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Doc Savage: Double Features #17, 75
The Thousand-Headed Man / The Gold Ogre
Pulp fiction's legendary Man of Bronze returns in two of his most engrossing adventures. Doc Savage travels to Indo-China to battle the evil Sen-Gat and a fanatical cult that worships "The Thousand-Headed Man." Then, Doc, Monk, and Ham team up with four exceptional teenagers to combat tiny rampaging cavemen in "The Gold Ogre." This issue showcases one of Walter Baumhofer's greatest pulp covers, and reprints all the classic interior illustrations by Paul Orban. Pulp historian Will Murray provides commentary and recalls his scripting duties on National Public Radio's "Doc Savage" radio series.
- GenresPulp
128 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2008
About the author
Kenneth Robeson
923 books135 followersKenneth Robeson was the house name used by Street and Smith Publications as the author of their popular character Doc Savage and later The Avenger. Though most Doc Savage stories were written by the author Lester Dent, there were many others who contributed to the series, including:
William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson
Lester Dent is usually considered to be the creator of Doc Savage. In the 1990s Philip José Farmer wrote a new Doc Savage adventure, but it was published under his own name and not by Robeson. Will Murray has since taken up the pseudonym and continued writing Doc Savage books as Robeson.
All 24 of the original stories featuring The Avenger were written by Paul Ernst, using the Robeson house name. In order to encourage sales Kenneth Robeson was credited on the cover of The Avenger magazine as "the creator of Doc Savage" even though Lester Dent had nothing to do with The Avenger series. In the 1970s, when the series was extended with 12 additional novels, Ron Goulart was hired to become Robeson.
William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson
Lester Dent is usually considered to be the creator of Doc Savage. In the 1990s Philip José Farmer wrote a new Doc Savage adventure, but it was published under his own name and not by Robeson. Will Murray has since taken up the pseudonym and continued writing Doc Savage books as Robeson.
All 24 of the original stories featuring The Avenger were written by Paul Ernst, using the Robeson house name. In order to encourage sales Kenneth Robeson was credited on the cover of The Avenger magazine as "the creator of Doc Savage" even though Lester Dent had nothing to do with The Avenger series. In the 1970s, when the series was extended with 12 additional novels, Ron Goulart was hired to become Robeson.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 26, 2025
This reprint contains two different stories, and boy are they different! It includes one of the best and perhaps one of the worst Doc Savage tales.
The Thousand Headed Man
This is widely considered one of the best Doc Savage novels, and I have to say that reputation is richly deserved. I have been looking forward to it as I made my way through my collection of Doc stories, and this one did not disappoint. It is a deeply tense and atmospheric yarn, with an excellent plot, an intriguing central mystery, and an action-packed conclusion stuffed with desperate derring-do. It's clear that Lester Dent was having an absolute blast with this story, and that he had done some research which he was eager to show off. While the tale begins in a very foggy London, full of all of the British-isms one would expect from a pulp yarn of this vintage, the plot eventually takes us to the East, where we follow Doc and his team as they plumb the mysteries of a dense and inhospitable jungle.
This memorable setting is packed with crocodiles and brightly-colored jungle birds which Dent never tires of describing in striking style. I imagine he must have gotten a hold of a guidebook for the region and made the most of every last scrap of information within its pages, as the chapters of his own story are bursting with native terms for the flora and fauna of this exotic location. The end result is that Dent brings this remote and impenetrable corner of Indo-China to life in an unforgettable and exciting way. The color and richness of the setting become even more pronounced as our protagonists approach the mysterious lost city of the Thousand Headed Man, and the threat of this enigmatic figure proves to be a macabre and memorable one.
The first antagonist of the piece is San Gat, an unusual character, with the dark skin of an African but a cultural background from Indo-China, who is after the same mysterious goal as Doc and his crew. Dent brings Gat to life as a colorful figure, and although he isn’t necessarily the best of Doc’s antagonists, he’s certainly a memorable one. Through his machinations, Doc and his friends find themselves fugitives, having to evade the efficient and capable bobbies of Scotland Yard. It’s an unusual situation for our heroes to have to evade the authorities, and it adds an interesting flavor to thi stale. The goal everyone is pursuing is all wrapped up with three mysterious black “keys” to a hidden city in Indo-China, three sticks of a strange, inky substance.
One of my only complaints about this story is one of my perennial complaints about the series, which is that I would have liked to see the aides get more to do. They end up spending a large proportion of the tale as prisoners in one form or another, and my favorite stories are the ones where the whole crew gets in on the action in interesting ways. However, Monk gets a great moment, where his cleverness saves the crew.
The whole tale is very well paced, with a wonderful mix of macabre mystery and break-neck action that is among the best of the genre. The reveals at the end as Doc and his team solve the various mysteries they are confronted with are mostly satisfying and interesting, though there is one exception (a plan is suddenly and mysteriously destroyed by what looks like magic, and the explanation is a little too prosaic to be believed in context).
All-in-all, this is an excellent Doc adventure and one of the best classic pulp stories I’ve read.
5/5
-----------------------------------------
The Gold Ogre
This yarn is infamous for not really being about Doc and his aides. Instead, it's really a backdoor pilot for a kid-gang version of the team, something of Doc Savage meets The Hardy Boys, as several others have noted. The tale features a child-sized group of tropes, Don Worth, B. Elmer Dexter, Mental Byron, and Funny Tucker, who are meant to fill out the usual types of the "Four-Man-Band." You've got the young leader and straight man, the brain, the comedy relief, and so-on. The premise is really not a bad one, and a junior-g-man version of Doc Savage and his team could have been a fun creation. However, the kids are fairly forgettable (I am having a hard time telling them apart even as I write this), and the rather uninspiring adventure they're involved in is notably more juvenile in style than the average Doc Savage offering.
