Much to my surprise, while reading through my various Shadow-related comics, I stumbled across one issue of The Shadow and Doc Savage (cover by Dave Stewart, all rights to current holder) from Dark Horse, which subsequently did Curse of the Fire God. Happily although this is by the same author, Steve Vance, as Fire God, (with art from Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher) it’s a better yarn. The story opens with the “Shrieking Skeletons” attacking a scientist’s lab, after which his daughter flees to Doc for help. There are also newspaper stories about mysterious monster men attacking cities which made me think of The Monsters. Doc starts to investigate; Ham & Monk have a run-in with some of the monster men; and the Shadow probing a Nazi plot accidentally leads to the destruction of the Hindenburg (for anyone who doesn’t know this was a real-life tragedy, a dirigible that blew up over New York with everyone aboard dying. It’s sometimes credited with killing off lighter-than-air as an alternative to airplanes).
And that’s about all we have time for in this issue. Admittedly it’s only Part One, but I suspect that one more issue won’t be enough to really let two such larger-than-life characters to show their stuff (when DC did a crossover a few years earlier, during the Mike Barr Doc Savage run it took four issues). It’s not as good as DC’s turn, but it was entertaining and fast-moving.
Knowing my finances during this period (1995), I suspect it was more lack of cash than any reservations about quality that led me to skip Part Two. I’m rather sorry now that I can’t review both parts (but not so sorry I want to hunt the other issue down on eBay).
I was going to add that this would be my last post in this series for the foreseeable future, but I’ve found scans of some comics prior to Marvel’s Bronze Age book so I’ll have more entries as soon as I read them.
