Review of
Doc Savage The Discord Makers Part 3,
by Denny O’Neil, Rod Whigham and Steve Montano
Five out of five stars
The original action hero, aged, but still formidable
The great one Stan
Lee once said that Clark (Doc) Savage Jr. was the forerunner of all the superheroes.
Unlike most that have extraordinary powers, while Doc was powerful, incredibly knowledgeable
and adept at righting the wrongs of the world, he was human. His skills were
acquired and maintained by very hard work. The paperback books describing his
adventures often feature his daily regimen of activities designed to maintain
his skills.
In this comic,
Doc is a grandfather, flying in a helicopter over mountains with his grandson
Chip and a woman named Shoshanna and have an encounter with a mysterious flying
vessel. Chip falls out of the helicopter and instead of being a red spot in the
snow, he falls to a soft landing. Doc and Shoshanna follow him down and the
mysterious ship crashes. Puzzled by the structure of the mysterious ship, Doc
calls his old gang back into action, all but Long Tom answer the call.
Right before
the call, Monk is in a bar getting thoroughly soused and he has to be pulled
out by Ham. Monk is now a bald old man with doubts about the man that used to
be his hero, a godlike figure. Shoshanna has some form of mysterious powers and
she dreams that the ship was on the moon.
There is a
parallel thread taking place in Russia where there is an investigation of a
submarine disaster. It appears that a high level Russian officer deliberately
sabotaged the sub. At the end, those threads come together to create the ending
cliffhanger.
As someone that
has read most of the Doc Savage paperbacks, it was good to see the original
hero back in action. The best scenes are with Monk and Ham where they reassess
their roles in the original Doc Savage gang of crime fighters. Ham sums it all
up in putting Doc Savage where he belongs, as a human with the ability to
succeed and make mistakes. Very much a modern hero.
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