THE PURE EVIL (Doc Savage, 1948)
[The pulp cover featured a story OTHER than Doc's, how distressing for the star. This was during the DOC SAVAGE, SCIENCE DETECTIVE slack period. What the heck, here's a great Tony DeZuniga illustration from Marvel's 1970s black & white DOC SAVAGE magazine.]
From March/April 1948, this seems for most of its length to be a straight horror story where Doc and his team finally come up against the genuine supernatural. At only eighty pages, it gets off to a strong start and loses only a little momentum toward the end. Lester Dent's writing style seems a bit choppy here, with a lot of sentence fragments and one-word comments.
After World War II, the Man of Bronze seemed to retire from his life mission, taking a break and acting as a private investigator only when drawn into cases. By the time of this story, Doc is going back to his heroic ways. Receiving a desperate call from help from a young woman whose brother died under weird circumstances, he sets out immediately with Monk and Ham to settle things. At this time, he is flying his own jet and still a celebrity. He does some respectable detective work
involving clues left in a building's incinerator, and is composed and clear thinking in moments of stress but he's not quite up to his old standards.
A genuinely creepy beginning has a young radar technician seeing something so terrifying on the scope that he smashes it to wreckage. He then hides in a church in a state of terror, finally goes home and is found dead, seemingly having comitted suicide by hanging in a locked room --except his body is nowhere near anything he could been suspended from. A second similar death occurs, and the first man's sister, Gail Adams, borrows money to fly one way to see Doc (after trying to reach him by phone). There's an attempt on her life in mid-flight, and the assailant can't be found.
We meet a bizarre white-maned old demonologist named Villem Morand, who explains the events by relating how his research has found a way to release spirits of pure evil in the world. He calls these things 'penetralia mentis' and is soon devoured by one in a dark blue-black cloud of smoke (Purple Haze!) which Doc and Monk flee by jumping out of a window twenty feet up. Involved in the evil spirit phenomenon are a trio of wealthy businessmen who have taken up debunking ghosts as a hobby. They also turn to Doc for help, saying that here is something they can't explain.
It's worth noting here that Doc explains to Renny that they'll get some evidence from the suspects before turning them over to the police. So the Crime College has been shut down by this time, and it's interesting to speculate if Doc lost faith in its effectiveness or had second thoughts about its morality. Personally, I would like to think that the bronze man's experiences fighting totalitarianism in the war
left him with new respect for the value of free will. Has anyone read a story where the College is mentioned as being closed down? Or is it just quietly left behind, like the Fortress of Solitude?
One of the little irrelevant incidents which I enjoy most about Dent's stories takes place in the free-for-all at the end: "Renny, a little behind, struck
down Monk's opponent. Monk, disappointed, always violent in a fight, yelled 'Dammit! Pick your own!'"-- Even toward the end of their careers, these guys like
a fight for its own sake.
Renny shows up toward the very end, just long enough for the wrap-up. The infamous scene where he deliberately kills someone against Doc's orders is actually a bit ambiguous. In a brawl, one crook is getting away, covering his escape with a gun. Outside, his car starts up. Doc says, "Let him go, rather than get shot." Renny's often quoted retort is, "One left for seed? That won't do." He picks up a gun, goes to the door and shoots once. Doc says "We didn't want to kill anyone," to which Renny replies,"Didn't we?" After which the engineer goes out and the car engine is shut off.
So....you could interpret this as Renny going to the door and simply shooting the man in the car. This is murder, even though the thug was set to kill Renny and the others a few minutes earlier. Or to be more charitable, the gunman had fired a shot at Doc as he left and was ready for pursuit, so it's reasonable to think that he was aiming his gun at the door and Renny just nailed him first. The way it's written seems to be deliberately vague.
From March/April 1948, this seems for most of its length to be a straight horror story where Doc and his team finally come up against the genuine supernatural. At only eighty pages, it gets off to a strong start and loses only a little momentum toward the end. Lester Dent's writing style seems a bit choppy here, with a lot of sentence fragments and one-word comments.
After World War II, the Man of Bronze seemed to retire from his life mission, taking a break and acting as a private investigator only when drawn into cases. By the time of this story, Doc is going back to his heroic ways. Receiving a desperate call from help from a young woman whose brother died under weird circumstances, he sets out immediately with Monk and Ham to settle things. At this time, he is flying his own jet and still a celebrity. He does some respectable detective work
involving clues left in a building's incinerator, and is composed and clear thinking in moments of stress but he's not quite up to his old standards.
A genuinely creepy beginning has a young radar technician seeing something so terrifying on the scope that he smashes it to wreckage. He then hides in a church in a state of terror, finally goes home and is found dead, seemingly having comitted suicide by hanging in a locked room --except his body is nowhere near anything he could been suspended from. A second similar death occurs, and the first man's sister, Gail Adams, borrows money to fly one way to see Doc (after trying to reach him by phone). There's an attempt on her life in mid-flight, and the assailant can't be found.
We meet a bizarre white-maned old demonologist named Villem Morand, who explains the events by relating how his research has found a way to release spirits of pure evil in the world. He calls these things 'penetralia mentis' and is soon devoured by one in a dark blue-black cloud of smoke (Purple Haze!) which Doc and Monk flee by jumping out of a window twenty feet up. Involved in the evil spirit phenomenon are a trio of wealthy businessmen who have taken up debunking ghosts as a hobby. They also turn to Doc for help, saying that here is something they can't explain.
It's worth noting here that Doc explains to Renny that they'll get some evidence from the suspects before turning them over to the police. So the Crime College has been shut down by this time, and it's interesting to speculate if Doc lost faith in its effectiveness or had second thoughts about its morality. Personally, I would like to think that the bronze man's experiences fighting totalitarianism in the war
left him with new respect for the value of free will. Has anyone read a story where the College is mentioned as being closed down? Or is it just quietly left behind, like the Fortress of Solitude?
One of the little irrelevant incidents which I enjoy most about Dent's stories takes place in the free-for-all at the end: "Renny, a little behind, struck
down Monk's opponent. Monk, disappointed, always violent in a fight, yelled 'Dammit! Pick your own!'"-- Even toward the end of their careers, these guys like
a fight for its own sake.
Renny shows up toward the very end, just long enough for the wrap-up. The infamous scene where he deliberately kills someone against Doc's orders is actually a bit ambiguous. In a brawl, one crook is getting away, covering his escape with a gun. Outside, his car starts up. Doc says, "Let him go, rather than get shot." Renny's often quoted retort is, "One left for seed? That won't do." He picks up a gun, goes to the door and shoots once. Doc says "We didn't want to kill anyone," to which Renny replies,"Didn't we?" After which the engineer goes out and the car engine is shut off.
So....you could interpret this as Renny going to the door and simply shooting the man in the car. This is murder, even though the thug was set to kill Renny and the others a few minutes earlier. Or to be more charitable, the gunman had fired a shot at Doc as he left and was ready for pursuit, so it's reasonable to think that he was aiming his gun at the door and Renny just nailed him first. The way it's written seems to be deliberately vague.