The plot involves the kids, all Boy Scouts, returning to their hometown to investigate the disappearance of their leader's father. In so doing, they discover a strange plot involving the titular golden ogres, miniature menaces who are involved in sinister machinations involving a strange poison that drives men mad. Doc and his aides are very much supporting players in this tale, with the kids taking center stage. I found the adventure less than gripping and the new characters rather more grating than memorable. Of course, reading this novel in my 40s, I'm not the target audience.
2.5/5
The Thousand Headed Man
This is widely considered one of the best Doc Savage novels, and I have to say that reputation is richly deserved. I have been looking forward to it as I made my way through my collection of Doc stories, and this one did not disappoint. It is a deeply tense and atmospheric yarn, with an excellent plot, an intriguing central mystery, and an action-packed conclusion stuffed with desperate derring-do. It's clear that Lester Dent was having an absolute blast with this story, and that he had done some research which he was eager to show off. While the tale begins in a very foggy London, full of all of the British-isms one would expect from a pulp yarn of this vintage, the plot eventually takes us to the East, where we follow Doc and his team as they plumb the mysteries of a dense and inhospitable jungle.
This memorable setting is packed with crocodiles and brightly-colored jungle birds which Dent never tires of describing in striking style. I imagine he must have gotten a hold of a guidebook for the region and made the most of every last scrap of information within its pages, as the chapters of his own story are bursting with native terms for the flora and fauna of this exotic location. The end result is that Dent brings this remote and impenetrable corner of Indo-China to life in an unforgettable and exciting way. The color and richness of the setting become even more pronounced as our protagonists approach the mysterious lost city of the Thousand Headed Man, and the threat of this enigmatic figure proves to be a macabre and memorable one.
The first antagonist of the piece is San Gat, an unusual character, with the dark skin of an African but a cultural background from Indo-China, who is after the same mysterious goal as Doc and his crew. Dent brings Gat to life as a colorful figure, and although he isn’t necessarily the best of Doc’s antagonists, he’s certainly a memorable one. Through his machinations, Doc and his friends find themselves fugitives, having to evade the efficient and capable bobbies of Scotland Yard. It’s an unusual situation for our heroes to have to evade the authorities, and it adds an interesting flavor to thi stale. The goal everyone is pursuing is all wrapped up with three mysterious black “keys” to a hidden city in Indo-China, three sticks of a strange, inky substance.
One of my only complaints about this story is one of my perennial complaints about the series, which is that I would have liked to see the aides get more to do. They end up spending a large proportion of the tale as prisoners in one form or another, and my favorite stories are the ones where the whole crew gets in on the action in interesting ways. However, Monk gets a great moment, where his cleverness saves the crew.
The whole tale is very well paced, with a wonderful mix of macabre mystery and break-neck action that is among the best of the genre. The reveals at the end as Doc and his team solve the various mysteries they are confronted with are mostly satisfying and interesting, though there is one exception (a plan is suddenly and mysteriously destroyed by what looks like magic, and the explanation is a little too prosaic to be believed in context).
All-in-all, this is an excellent Doc adventure and one of the best classic pulp stories I’ve read.
5/5
-----------------------------------------
The Gold Ogre
This yarn is infamous for not really being about Doc and his aides. Instead, it's really a backdoor pilot for a kid-gang version of the team, something of Doc Savage meets The Hardy Boys, as several others have noted. The tale features a child-sized group of tropes, Don Worth, B. Elmer Dexter, Mental Byron, and Funny Tucker, who are meant to fill out the usual types of the "Four-Man-Band." You've got the young leader and straight man, the brain, the comedy relief, and so-on. The premise is really not a bad one, and a junior-g-man version of Doc Savage and his team could have been a fun creation. However, the kids are fairly forgettable (I am having a hard time telling them apart even as I write this), and the rather uninspiring adventure they're involved in is notably more juvenile in style than the average Doc Savage offering.
The plot involves the kids, all Boy Scouts, returning to their hometown to investigate the disappearance of their leader's father. In so doing, they discover a strange plot involving the titular golden ogres, miniature menaces who are involved in sinister machinations involving a strange poison that drives men mad. Doc and his aides are very much supporting players in this tale, with the kids taking center stage. I found the adventure less than gripping and the new characters rather more grating than memorable. Of course, reading this novel in my 40s, I'm not the target audience.
2.5/5
September 29, 2022
Pulp at its best
June 2, 2018
Finally finished both halves of this Sanctum reprint. It was a harder go than I anticipated.
The Gold Ogre was difficult primarily because this was the pulp equivalent of television's backdoor pilot, so the story is mostly an adventure focused on four boys lead by one named Don Worth. Doc makes a minimal appearance, though he's needed to solve the mystery at the end, and his aides Monk and Ham only appear in the last few chapters, barely bicker, and the only impact they have (besides getting captured) is for Monk to upset Doc's plans and prompt a brawl in the ogre lair.
Great cover, though. One of Walter M. Baumhofer's better paintings.
The Gold Ogre was difficult primarily because this was the pulp equivalent of television's backdoor pilot, so the story is mostly an adventure focused on four boys lead by one named Don Worth. Doc makes a minimal appearance, though he's needed to solve the mystery at the end, and his aides Monk and Ham only appear in the last few chapters, barely bicker, and the only impact they have (besides getting captured) is for Monk to upset Doc's plans and prompt a brawl in the ogre lair.
Great cover, though. One of Walter M. Baumhofer's better paintings.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews