First, a friendly warning. Not so much a SPOILER as an ANTI-SPOILER, so you don`t get your hopes up, only to be let down.
The cover to the Bantam paperback is a dramatic scene (by Mort Kunstler, not James Bama). Doc Savage is down on one knee, being throttled by what sure looks like Lon Chaney Jr as the Wolf Man. Bare from the waist up and covered in short bristly brown fur, sporting pointed ears and a pug nose and two short fangs jutting up from the lower jaw, this brute is a dead ringer for the monster model then popular from Aurora toys. I am certain that thousands of monster-crazed young boys (myself included) snatched this book up and ran home with it in a feverish frenzy.
Well, sad to say, there is no werewolf in this story. Not even a crook in a rubber mask or a big German Shepherd covered with phosphorescent paint. Nope, just a gang of crooks who mark their attacks with a black smudge on the wall (made with a rubber stamp) of a wolf head with humanlike features. (Boo! Hiss! Hey mister, I want my forty-five cents back!)
But please forgive Bantam for the misleading cover, because after all it did introduce all those kids to the amazing world of Doc Savage, and many of them got hooked, started looking for more adventures of the Man of Bronze and even today they have a warm spot in their nostalgia for him. So it was all for the good.
From January 1934, BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF introduces Patricia Savage, Doc's lovely and rambunctious young cousin.
Pat will return as a regular many times in the series, adding a much needed spark of spontaneity and sass. She even gets to narrate an adventure in the first person, I DIED YESTERDAY (one of the best of the saga). Pat is almost always a delight, and we`ll examine her first appearance in some detail.
This book begins with our six adventurers taking a train north to Canada for a vacation of hunting and fishing, and to visit Doc`s uncle Alex (Pat's father). One of the things I enjoy most about the early stories is that we get a real feeling these guys are genuine lifelong friends, not a professional team of agents. Even the occasional banter here is gentle and affectionate (startlingly, Doc at one point joshes Monk, "Let's see how fast you are on those bow legs of yours!")
Not unexpectedly, the boys don`t even make it to their destination before they're caught up in all kinds of murder and mayhem on the train, including a mysterious gas or something that nearly kills them. These attacks are marked by a grotesque emblem left on a wall or door, the half-human wolf face... the Brand of the Werewolf (Dum dum DUMM!). And an assortment of possible suspects are introduced, so keep an eye on them for clues. There seem to be two different groups after whatever it is they're looking for, which complicate things.
Back on his sizeable estate in a remote part of Canada, Alex Savage has died under suspicious circumstances. (We never actually see him or Doc`s father onstage in these tales). Aided by her Indian servants, a big fat woman named Tiny and a shiftless little guy called Boat Face (ah, those Incorrect days), eighteen year old Patricia is frightened but determined to find why her father died and who has ransacked her cabin. She knows they`re after a small ivory cube, which for some reason is vitally important. (The secret of the cube, by the way, is one of the more clever details Lester Dent came up with.)
Well, there is a ton of action packed into the pages, many chases and escapes and seeming deaths. Doc`s team uses the beloved gadgets effectively, including the chalk that glows only under ultraviolet light, a boobytrap that releases the anesthetic gas and infrared aerial photography that reveals not only where the lost treasure is but also helpfully points out a bunch of hidden crooks with machine guns. Then there`s the trick of speaking Mayan so as not to be overheard, a description of the daily two hour exercises, villains deservedly getting caught in the death trap they had planned for others... all the little trademarks that gave this series its distinctive appeal.
The bronze man himself is at his peak, a bit more accessible and friendly, even dryly witty than he would later become with that emotionless facade. Doc shows firm leadership and strategy, and he displays a perfectly respectable deductive ability. He can decipher a dozen set of footprints to know who went where and when, he spots clues that solve the mystery and he can tell a cabin was searched twice because two different substances have dried at different rates. If he had turned out a puny weakling, Doc`s training still would have left him capable to challenging Ellery Queen in esoteric detective work.
On a physical level, our boy is like a ninja Hercules, appearing silently out of the shadows to seize burly crooks before they know what`s happening. In a classic example of Doc Savage at his best, he deals with a hemp rope stretched over a crevasse a hundred feet below. Hidden by mist from the nearby waterfall, the tightrope is wet and slick, none too taut. Doc blithely RUNS across this rope carrying a limp Pat, then goes back and does the same with the huge woman Tiny, as though it`s nothing. Sheesh. I don`t even like getting up on the roof to clear off a dead branch.
Patricia Savage is recognizably herself right from the start. Eighteen year old, her father just buried, stuck in the wilderness miles from nowhere, her reaction to being harassed by gangsters is to strap on her pistol and load the rifle, then go after them. When she first meets her famous cousin (they don`t know each other at all), they`re both being chased by gunmen through the woods. Doc orders her to run, and Pat says, "If you need any help ----", to which the bronze man barks, "Do what I say!" Their very first words to each other capture perfectly their relationship for the next fifteen years. "Pat gasped with faint indignation. The fact that her father was a fairly wealthy man had not exactly spoiled her, but she was not accustomed to being told what to do in such short fashion."
When she meets the five aides, they naturally are delighted at having this gorgeous teenager join the excitement. Considering the fact these guys fought in the Great War when she was an infant, hopefully it`s an avuncular sort of affection. ("Look at that bronze hair. Say, she might almost be Doc`'s sister!") And right from the start, Pat wants to join the fun with these (let`s face it) rather bizarre looking adventurers. ("She felt an agreeable tingling. Doc Savage had called her 'Pat.' This seemed to indicate that he had accepted her as one of the gang. Patricia was pleased.")
She does fit in right, too. Monk and Ham each tell her that they other one has a wife and thirteen half-wit children, so she knows what kind of shenanigans to expect from these guys. Here, Monk first uses ventriloquism to make Habeas seem to talk, making Pat laugh with delight as Ham fumes. It's just like someone's kid sister joining the gang at the beach.
All five aides are along for the entire party, always a plus. Monk gets the most to do, his specialty in chemistry being useful several times. Poor Long Tom gets two front teeth knocked out with a rock (he was distracted when a pretty girl made eyes at him). These guys take quite a beating over the years, it`s no wonder they all begin to cut back on the adventuring after a while. Broken arms and legs and ribs, gunshot and knife wounds, drowning, being beaten senseless, suffering the effects of the Green Death and the Blue Meteor and various poisons.... it`s not all jolly good times.
As a Doc novel, BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF doesn't have a superscientific threat that menaces the entire world, nor any scenes in the 86th floor headquarters. Instead, it's a treasure hunt story, with pirates threatening innocent people to get the clue to the hidden loot. It works just fine; the book zips along nicely, with enough twists and surprises to keep those pages turning, some fine scenery descriptions from Lester Dent, and memorable characters. 1934 was a good vintage for pulp adventure.