressed into service on government projects and their loss is greatly felt, especially on the critical missions. During this compressed and hectic period, the bronze man is saddled with missions upon which depend the future of many governments.

Doc's feelings of being involved with overpowering events which threaten to swamp him into failure greatly undermine his effectiveness. Most of his handicaps during this period are psychological; his evident doubts and disgust with the superman concept as well as the fact that each mission is only one battle in a war that he cannot stop. In addition, Doc is no longer a free agent, as he was during the Thirties. He is acting with the ever-present threat of being shot as a spy hanging over him. Further, to his disgust, he is always being called in at the pen-ultimate moment and asked to straighten out what every-one called has either botched up or cannot handle.

The war years gradually stripped away Doc's self-control and effectiveness, making him a very tense and brittle man; at the war's end, he emerges a different person.

His state is best described in The Screaming Man, where Doc reflects that the war gives people all kinds of complexes (meaning himself) and, though the Army's iron-fisted methods rather jolted him, he remained very sensitive to it because they made him go through the war out of uniform. This is understandable at a time where it was both suspect and un-American for a healthy male not to be in the service. Later, seeing the bombed-out ruins of Manila, Doc gets an empty feeling again because he was kept out of the war.

Though Doc may have felt that he was left out of the action, his bronze hand managed to affect the end of the war drastically, as well as touch the fates of most of the governments, both Allied and Axis. Not to mention the fact that he became involved with most of the leaders of the period. (In the pre-war adventure, Peril in the North, (Dec. 1941) he becomes embroiled in a chase after a fugitive European dictator, Mungen, who seems to be Mussolini, adding yet another such figure to the list. Interestingly enough, this Mungen was supposed to have been killed and fed to a zoo alligator alive, by his subjects, echoing eerily Mussolini's true fate. Doc discovers Mungen alive still and pursues him and the dictator dies a second time.)

In the final analysis, Doc Savage, superman that he may well have been, was just another citizen caught up in the rush of events that was World War Two; a war that not only chewed up governments, ordinary people and boundaries, but also sounded the death knell of the superman concept. The racial superman symbolized by the Nazis and the scientific superman represented by Doc Savage both died in that holocaust that was Ragnarok, Gotterdammerung, the Twilight of the Gods and the Sunset of the Superman.