There is no "Doc Savage".Doc Savage is a fictional character originally published in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. He was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic at Street & Smith Publications, with additional material contributed by the series' main writer, Lester Dent. Written in the 30s and 40s, the canon consists of about 181 episodes; but there are many follow-ups. In many ways Doc Savage is the proto-type of the superhero - and a good man.

The 31st Doc Savage "novel" (originally published in Doc Savage Magazine's Dec. 1934 issue), this one finds only three of the "Fabulous Five" ("Monk" -- Lt. Col. Andrew Blodgett Mayfair; "Ham" -- Brig. Gen. Theodore Marley Brooks; and "Renny" -- Col. John Renwick; in absentia are Maj. Thomas J. Roberts, "Long Tom," and William Harper Littlejohn, "Johnny") assisting the Man of Bronze as he tries to unravel the spate of mysterious "pop-eyed" deaths (the victims' eyes bulge nearly out of their sockets) sweeping several and various unconnected individuals in New York City to their maker, as a loose criminal confederation led by a mysterious man with a pleasant voice named Boke and a hard-hitting cop, Inspector Clarence "Hardboiled" Humboldt -- who carries a leather sap up his sleeve and wears canvas sneakers on his feet to baby his aching corns -- both zero in on Doc, thinking that he's behind the deaths. Also on hand are Doc's beautiful (and, here at least, semi-capable and tough-minded) cousin Pat Savage, Monk's pet pig Habeus Corpus (who, like Doc and the rest of the Fabulous Five, understands the ancient Mayan tongue; don't ask...), and Doc's "crime college" in upstate NY, where he sends criminals for a bit of brain surgery and/or drug therapy to alter their "crime glands" so that they become honest citizens who are horrified at the thought of any illegal activity, even removing those mattress tags that say "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW."

Personalities are micrometers-thin and much of the comic by-play between Monk and Ham is not nearly as funny as it was intended to be, but the links between Doc and the early, interfering Superman are here highly visible (Doc's own Fortress of Solitude -- yes, it's actually called that -- is name-checked here, on p. 99 of the Bantam Books reprint) -- though Doc is decidedly less bloodthirsty than the original Simon & Siegel Man of Steel. The body-count is sky-high, there's a surprisingly grisly and sexually-charged torture scene that's only a little less shocking than the one in Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, the various plot lines are kept nicely a'boil, and the action scarcely lets up, even when the reader might appreciate a breather now and then. It all clocks in at less than 140 pages in the mass market Bantam Books paperback, whose cover appears to have been painted by Earl Norem.

Though there seems to be some doubt as to whether Lester Dent, the creator of Doc Savage, actually wrote The Annihilist ("Kenneth Robeson" was a house name for Street and Smith Publications, copyright holders of Doc Savage and The Shadow), it seems safe to say that this is one of the better-written Doc Savage stories out there. If you're in the mood for pulp/proto-superhero action, it's hard to beat The Annihilist. Just try not to have a stroke when a wife-beater is described as not having committed a "heinous crime" (p. 108). ( )